Wellington film sector goes from strength to strength

Wellington film sector goes from strength to strength

Official figures released today show Wellington continues to lead the country’s film industry, with businesses in the region earning $700 million from films in 2013 – 81 percent of all film revenue in New Zealand.

Statistics New Zealand’s 2012/2013 Screen Industry Survey found that Wellington earned the lion’s share of feature film revenue and revenue from post-production work and digital effects.

While the $700 million in feature film revenue is a drop from a record high in 2012 when the Wellington region earned $828 million from film – it is still $200 million more than in 2011.

Of that, $495 million was earned in post-production, up nine percent on last year and representing 75 percent of New Zealand’s total. Furthermore, 62 percent of the country’s post-production businesses are based in the Wellington region.

Gerard Quinn, Chief Executive of Grow Wellington, the region’s economic development agency says this is yet another excellent result for the screen sector. Through its screen programme Film Wellington, Grow Wellington works closely with the sector and promotes the region as a screen production destination.

“We’ve seen a number of major foreign-financed projects come to Wellington, both for production and post-production. All this international revenue flows into the regional economy,” says Mr Quinn.

“As well as the big players, a large number of mid-tier and emerging businesses are taking their skills to a global market. All these businesses provide work for people with outstanding creative and technical skills and help to attract talent from overseas.”

Mr Quinn says that screen revenue will begin to balance out between the regions – Auckland is particularly strong in TV production – as recent changes to government incentives see a shift from fee-for-service to original content creation and exploitation.

“Wellington’s high end international television capability is poised to re-emerge and evolve along with transmedia and gaming. New platforms will open up new audiences and new markets.

“We congratulate the Wellington screen sector on yet another great result.”

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