Creative Cracker
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In 2010 we heard from creative makers, managers, movers and shakers – including some lively conversations when The Big Idea community asked the questions.
Here's a ‘Creative Cracker’ full of inspiring quotes and insights, like this one from Filmmaker Tanu Gago - “It’s totally within your ability to repeat 2010 during 2011. Don’t do it. Bring yourself a new day.”
We look forward to bringing you more interviews next year, and giving you more opportunities to ask the questions.
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During what hours of the day do you feel most inspired?
Producer Ainsley Gardiner
Between 10 and 12, after surviving the morning madness and drinking that first coffee and taking a minute, it just feels like anything’s possible, and on my way to sleep when the day is done and all the analyzing and revisiting is finished and I know that amazing stuff is going to happen in my dreams, it feels like anything is possible.
Filmmaker Michael Bennett
Very early morning. I love running as the sun comes up, I love working as the sun comes up. At that hour you own the world. It's you and the birds. Unless you're running down K Road, then it's you and the winos and the street sweepers and the trannies. Which can be even more inspirng.
How would a good friend describe your aesthetic or style?
CHART - Jeff Fulton
A curious clash of street style meets the Canterbury hill country!
Fashion Designer Jimmy D
Oversized layers of drippy black garments, with a darkly intellectual sensibility… At least that’s how I hope they describe my aesthetic…
What aspect of your creative practice gives you the biggest thrill?
Tauranga Jazz Festival Artistic Director Liam Ryan
Like most creative arts practitioners I have a portfolio of projects I am involved in at any one time ranging from composing at the piano to running events. The one consistent factor in all of those domains is people. The relationships which I make and enjoy in the process of creating and disseminating art are the most valuable payoff for me. They lead to great conversations and occasionally to great collaborations as I go further into my work.
Filmmaker Michael Bennett
Finding the idea that lays its spores inside you. For me it's like John Hurt in Alien. A seed gets planted, it gestates deep down inside doing whatever it's doing - growing, getting stronger. Sharpening its fangs. Then when the time is right it bursts out of your abdominal cavity in a chaos of energy and noise and chattering teeth.
How does your environment affect your work?
Production Designer Robin Rawstorne
Hugely I now realize, as I stare out from my studio over the bush clad hills of Titirangi, it sure beats a concrete studio in darkest Hackney.
WOMAD NZ Programme Director Emere Wano
I need a vibrant, happy environment to work in as it does have an effect on your work and creative juices.
Do you like to look at the big picture or focus on the details?
Dunedin Fringe Festival Director Paul Smith
I do both at times, sometimes losing myself in either. I do have a vision for how I want the Festival to be, and we’re getting closer – it takes years! I’m learning not to get too bogged down in the detail and to delegate (when I have the staff to delegate to).
Production Designer Robin Rawstorne
I love the big picture, the wilder the better, plucking the ideas from the ether as it were. I also greatly enjoy the process of working with different disciplines on the details.
What's your number one business tip for surviving (and thriving) in the creative industries?
Splore Director Amanda Wright
Believe in your vision; always have a contingency and network, network, network!
Filmmaker Gaylene Preston
Paddle your own canoe and don’t join anyone else’s Titanic.
Artistic Director David Malacari
For me a reasonable reserve of patience and a pathological avoidance of panic.
Which of your projects to date has given you the most satisfaction?
FINK Designer Robert Foster
The most satisfaction have been the ideas that I have generated whilst fighting to keep a balance between one off hand practice and machine mass production.
Who or what has inspired you recently?
Tauranga Jazz Festival Artistic Director Liam Ryan
I have read a lot about New Zealand art and literature in the last year – from Michael King to Brian Turner and Sam Hunt, Hamish Keith and re-listening to Hirini Melbourne’s recordings. Exposing myself to all of that great thinking coupled with my current love affair with the New Zealand landscape has given me a sense of finding my Self. And I feel all of that emerge now when I am at the piano, or when I am in conversation with artists.
Producer Ainsley Gardiner
Kathryn Bigelow yeah!! And the mothers at my daughter’s kura who have full time jobs, full time families and still do shit loads of volunteering at the school, and happily, they have got the best attitude (I don’t have it, I want it!)
If you could go back and choose a completely different career path to the one you’ve chosen, what would it be?
Writer and musician Bill Direen
Strange you should ask that. I was thinking this morning about a time, I was perhaps 18, and drinking a beer in a bar in Greymouth after working for a time in a particle board factory, and a fisherman offered me a job on his boat. If I hadn’t been such a bad swimmer I might have taken it. I was wondering just this morning whether I might have made a good fisherman.
What place is always with you, wherever you go?
Opera Singer Morag Atchison
The willow tree at the bottom of my Grandma’s garden at the old farm. I spent many hours as I girl under that tree playing dress-up and acting out my own stories; I had the freedom to let my imagination run wild.
Jeweller and Small Object Maker Vaune Mason
My lake – my country. I grew up in Muriwai on the West Coast of Auckland. There is a beautiful lake there, just on the edge of the farmland. I miss it, and treasure that place. I also love this country – I feel grounded here.
What's the best way to listen to music, and why?
Musician Chris Prowse
The best way to listen to good music is live. Music is foremost a performing art. Recorded music is a relatively recent add-on in terms of the long history of people making music.
Film Archive National Programmes Manager Jane Paul
Through 40 year old speakers, a 30 year old amp, and NO stupid ear thingies. At the moment I'm listening to James Luther Dickinson.
Touch Compass founder Catherine Chappell
Sharing with my sister and son, when he inspires us to break into spontaneous dancing around the lounge.
Singer songwriters Ariana Tikao and Hannah Howes
Ariana: Any way, all ways, always. Even when not listening to it you can still feel it inside.
Hannah: Live. Or loud. At home while doing housework in your best dress.
You are given a piece of string, a stick and some fabric. What do you make?
Producer Ainsley Gardiner
A gymnastics ribbon, then run around flapping it pretending to be at the Olympics.
What's the best stress relief advice you've ever been given?
Choreographer Stephen Bradshaw
Karakia is awesome for focus, shifting feelings and clearing whats in your way.
Filmmaker Gaylene Preston
Pace yourself. Start climbing the mountain going at the speed you think you will be able to go when you reach the top.
What's great about today?
Sarah Longbottom
Same thing that’s great about every day – looking, listening, learning, loving…. Ooooooh, and coffee at Conch.
Musician Chris Prowse
Wellington had a summer day between midday and about 5 o’clock today. Then a southerly came through.
What’s your big idea for 2011?
Filmmaker Tanu Gago
It’s totally within your ability to repeat 2010 during 2011. Don’t do it. Bring yourself a new day.
Artistic Director David Malacari
My big idea for 2011 is an annual Auckland White Night, with the streets full of families and people interested in the arts wandering from gallery to museum to performance late into the night and celebrating life in a vibrant and cultural city.
* The Big Idea Community Questions
Thanks for your questions this year – we had some great chats and conversations. Here are some highlights, follow the links to read more.
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Soprano Morag Atchison answered questions about resting her voice, learning a new role - in a foreign language, research, inspiration and stage fright.
“I still get nervous and the adrenaline does help the performance. It's a common thought that if you're not nervous before you go on stage, you should worry.”
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Filmmaker Michael Bennett talked about making Matariki, his inspiration and favourite films.
“The first film that made me fall in love with Movies with a capital M was TAXI DRIVER. Still my favourite movie of all time.”
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Artist Otis Frizzell answered your questions (and there were heaps of them!) including growing up under the influence of a famous NZ artist - his father Dick Frizzell - and how this affected his personal artistic style.
“Graffiti art, which is basically the visual representation of Hip Hop, was the first art form, besides comics, that really made me want to make art... to paint. I was bitten.”
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During the NZ International Film Festival we heard from Director Tim Rose about making the documentary ‘Sam Hunt: Purple Balloon and other stories' and from Sarah Hunter about making TrinityRoots, Music Is Choice.
And Writer/Director Simone Horrocks answered questions about making After the Waterfall including if she was worried Antony Starr would carry too much 'baggage' for NZ audiences as Jethro/Van from Outrageous Fortune?
“I never doubted the process, and Antony's experience and the craft he honed over his years on OF was only of benefit to us. I am sure that even audiences drawn to After the Waterfall because they are fans of Van and Jethro will enjoy being taken somewhere new by Antony.”
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Choreographer Stephen Bradshaw talked about reworking Mauri for Matariki and answered questions including how Aotearoa could get more Maori into the arts and what inspired him to work in the dance field.
“I was desperate to escape working at Northland Oil Refinery (1981) in Whangarei where I was born. I’m a fairly quiet, non-extroverted person but onstage I am very much the opposite of my normal self. The Maori language of my mother that I did not have was learnt through my dance journey.”
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Production Designer Robin Rawstorne talked about the cinematic approach for the NBR New Zealand Opera’s production of The Marriage of Figaro.
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Filmmaker Gaylene Preston answered community questions about making Home By Christmas, casting her daughter, re-telling the oral stories from both her father and mother and funding independent films in NZ.
“The thing I love about oral history is how colourful and exclusive our memories are. Every teller makes the story their own and so there are large differences between various versions in my experience.”
But wait there's more..
Read more TBI Q&As and Interviews.
Use the comment box below to let us know who you'd like to hear from in 2011.
* Big thanks to Jane Norcross-Wilkins for helping pick inspiring quotes from the Q&As in 2010 :)