Latest / Best of Business / Mel Turner: Screen NZ International executive chair on the new organisation designed to boost NZ screen industry

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Mel Turner: Screen NZ International executive chair on the new organisation designed to boost NZ screen industry · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Okay. A new organization launched on Friday to advocate for
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand screen industry on a global stage. Screen new
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  Speaker 2: Zealand International has been formed by leading screen businesses and
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  Speaker 2: industry professionals, aimed to make New Zealand a competitive screen
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  Speaker 2: destination of choice. Executive Chair of Screen new Zealand International
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  Speaker 2: is Maltourner and she joins me now, good morning, Mal.
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  Speaker 3: Good morning, How are you good?
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  Speaker 2: Thank you tell me why have you set up this
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  Speaker 2: new organization.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it's just something that really came out of a
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  Speaker 3: noticeable need. We've sort of set it up with screen
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  Speaker 3: businesses in particular in mind and particularly the international sector.
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  Speaker 3: We've got industry professionals as well, and we're looking at
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  Speaker 3: focusing on the long term interest and ensuring New Zealand
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  Speaker 3: is globally competitive for a fierce global market out there
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  Speaker 3: for international productions, you know, coming into New Zealand. So
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  Speaker 3: we want to focus on the industry becoming more sustainable
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  Speaker 3: and future focused and certainly New Zealand becoming a screen
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  Speaker 3: destination of choice.
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  Speaker 2: How does this differ from the likes of organizations like
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  Speaker 2: SPADA or local government organizations that promote New Zealand as
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  Speaker 2: a destination a filming destination.
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  Speaker 3: I think more of at the moment, we're focused on
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  Speaker 3: sort of I suppose, firstly more internally and speaking, I
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  Speaker 3: suppose more to represent the voices of the businesses that
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  Speaker 3: work in the industry, which, of course, you know, they
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  Speaker 3: all have to have very big shoulders to shoulder, you know,
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  Speaker 3: the changes within, you know, the landscape of when when
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  Speaker 3: we're not working. So the guilds certainly all have their
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  Speaker 3: own place and they you know, have a very important
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  Speaker 3: role to represent all of their members. We're actually focusing
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  Speaker 3: on looking at slightly different members, which is really the
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  Speaker 3: screen businesses who are investing themselves, you know, in their
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  Speaker 3: in their business. But they are quite reliant because they've
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  Speaker 3: maybe built themselves quite specifically around you know, screen production.
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  Speaker 3: So we're really looking to support screen businesses and then
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  Speaker 3: also those leading professionals within the industry which also are
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  Speaker 3: focused on that international sector and international investment to bring
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  Speaker 3: productions into New Zealand and get our international sectorm moving,
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  Speaker 3: which a little quiet you know, throughout this twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 3: we've there's been a reasonable amount of struggles, so we're
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  Speaker 3: just looking to sort of put the lesser known's story
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  Speaker 3: out there.
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  Speaker 2: Really, it's often either all on isn't it melt and
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  Speaker 2: we're shooting things all over the place, or.
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  Speaker 3: It's a big market out there. It's a large, you know,
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  Speaker 3: global chain sort of environment as well.
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  Speaker 2: So what is New Zealand's potential when it comes to
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  Speaker 2: the international screen industry. Are we meeting it or is
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  Speaker 2: there more we can do?
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  Speaker 3: I think that there's look, the potential. New Zealand has
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  Speaker 3: producers and studios that like to come to New Zealand
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  Speaker 3: to to produce their content. I mean, they love working
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  Speaker 3: in New Zealand. So we actually have a huge reputation
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  Speaker 3: on the world stage. And so there's you know, obviously
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  Speaker 3: many many people that have come before today that have
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  Speaker 3: shown that what we really have is the potential to
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  Speaker 3: be a lot busier and a lot more stable. Excuse me.
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  Speaker 3: So you know, focus for us, I think is really
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  Speaker 3: just to the potential of us having a consistent and
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  Speaker 3: constant and stable and regular working industry so that we
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  Speaker 3: can that stabilization will actually you know, support the New
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  Speaker 3: Zealand and economy of course, because we know that, you know,
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  Speaker 3: we're an investment comes in that gets spread around nationwide
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  Speaker 3: to many businesses and many people and certainly a lot
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  Speaker 3: of wages.
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  Speaker 2: How do we get more productions down here? You know,
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  Speaker 2: we're watching Hollywood very closely. They have been struggling for
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  Speaker 2: a while. Do you think that they might make moves
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  Speaker 2: that helps keep productions in California, you know, which that
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  Speaker 2: of course could potentially impact New Zealand.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of things that you know,
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  Speaker 3: are going on in the global environment, and we certainly
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  Speaker 3: are keeping a close eye on it. But at this stage,
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  Speaker 3: you know, it's quite hard to tell how much that
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  Speaker 3: may affect us. But I do know that international studios
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  Speaker 3: and streamers worldwide look to many many countries to create
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  Speaker 3: their product and so that is in New Zealand, it's
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  Speaker 3: just one of those countries. And so we do need
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  Speaker 3: to compete on a global level, and we do need
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  Speaker 3: to be competitive, which moment we're not particularly competitive, so
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  Speaker 3: we're not really being looked at, you know, where we
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  Speaker 3: could be and where we have before. And so I
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  Speaker 3: think that ultimately some of these other pressures that are
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  Speaker 3: going on are definitely HEADWIMS, but I don't think that
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  Speaker 3: ultimately we're going to be seeing international productions suddenly shrink.
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  Speaker 3: Just back to the US because you know what's going
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  Speaker 3: on on there to to try and get some of
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  Speaker 3: the incentives within California, for example, working because there's a
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  Speaker 3: lot of content needs to be made for the world.
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  Speaker 2: Well, really good to talk to you, best of luck.
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  Speaker 2: Great to see the industry kind of doing something about it,
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  Speaker 2: So looking forward to seeing what happens there. That was
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  Speaker 2: Mel Turner, who was executive chair of Screen New Zealand International.
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