New Zealand crews have the edge:

New Zealand's two biggest assets are friendly, skilled crew and amazing locations.  Situated in the South Pacific, roughly 2000 km east of Australia, New Zealand boasts a huge range of scenery - volcanoes, snowy mountain ranges, glaciers, remote beaches, deep blue lakes, rivers, native bush and rolling pasture.

The New Zealand camera crew is experienced, with skills honed on productions like King Kong, The Piano, Vertical Limit, Once Were Warriors, Xena, Hercules, Heavenly Creatures, Scarfies and Lord of the Rings.  As well as quality local documentaries, magazine programmes and commercials, New Zealand short film makers are acclaimed abroad and frequently win awards at foreign film festivals.  In addition to having skilled people in feature film and television commercial production, our nature documentary camera crews are among the best in the world, having extensive Antarctic and underwater experience.

If you are looking for an experienced cameraman, director of photography - or any crew member - you can find them all here in New Zealand.   The New Zealand cameraman is hard-working, adaptable, has a wide skill base, is innovative, inspired and is prepared to explore and develop new methods in image-making.  The New Zealand cameraman and camera crew will go the extra mile because they love what they do.

New Zealand has state of the art lighting trucks, grip services (Supertechno cranes), steadicam units and operators and motion control rigs.  There are film and video equipment rental companies (Panavision and Metro Film) and many post production facilities with high end digital equipment suitable for features, television commercials or programmes.  New Zealand has television and film suppliers such as Fuji, Kodak and Sony.

New Zealand gave birth to actor, Russell Crowe and is a base for such skilled actors as Sam Neill, Michael Hurst, Lucy Lawless, Danielle Cormack, Anna Paquin, Kerry Fox, Martin Henderson, Keisha Castle-Hughes and Temuera Morrison. 

Unique environmental features:

• Isolated locations
• Subtropical rainforests and native woodlands
• Permanent alpine snow covers and ice glaciers
• Tussock high country
• Huge mountain ranges
• Active volcanoes and geothermal terrain
• Thousands of kilometers of rugged coastlines, black, white, and golden sandy beaches
• Clean and clear quality of light
• Rivers and waterfalls
• Clear, fresh-water lakes 

New Zealanders stand out from the rest: 

Despite our small population Kiwis are high achievers internationally.  The first to climb Mt Everest (Edmund Hillary), rugby dominance (The All Blacks), sailing (Team New Zealand), flying (Jean Batten), Movie making (Peter Jackson).  Many everyday New Zealanders are competitive sports people, are well known for traveling globally and stand out as hard working and innovative people wherever they go.

Kiwi's are renowned for making something out of nothing - getting down to basics, having a can-do attitude, and are also internationally recognized as innovators in medicine, film, science, horticulture and agriculture.  Kiwi's look at challenges in every field of endeavor "outside the square" - they thrive on skilled innovation.

The key is freshness - we come at things from a unique perspective, a pioneering and hardworking background integrating the beauty and vibrancy of the Maori, European, Polynesian and Asian cultures.

Richard Parsonson
Director of Photography
Auckland
New Zealand