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The Big Show with the team behind Black Sheeps! · The Hauraki Big Show

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Boy, what a special treat.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: I believe it was 2006 that a movie hit our screens.
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: And I guess you'd say the genre was horror slash
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: black comedy featuring one of our greatest animals, the New
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Zealand sheep.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: It was called Black Sheep.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: And the director of that movie, Jonathan King, is with
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: us now.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: G'day, Jonathan. How's life? Very good. Thank you. Excellent.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: In fact, because, yeah.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: You're about to do another.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: We have a sequel to that film, yeah. I was
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: actually just reading the notes today.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: And I know I get accused by the fellas of
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: not reading my notes, but I believe that film grossed
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: like five or six million in the US, did it not?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Probably in total around the world it did. Oh, okay.
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: So just quickly on the notes, Jason, it was called
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: Black Sheeps.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: The new one? No, the old one was Black Sheep.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Black Sheep. Come on, man. Pull yourself together, Keezy.
• 1:01
  Speaker 5: Eyes embarrass themselves.
• 1:02
  Speaker 6: I understand my wife hates the idea that they pluralise
• 1:05
  Speaker 6: the word that shouldn't be.
• 1:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: That's Nathan Meister, by the way, actor.
• 1:09
  Speaker 5: Star of the film, Black Sheep.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Black Sheep.
• 1:12
  Speaker 5: There we go.
• 1:12
  Speaker 6: No, Black Sheep. Oh, come on.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, come on, man.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: It's not that hard.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: So can I ask you, Jonathan, because we'll get into
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: the sequel shortly. Talk us through the first original film.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: What was the thinking there? Obviously, you had this idea
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: and you went, I reckon this can work.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it was my first feature film and
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I'd been writing scripts for a while and I had
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: this very stupid idea, this very goofy idea. And I
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: think it was like New Year's Day one day and
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I'm going to sit down, I'm going to write that.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I'm actually going to write that silly, cheap idea.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: And it moved quite quickly from there. And so... Other
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: people had had, you know, sheep had featured in other
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: New Zealand things, but no one went as hard on
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: the bit as that film did.
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: Well, the main one that I remember would be, of course,
• 2:02
  Speaker 5: Bad Taste. Yeah, and there's a sheep moment. There is
• 2:05
  Speaker 5: a sheep moment. I don't remember a lot from that film.
• 2:08
  Speaker 5: I only watched it the one time when I was
• 2:09
  Speaker 5: probably 10 or something. And somebody firing a rocket launcher
• 2:14
  Speaker 5: at an alien who steps out of the way, the
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: rocket goes through the house out the back and explodes
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: a sheep. It's good quality stuff.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: And Nathan, you were obviously the star of that first movie.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: When you sort of got an idea of the script,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: what were your thoughts?
• 2:32
  Speaker 6: Well, when you go to an audition, sometimes you only
• 2:34
  Speaker 6: get the barest and minimum idea.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Yes, a little segment of it.
• 2:38
  Speaker 6: So for that film, I got the sequence where the
• 2:42
  Speaker 6: character experience, played by Danielle Mason, was trying to lure
• 2:46
  Speaker 6: me out, telling me that I was a kauri tree.
• 2:50
  Speaker 6: And I remember thinking, what on earth is this film about?
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:55
  Speaker 6: And then slowly things got revealed over time. And I
• 2:59
  Speaker 6: think I turned up not quite knowing what film we
• 3:02
  Speaker 6: were going to do, which is the difference with this one.
• 3:04
  Speaker 6: Everyone kind of has the goodwill of the first film,
• 3:07
  Speaker 6: knowing what we're making for the second.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: We've got director Jonathan King and actor Nathan Meister here.
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: Black Sheep came out in 2006. Black Sheeps is about
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: to come out next month, which is a sequel. At
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: the moment, there are a lot of sequels to classic movies.
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: Where did the idea stem from to bring this sucker
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: back after two decades?
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Well, it's trivia. This is only about the third New
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Zealand film to ever have a sequel, in fact.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow. Okay.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Sione's Wedding and Once Were Warriors are the only New
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Zealand films to have a sequel.
• 3:36
  Speaker 6: Oh, my goodness.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Isn't that weird?
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: And actually, that got panned, didn't it?
• 3:39
  Speaker 6: What was that?
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: What Became of.
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: The Broken Hearted. Yeah, it did. Is this going to
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: be better or worse than What Became of the Broken Hearted?
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I can promise you that it's better than What Became
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: of the Broken Hearted. Yeah. So, look, I'd always fantasized
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: about it, as you do when you're a filmmaker.
• 3:55
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: But.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Funnily enough, quite recently, it was probably three and a
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: half years ago, I suddenly got this flurry of people,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: producers saying, are you going to make a sequel to
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Black Sheep? And I was like, oh, maybe I will.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: And then one of these producers, an English producer, emailed
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: me again. He's like, no, really? Why are you not
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: making a sequel to Black Sheep? Right. And so I
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, cool. And so I... worked on a
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: script with Matthew Granger, who I've worked with for a
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: long time, and Rosie Howells, who's a Wellington writer, who's
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: written much of What We Do in the Shadows.
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Wellington Paranormal, sorry. And we had this fantastic script, and
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: it moved really quickly from there, really.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Oh, g'day, Matt.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, hi, Mose, yeah.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Look, if you want the chance to win all our
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: on-air competitions and stuff and get amongst the live conversation,
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: tune in to the Hauraki Big Show, four to seven
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: weekdays on Radio Hauraki and iHeartRadio.
• 4:55
  Speaker 7: The Hauraki Beat Show with Jase, Mike and Keezy. Tune
• 4:58
  Speaker 7: in weekdays at 4 on Radio Hauraki.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: We've got director Jonathan King and actor Nathan Meister, who
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: were the director and stars of the first movie, Black Sheep.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Now, there's a sequel being made.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: And Nathan, you were mentioning with that first movie, you know,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: you weren't quite sure what you were kind of dealing with.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: And I imagine, Jonathan, as a director for the first time,
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: you know, with a feature film, you're going, oh, I'm not...
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: quite sure what's going on here so it does it
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: help having had that experience now and going okay i've
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: got a pretty fair idea of what's ahead of.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Me yeah so tone was a really big thing for
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: the first film and i had an idea it was
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: going to work um and there's probably a point you
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: know there's uh any all filmmakers know you watch the
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: first assembly and it's like Oh, my God.
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: A disaster.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: Absolutely a disaster. What was I thinking? It's never going
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: to work. No one can ever see this.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: But incredibly, it did work still. And it was very
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: well received internationally and nationally. And it's kind of its
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: life has surprised me and everyone, I think. And there's
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: always a new generation of young people who see it
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and discover it and really love it.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: For those listening right now, because when Black Sheep came
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: out originally in 2006, I was 15. And I was
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: an idiot, so I don't remember anything outside of Dragon
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: Ball Z from when I was 15, right? But I
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: remember seeing it in Video Easy and posters of it,
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: and I vividly remember the artwork and stuff like that.
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: So for people listening right now who might remember Black Sheep,
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: what's the sort of through line of the story and
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: how the second one is.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Going to then pick up off the back of it? Yeah,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: so in the story of the first one, there's kind
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: of genetic experiments going on in the farm to breed
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: the super, the perfect sheep, the ultimate sheep. It's already hilarious.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Oliver Driver plays a green activist who tries to steal
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: a sample of it and then it breaks the container
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: and it gets out and this little creature is alive.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: And then he's bitten and everybody who's bitten, it's kind
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: of zombie rules, everyone who's bitten, then they become a
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: sheep or a were-sheep. And then if the were-sheep bites someone,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: then they're infected as well, and chaos ensues. The sheep
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: themselves become kind of bloodthirsty predators as well.
• 7:16
  Speaker 5: So where does this new film pick up from?
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: So the new film is 20 years later, which I'm
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: really pleased with. So am I.
• 7:22
  Speaker 6: Otherwise, I wouldn't have got a role.
• 7:24
  Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: You didn't have to audition again, did you, Nathan?
• 7:28
  Speaker 6: Well, I had to go through the ringer.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Right, okay.
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: Not at all.
• 7:31
  Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: But so we've got a new young protagonist, in fact.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: So Nathan still lives on the farm that he used
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: to live on, and he's hidden away behind barbed wire and–
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: And trying to keep everyone out. And so it's contained
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: within this one farm. And no one believes it's true. Now,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: everyone thinks it's all bullshit. It's like a myth or
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: a legend. Yeah, right. But people who were cured at
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: the very end of the last one, it's starting to
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: wear off. So people are getting kind of bullied. And
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: it's kind of rearing its head again. And so our hero,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: a young protagonist, is a character called Oates, who's a
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: young scientist. And she's the only one that believes it's true.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: So she heads back to her hometown... by the farm
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and she's trying to find out what's going on. But meanwhile,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: there's this sort of cult of her parents and people
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: in the town are kind of wrapped up in this
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: kind of sheep, sheepy worshipping cult. Right, okay.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: It sounds like a really long episode of Wellington Paranormal.
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: Where it got its inspiration from, no doubt. Wellington Paranormal,
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: I mean.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Well, it's, you know, we're drawing from the same well.
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: It's funny, isn't it? There's quite a lot of it
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: in New Zealand, given the size of the country, how
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: much sort of comedy is pulled from that horror world.
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: And it's going bloody great, guys. Yeah, yeah.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Well, so as I, you know, one of our writers
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: was Rosie Howells, who's a Wellington Paranormal writer. She wrote
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: a very good episode called It's Wicked Man. Oh, yeah.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Drawing on the Wicker Man. And we've got a bit
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: of Wicker Man folk horror kind of stuff in ours, too. Great. Yeah,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: playing with lots of those same things that we love.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: But what was awesome for me was I got to
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: play with a world and a kind of mythology, monster
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: mythology that I'd invented. And so I could draw from
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: it as much as I wanted. And so we've kind
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: of gone further. Further and muckier and weirder with the elements.
• 9:24
  Speaker 6: I don't think you could go further in this new film.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: So, Jonathan, when is it released?
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: So there are sneak peeks this Halloween weekend.
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: Oh, great.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, good.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: In the main centres. We would love people to go
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: to that, which sends the message to the distributors and
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: things that people are interested in it. And then it
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: opens nationwide November the 12th, and it will be everywhere
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: November the 12th. That's right.
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: Cinemas across Aotearoa New Zealand, November 12th. If you would
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: like a double pass to go and see this film,
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: we've actually been given a few to give away. So
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: if people remember Black Sheep from back in 2006, want
• 9:57
  Speaker 4: to go and see the sequel Black Sheeps, which comes
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: out soon, give us a text on 3483 right now
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: just tell us who you'd like to take with you
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: and yeah we'll dish out a few double passes fellas.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Bloody yeah jonathan king nathan mises thanks so much for
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: coming in fellas.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Good luck with the movie thank you thanks for having
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: us pleasure.
• 10:14
  Speaker 7: The Hodaki Big Show with Jace, Mike and Keezy. Tune
• 10:17
  Speaker 7: in weekdays at 4 on Radio Hodaki.