Give or take the occasional tempest in a teacup, though, the coverage accorded to life in Jacksonville has been a beautiful thing to behold.
If the reverential interview on November 27 on ‘Morning Report’ was anything to go by, the case of Wingnut Films against Radio New Zealand (RNZ) reporter Cushla Norman appears to have been completely laid to rest, just in time for the world premiere of the first installment of The Hobbit films in Wellington held on November 28, 2012.
A publicist had originally told Ms Norman that she had filed too many negative stories in the past and her accreditation had therefore been revoked to the launch of the first of the latest round of Sir Peter Jackson-directed fantasy movies.
As a consolation, presumably, RNZ was offered the opportunity to send another reporter in her stead.
RNZ declined the offer and publicised its reason for doing so: that no one can dictate to it. This led to yet another publicist from the company taking to the airwaves to reveal that Sir Peter had in fact been ‘mortified’ by the unpleasantness.
Ms Norman would be welcome to attend the film, listeners were assured.
Highhanded response
So far, so typical. Spats such as these are a dime a dozen in the entertainment biz.
But of all the tanties involving promoters and journalists sparring over a local event, this particular highhanded response deserved a space of its own.
Here we have, after all, one of the most journalistically admired entertainment projects to operate in New Zealand.
It was an operation so lauded that one local newspaper even changed its name for a brief period to celebrate its last major work with The Lord of the Rings trilogy of films, truculently suggesting that even this degree of editorial adulation is insufficient for its corporate ego.
Of course there is nothing objectionable in any business doing what it believes is best to safeguard the brand. In a relatively short time, Sir Peter has taken his work from that of the spare-time one-man operation, forged during the time he was a plate-maker at the old Wellington Newspapers group in the 1980s, to overseeing what is today one of the country’s largest private sector payrolls.
Wellington promotion
He also catapulted Wellington to global cinematic prominence and no doubt economically benefiting the country at large.
That degree of success does not happen without one keeping a keen eye on the quality of one’s media coverage.
Give or take the occasional tempest in a teacup, though, the coverage accorded to life in Jacksonville has been a beautiful thing to behold, with the benefits to the country and every one of its inhabitants incessantly babbled about.
Much has also been made of the artistic merits of his various films, not only The Lord of the Rings trilogy but also the clutch of splatter films that preceded them and the moviemaker’s stab at redoing the classic King Kong.
Never mind that the secrets of the true masters are seldom revealed easily, or that, usually, much thought and exposure to a film, television series or piece of recorded music is required before a reasonable critical consensus can be formed.
In the case of almost anything bearing the PJ legend, its five stars all down the line and instantly, and woe betide any poor sap who expresses critical impatience at the spectacle of the waifs of darkness battling the freaks of light for hours and hours and hours on end or dares to suggest that he might, say, prefer to be somewhere else watching a Larry David show.
Indeed, about the only joyous editorial decision that has not been taken to date in respect of the Jackson Church has been to devote an entire show of Campbell Live to a tremulous interview with the award–winning director, in which the award–winning director and living saint gets carried into the studio on a bejewelled throne surrounded by dwarves decked out in loincloths slowly waving the branches of cabbage trees.
Courtesy: The National Business Review
