Wellywood Woman

In a lovely bit of serendipity, just after I admired this Lisa Gornick drawing, A conundrum on knowing your audience , I read a Sally Potter post about her relationships with audiences . Today's treats, from directors who are far far away from here,  the ninth floor of the Rutherford Building by Wellington's railway station. I hate coming to this building, worry always that the big earthquake (well overdue) will come as I am in the lift. I hope it comes when I am digging the garden at home, and able to enjoy nature shaking her tail (which is what some little earthquakes feel like). And am envious today of Sally Potter working away in her hut in the snow, pictured in her post, smoke twirling out the chimney. She also writes about volcano ash, and seeing that smoke plume as I read makes me think: What would it be like here if one of those volcanoes up the road erupted as intensely as Eyjafjallajokull: Ngaruahoe; Ruapehu; Tongariro; Tara...

Christine Vachon's giving a one-day seminar in Auckland tomorrow, thanks to Script to Screen . I want want want to go. Asked to interview her.  But the washing machine died. And then my laptop died. Not just another of its recent small deaths. Dead beyond resuscitation. I love Christine Vachon's books.  In Shooting to Kill   published twelve years ago, she identified financing entities’ gender—and image-oriented—beliefs as problematic: [They scrutinize] your project for marketable elements that will distinguish it from the morass of independent films…they want a director about whom good copy can be written… It helps if they’re attractive. And it helps if they’re male. I’m usually reluctant to spout stuff like: “If you’re a female it’s so much harder, if you’re a male it’s so much easier” —I hope it’s a little more complicated than that. But I do think that the machine works better with boys. People are more familiar with the whole idea of a male direct...