Finola Dwyer: an education in production

Screen Talker — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 02:09:17 +0000

Internationally successful Kiwi film producer Finola Dwyer began her career as an editor at the National Film Unit and then moved onto editing and producing at TVNZ. Dwyer migrated over to the film industry and worked as an editor and producer. Some of the memorable New Zealand films she worked on include Came a Hot Friday, Starlight Hotel, and The Quiet Earth. In the 90s, Dwyer moved to the UK where she has made a name for herself producing films such as Backbeat, An Education and Dean Spanley. Her latest project is Quartet, a film directed by Dustin Hoffman.

In this ScreenTalk, Dwyer talks about:

Learning to edit film at the National Film Unit
Editing the classic short film Score with director Arthur Everard
How editing Country Calendar for TV was more stressful than NFU editing
How an unplanned visit to the beach led to Raglan by the Sea
Creating the quirky chat show McCormick Country
Having to re-record the dialogue and soundtrack for The Quiet Earth
How her first producing job on Queen City Rocker was a baptism by fire
Overcoming fear by producing the Beatles biopic Backbeat
Being proud of the film Dean Spanley and its cast and crew
Sharing teenage dating stories while co-producing An Education
How the film struck controversy due to its subject matter
Feeling blessed to be working and continuing to learn in the film industry

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

Annie Collins on cutting films

Screen Talker — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:46:12 +0000

Editor Annie Collins has worked with some of New Zealand’s most provocative directors, including Barry Barclay (The Neglected Miracle), and Merata Mita (Patu!) over a 30 year editing career. Collins has also edited key feature films, (Scarfies, Out of the Blue) and was part of the editing team on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.

NZ On Screen’s Clare O’Leary visits Collins at her home and Collins reflects on:

Her beginnings in the industry and being convinced by producer Pat Cox to shelve her design training and become an editor.
What she requires of directors (“that they’ve done their homework!”)
Cutting Patu! with Merata Mita: evading the police and becoming conscious of the Springbok Tour Protests’ relevance to New Zealand history and realising the (different) echoes it had for Mita as a Māori filmmaker.
Working with director Robert Sarkies on Scarfies and Out of the Blue
The four and a half years she spent working on the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the realisation that despite the “profound experience” of working on such a massive scale project that she needed to get back to New Zealand stories.
Her consciousness of the power of the edit: “it takes about five seconds for you to destroy somebody in a cut, or edit, on national TV.”
The ethics of story-telling: the need for the people who are involved in a documentary (or a story where the subjects are still alive) to follow “good process” and the importance of “clarity of mind and heart.”

Collins is currently working on Graeme Tuckett’s documentary about Barry Barclay due for release later this year.

See Annie Collins’ profile on NZ On Screen.

This interview is available on YouTube for embedding and distribution.

Credits: Direction and Interview – Clare O’Leary, Camera and Editing – Leo Guerchmann

ScreenTalk » editor

Finola Dwyer: an education in production

Annie Collins on cutting films