You've Got to Be In To Win, MTV Head Tells Resonate Conference
By Steve Adams

Last week's Resonate conference in Auckland drew a healthy crowd of musicians and filmmakers to the Town Hall to listen to a top-flight panel of industry heavyweights.
Image: Head of MTV Europe kiwi-born Brent HansenYou've Got to Be In To Win, MTV Head Tells Resonate Conference
By Steve Adams

Last week's Resonate conference in Auckland drew a healthy crowd of musicians and filmmakers to the Town Hall to listen to a top-flight panel of industry heavyweights.
Image: Head of MTV Europe kiwi-born Brent HansenTaking the stage for the three day event were New Zealand-born MTV Europe head Brent Hansen, uber-manager Stephen Budd, London-based music video maker Pete Chambers , Welsh record producer (Manic Street Preachers, Super Furry Animals) Greg Havers, video commissioner for Island Universal UK Liz Kessler and 1 Giant Leap creators Jamie Catto and Duncan Bridgeman .

Hosted by local music media types Russell Brown, Nick Bollinger and Francesca Rudkin, Resonate was as easygoing affair, more of a creative eyebrow-raise than a Knowledge Wave. The panellists were great fun: these 'big guns for overseas' events usually end up as a wait for the boring speech to finish, than an attempt by the pushier delegates to get a business card in the guests hands. What Resonate tried to do, and succeeded, was to break down those barriers and bring these seriously big players into direct contact with local practitioners.

This approach was achieved to great effect by pairing music producer Havers with local bands 48 May and Ejector. Over the week of the conference Havers took the controls at York Street studio to produce a single from both acts. Video footage of Haver's efforts in the studio was played at the final session, and so impressed was the Welshman by the talent on offer that he pledged to return to New Zealand later this year to offer his studio services to other bands.

Ex-pat Kiwi Hansen summed up the feeling of the panel in the final session. Musing from his lofty perch at the top of the music TV food chain (as President of MTV Europe, Hansen presides over 24 music channels reaching more 107 million households in Europe), his message was clear: if you want to make it in Europe, the US or anywhere out of New Zealand as a band, artists, filmmaker or other creative pursuit, you need to get off you ass and go live in the market you're trying to gain entry to. "Pitching from the outside will hardly ever work" he told delegates. "We have one, maybe two slots available per channel for videos that aren't available for sale in those markets. We want to work with people who are prepared to do the followup: have local representation, perform locally, be around." The Datsuns, he says are a good example of how to do it: get the money together to get to London, then sleep on the floor until someone notices your work.