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In just two (seemingly very) short weeks, on October 23rd, all will be revealed as the NZ On Screen site goes live!
The team is working hard to pull all the last details together. It’s looking fantastic, and we are totally looking forward to sharing the site with the world.
Check back soon!
The following position is now open within the NZ On Screen team:
CONTENT DIRECTOR
Are you someone who is:
- knowledgeable …. about television and film in NZ both past and present, and about the internet and working online
- strategic …. can devise and apply a strategy
- enthusiastic …. about the creation of NZ On Screen - a site that allows the audience to appreciate the history, depth and richness of the NZ screen and music industry
- motivated …. to make things happen, solve problems, get things done
- organised …. know your way around a spreadsheet, can spell database, find files on a computer and follow a plan
- local …. based in Wellington
- looking for a job?
We are looking for someone who is all those things, and who would like to join our team as the Content Director.
_______________________________________
Job Description:
The Content Director will be responsible for the following:
- An accurate, rigorous and diverse selection of content for NZ On Screen: broadcast content is a primary focus, with film, music and other digital content included as it is prioritised.
- The development and execution of a long term content plan that will keep the site relevant and exciting for its audience.
- Facilitation of the NZ On Screen Curatorial Panel meetings and agenda. This panel assesses content on the site and in the pipeline, and establishes planning and priorities for upcoming content on the site.
- Liaison with and reporting to the NZ On Screen trust regarding content planned for the website on a regular basis.
- The Content Director will maintain and evolve the policy guidelines for content on the site, and be responsible for establishing the selection criteria that will be applied throughout the year to new content.
The role will include:
- Creation of a strategy and project plan for ongoing content inclusion in the site, together with the Curatorial Panel, to be approved by the Trust
- Developing a robust process for selection of content in accordance with the priorities agreed with the Trust
- Selection and evaluation of footage for the website
- Liaising with moving image and sound content repositories and content creators (along with other members of the NZ On Screen team) to source and select content. (e.g. The Film Archive, TVNZ Archives, Archives NZ, Te Mangai Paho, Maori Television, TV3/C4, TVNZ, and independent production companies).
- Liaison with the Industry Liaison and Rights Clearance team to initiate contacts and establish contracts with copyright holders
- Working directly with the Editor to select themes and titles for sourcing
- Help to devise marketing and communications opportunities to promote the site
- Ensure that the content plan and selection dovetail with communication and promotional activities for the site
The position is full-time or 80%, starting as soon as possible.
If you’re interested in applying for the position, please send a cover letter and your CV to brenda at nzonscreen.com
Applications close Wednesday 1 October.
[Clare O'Leary, who has been the Content Director thus far, has helped to bring the site to fruition. Clare is now going to run ScreenTalk, the video blog part of the website. We are looking for someone to help us take take the site to the next level.]
NZ On Screen would like to congratulate all the winners in the Qantas Film & Television Awards, 2008.
We would especially like to acknowledge members of our own team who won awards:
- Paul Stanley Ward (NZ On Screen Editor) won Best Screenplay for a Short Film, for The Grafitti of Mr Tupaia, produced by Pop Films
- Makerita Urale (writer for NZ On Screen), was the Director, Children of the Revolution, produced by Front of the Box Productions.
We look forward to profiling many of the winning film and television projects and creative teams on the NZ On Screen site.
Check out more awards and photos on STUFF.
We have succumbed to popular demand and set up an NZ On Screen group on Facebook!
Come join us there 
We’re very pleased that NZ On Air has agreed to another year of funding for NZ On Screen.
It’s wonderful that this government agency has the vision and the foresight to support this initiative and to recognise that it is a project that will continue to grow after it has launched!
Thank you NZ On Air.
Our very own editor Paul Ward has been nominated and is a finalist in the “Best Screenplay for a Short Film” category of the Qantas Film and Television Awards, for The Graffiti of Mr Tupaia. The film is also a finalist in two other categories.
Way to go Paul!
NZ On Screen is a project funded by NZ On Air through the NZ On Screen Trust. The trustees have been working hard throughout the year to keep the project on track, help establish curatorial guidelines, provide insight and guidance to the team, and oversee progress.
Our Trustees are:
- Edie Moke; Chair
- Roger Horrocks; writer, filmmaker, academic
- Robin Scholes; Producer
- Russell Brown; Web and Media Commentator, Public Address
- Teresa Shreves; Lawyer
- Jane Wrightson; CEO NZ On Air
We would like to acknowledge their support
Every title that is shown on the NZ On Screen site has to have copyright cleared. It turns out that for each title this is a different process. Some straightforward, some needing a lot of communication, conversations, demos and meetings.
Our rights team recently met with Ian Mune to discuss access to Winners & Losers (1976) and Derek (1974). These programmes were produced and directed by Ian Mune and Roger Donaldson - and we’re happy to say, they’re going to be on our site!
Ian Mune, Kim Baker and Catherine Juniot
Monika Ahuriri has been working with the NZ On Screen team as the curator for Maori content on the site. She has been instrumental in selecting titles that have particular significance for Maori and Maori broadcasting. She has also worked alongside the NZ Film Archive to establish iwi clearances for some titles and helped to develop our processes for working with Maori content.
Monika has now decided to move to the big smoke of Auckland, and we are looking for a new person for this position.
If you are interested in being part of the NZ On Screen team on a part time basis, and being involved in:
- selection of titles (particularly those with signficance for Maori) for inclusion in the site
- liaison with copyright holders and iwi to clear titles
- establishing and maintaining guidelines for Maori content throughout the site
and you have a good knowledge of film, television and Maori culture and language (and ideally you are Wellington based) …
Please get in touch! Email [brenda at nzonscreen.com] with your cover letter and CV.
NZ On Screen is pleased to welcome Paul Stanley Ward on board as our new editor!
Paul is a Wellington-based writer who has experience in writing both for web (as Editor of the New Zealand Edge website) and for television (most recently working with Gibson Group and Sticky Pictures in producer, researcher and writer roles). He has also written two nzfc-funded short film scripts.
Paul is ideally placed to coordinate the group of writers working with NZ On Screen, and to set the tone and style of copy throughout the site (he has a degree in English Lit from Oxford to answer knotty apostrophe questions).
Aside from all that, he’s working on a secret project that will bring the calls of New Zealand birds to the masses … more on that later.
Right now the NZ On Screen team is totally focussed on content acquisition. The site has been designed and developed and now a lot of content needs to be pulled together for launch! This means digitising film and television programmes - which is happening at the Film Archive and at the Dub Shop - as well as researching, finding photographs, and writing perspectives and profiles for key cast and crew.
We will put nothing online that does not have copyright clearance. This is a massive undertaking for the Rights and Legal team (Kim Baker and Catherine Juniot) who are chasing producers and copyright holders all over the country to get titles cleared.
Apparently the Government likes libraries too. The National Library is getting a $69 million makeover in the next few years. This was announced today by Helen Clark and various digerati along with library and archive mavens.
The new designs do look very spunky from the outside - it would not be hard to be a vast improvement on the current building, prominently placed in the “Parliamentary Precinct”.
People listened attentively as the plans were outlined, as promises were made to take good care of our national treasures. NZ On Screen will be working with the National Library to some degree, we look forward to meetings in shiny new offices with natural light and flow!
Back in 1984 NZ took nine movies to Cannes.
Members of the New Zealand Delegation to the Cannes Film Festival: from left David Carson-Parker [Utu], John Maynard and Bridget Ikin [Vigil], Debbie Moran [Mirage Films], Larry Parr [Trial Run and Heart of the Stag], Don Reynolds, David Compton. (photo thanks to the DominionPost)
In 2008 the NZ Film Commission was in Cannes representing a number of films, including the recently released Second-Hand Wedding.
We didn’t manage to get a photo of the delegation. But Kim Baker, intrepid rights coordinator for NZ On Screen, was snapped on the red carpet just last weekend …
There’s been a fine team behind making it happen for NZ On Screen. Although you won’t see things in all their glory until the site goes live, we’d like to acknowledge the sterling work of the agencies Chrometoaster and 3months.com, who have respectively handled the design and development of the site.
While we have had the advantage of starting from scratch, there have been challenges in working with an evolving brief and in not knowing exactly where we want to end up before we get there. Designing and building the site using an agile framework has proven to be an ideal approach - we have all learned a lot and the outcome is fantastic! Full kudos to both agencies for their work so far.
More on our project approach and process (if anyone is interested) some other time
NZ On Screen’s intrepid travelling “Rights coordinator and industry liaison” person Kim Baker met up with expat kiwi filmmaker Roger Donaldson in Los Angeles last weekend to show him the NZ On Screen site in development and to talk about his work. The meeting went well - stay tuned for more details!
Meanwhile Kim is on her way to Cannes to do some work with the NZ Film Commission - we look forward to more reports!
NZ On Air has been funding production of broadcast programmes (TV, radio, film, music) in NZ since 1989. A large proportion of the locally produced content we see and hear has been made possible through funding from NZ On Air.
As part of its digital strategy, put together in 2006/2007, the idea arose for a website to make as much locally produced audio-visual content available as possible - freely accessible to the public.
NZ On Screen is a project funded by NZ On Air.
With an initial focus on broadcast content, but expanding through connections with people and titles, NZ On Screen will bring our moving image history into your living rooms.
Taking the digitised video and making it web-ready is underway.
Yesterday we welcomed Leo and Harrie into the fold - giving them nice toys to play with and lots of pictures to watch.
Roll on hours of rendering and compressing and making things pretty!
NZ On Screen is hiring …
We’re looking for an online web editor (not a video/film editor).
Who we are:
- A small team of dynamic, motivated, friendly and hard-working people who are creating an iconic New Zealand website.
- NZ On Screen will be a showcase of moving image and sound content created in NZ or by NZ’ers.
- We are the people who are putting it all together.
Who you are:
- You are a person with a passion for editorial detail. You know where apostrophe’s go and can spot a spelling mistake a mile off.
- You know what style guidelines are and how to keep consistent tone through different pieces of writing.
- You know that writing for the web is different from other media, that online users have to be addressed in an online style, and ideally you know how to do this.
- You have a strong interest in, and ideally knowledge of, the NZ film and television industry through the ages.
- You have more than a passing familiarity with computers and the programmes they run (especially macs).
- You can spell internet, you know what it can do and are keen to be part of where it can go.
- You have a good working knowledge of colloquial Maori language and the evolving Kiwi vernacular.
- You can make order from chaos, enjoy working with creative people and keeping track of many things at once.
- You are familiar with information management, and content management systems and are not afraid to use them.
- You like small teams, are independent, motivated, self-managing and not afraid to defend your point of view.
- You are based in Wellington.
If you like the sound of us, and we’ve captured your key skills and interests in a nutshell … and you’re looking for 20-32 hours work / week … and you’re available asap … then send in your CV and a cover letter to Brenda (brenda at nzonscreen.com) by May 10th and we’ll talk.
It was an auspicious moment. One week ago the first lot of content, digitised by the NZ Film Archive, copyright cleared and ready to go, arrived at the NZ On Screen office.
Clare O’Leary, Content Director for NZ On Screen, used the well established ’sneakernet’ network to transfer the files.
NZ On Screen is a site in development. All will be revealed at some point later this year - but for now we’re keeping quiet about what exactly we’re going to release to the world.
But along the way there are things we want to share with you - exciting moments in our project progress, advertising positions in our team, calls for participation and testing etc.,
So keep an eye on this blog … subscribe to our feed … we’ll be back!
/brenda
