The studio was originally planned for Te Awanga<\/a> after consent was granted in 2022, but the land owner wanted to go in a different direction by the end of 2024, leaving studio directors Tony Keddy and Daniel Betty seeking a new location.<\/p>\nBetty said the new studio would help diversify the region\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that 60% of every film budget that comes into a region is spent locally. That means that our local suppliers, our accommodation providers, our construction houses, our hospitality and tourism industry will flourish once we have a film in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keddy said they hoped to have the studio open by February 2028.<\/p>\n
With the studio set to open in 16 months, the pair said there was \u201cmassive\u201d interest from national and international productions.<\/p>\n
Keddy had worked in the film industry for more than 30 years, including as a key grip with Sir Peter Jackson on The Lord of the Rings, King Kong and the Hobbit films, and with James Cameron on the first Avatar film.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2018ve spent a lot of time in studios, and I know what works and doesn\u2019t work. So I\u2019ve taken all the things that work and put that into the design of these studios,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Everything from the sustainable acoustic and thermal blocking cladding to the set-up of the studios was designed for efficiency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re making a film, time is the thing you can\u2019t make any more of, so you have to be as efficient as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Betty and Keddy said they\u2019d consulted with the studio\u2019s neighbours and local iwi.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not trying to do it in isolation. It\u2019s a team event,\u201d Keddy said.<\/p>\n
Betty expected the studio to draw big names like Brad Pitt to Hawke\u2019s Bay, with the studio nearly landing a film at the end of the year with \u201csome very big stars attached to it\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they can go to Queenstown, they can come to Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat people don\u2019t know is that Brad Pitt was actually here looking and filming in Maraetotara.\u201d<\/p>\n
Keddy said once the studio was open, a massive weight would drop from his shoulders.<\/p>\n
He wanted to acknowledge former Hastings Mayor Sandra Hazlehurst and former Hastings District Council chief executive Nigel Bickle \u2013 who died unexpectedly in August \u2013 for their support.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout them, I would have given up.\u201d<\/p>\n
People wanting to work at the studios could register their interest with Screen Hawke\u2019s Bay.<\/p>\n
Betty encouraged young people wanting to work at the studio to check out EIT\u2019s screen production courses or Kahurangi Toi \u0100tea \u2013 National Screen Industry Training, which Betty and Keddy helped establish.<\/p>\n
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke\u2019s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in the UK, Germany and New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Designs for the Number 8 Studios in Pakipaki, outside of Hastings. The studio was originally planned for Te…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[33147,107329,1561,1558,1288,8996,14736,156,593,16840,99278,2082,6871,1976,4223,6215,78,1019,26983,5812,301814,435,111,139,69,134604,260228,8995,23367,205449],"class_list":["post-612812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-aiming","tag-alister","tag-bay","tag-been","tag-capital","tag-consent","tag-domestic","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-filmed","tag-filming","tag-for","tag-has","tag-hawkes","tag-hollywood","tag-hub","tag-in","tag-international","tag-lodged","tag-make","tag-maraetotara","tag-movie","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pakipaki","tag-productions","tag-resource","tag-studio","tag-submitted"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}