James Cameron on Wellington: ‘It’s like a big small town’
Thursday, 16 November 2023
Veteran filmmaker James Cameron has opened up about his love of Wellington.
It’s been almost two decades since the Canadian-born director of Titanic and the Avatar series first made moves towards setting up business here. His films have earned more than $8 billion, with three of them among the highest-earning of all time.
“Our productions have served the community well and served the film industry well here, but you’ve gotta do more,” he told the annual screen producers’ guild conference in an interview with broadcaster John Campbell in Wellington on Thursday.
Cameron says that in a year, he plans to become a citizen of New Zealand. He also committed to making all his films in Aotearoa indefinitely.
“I love working here, I love the people that I get to work with here.”
Cameron lives in Wellington’s Roseneath with his wife Suzy, and said he loves being a Wellingtonian. “I love telling all my pals back in the [United] States that it’s the windiest city in the world.”
He particularly enjoys walking around the capital’s streets and waterfront, and always runs into people he knows. But he’s only ever approached when there’s a pre-existing connection.
“Wellingtonians … [would] be mortified to be rude and intrude on my day and ask to take a picture,” he said. “They’ll just walk by and go ‘Hi Jim!’ I don’t know who it is. It’s cool, right? It’s like a big small town.
“It’s got that feeling of familiarity.”
He also made a plea for consistency regarding the country’s screen rebates that may be thrust under the microscope with a new government.
ACT has criticised the scheme in which international productions are paid back 20% of their spend. But Cameron told Campbell the reason he chose to base himself in New Zealand was, in part, because of its rebates.
“Consistency there is very important … because we are competing with other countries like Australia,” Cameron said.
The screen industry had called for more competitive rates closer to 40% - in line with other countries’ offerings, to counteract New Zealand’s relatively high cost of film production. Cameron’s message was ensuring the rebate did not bounce around, which he said would ward off major studios.
What Aotearoa lacked in rebates it made up for in its standard of living and calibre of workforce, he added.
But the screen industry needed to focus on training a next generation of filmmakers to ensure a talent pipeline, and attracting international financing for local productions for periods when international films dried up.
Cameron selected Aotearoa as his base for its connection to nature, world-leading expertise, and rebate scheme.
“Until you’ve gone through an entire production, you don't really know, it could just all be a nice glossy brochure. But we came out of [Avatar] with this really powerful sense that this is where we wanted the home to be for the subsequent films.”
He says in New Zealand, respect is earned by treating people as part of a team. It had been “the thing I’ve been looking for, for the previous 30 years”.
And Cameron gave advice to filmmakers-to-be: have a sense of the actually possible; be prepared; jump at fleeting opportunities; have an open mind that you can achieve what you want; you’re only as good as the people around you; contribute and demonstrate; and be willing to learn.
“You have to open [the door] for yourself, and you have to do it by doing the work.”
Cameron said he makes films - a sometimes “nightmarish” process that takes a toll on health and family - because of the reward of seeing something manifest in the world which originally started as an idea or dream.
“We're firing our bottle rockets out into the universe … The day-to-day, sometimes it’s fantastic, and sometimes it’s hell. … But it’s always more fantastic in balance than it is hell. That’s one thing I can say for sure.”
Post-production is under way for Avatar 3, which has a release date of Christmas 2025.