Filming the uttermost for P.R.

Press, 14 July 1987, Page 2

Filming the uttermost for P.R.

By

DAVE WILSON

Leeza Gibbons, swathed in a natty purple ensemble and surrounded by a phalanx of important looking men, breezes into her Christchurch press conference with a chirpy "Hi gang!” to a group of reporters plainly unaccustomed to such cheeriness on a Monday morning. The air at the George Hotel is rich with the tang of fresh varnish and the stairways are clogged with builders putting the finishing touches on the opulence. An upstairs room has been dressed for the occasion as the news media meets the famous face from television’s “Entertainment This Week” programme. Although the hour is hardly past 9 a.m. Leeza Gibbons has been on the move for several hours, and arrives from a guest stint on radio with flawless make-up and hairstyle. The woman who at home in America is a working journalist seems a trifle unsure at being accorded full celebrity status down here. Her first task is to narrow the gulf between interview subject and interviewers. But it soon becomes apparent that the subject of the interview is not so much Ms Gibbons as the $2 million South Island promotional video that has brought her here. Three men from Electric Pictures Video sharing the top table quickly turn the discussion toward the epic. Warren McCarthy, Tony McArtney and Christian Birch enthuse over their baby, a 48-minute tourist film to be shot entirely in the South Island during the next fortnight, with a summer sequence to be filmed in December. Leeza Gibbons, the entertainment show host and

interviewer, is to become Leeza Gibbons the star. She will be seen doing all the touristy things available down here — ballooning, skin diving, heli-ski-ing, rafting, the prospect prompts her to describe it as "Not work. It’s like a two-week vacation for me.” Sharing the screen will be an assortment of Kiwi celebrities such as Keri Hulme, Barry Crump and Sam Hunt. The fact that the latter two are strongly identified as North Islanders is not lost on the news media group. Credibility is strained to the limit when we hear that the December shoot may feature Leeza and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa trout fishing on the West Coast. But hey, this is a film to woo the tourists and they need “celebs” in what we are promised will be a story that uses our scenery as a spectacular backdrop. Ms Gibbons predicts a very profitable spin-off for New Zealand from the finished product. “The South Island is the uttermost and this film is going to maximise your natural attributes.” It will also be an opportunity for local fashion designers to have their clothes worn by a woman who is networked around the world. This is her second visit to New Zealand and she plainly loves the country, so much so that an entire “Entertainment This Week” programme is to be filmed on location here. Her co-host, Robb Weller, and a crew will join her for a 10-day sortie later in the year. The visitor spin-off from that exposure is inestimable. Leeza says the decision to make an entire programme here stems from the positive

feedback that greeted New Zealand items featuring in “Entertainment This Week” after her last visit. As one who regularly moves in the rarified atmosphere of show business she says New Zealand is garnering a reputation as a hideaway resort of the famous.

“The stars are always looking for somewhere to go. There are trendy destinations and New Zealand is on the crest of becoming the place to go for a vacation.” As for her all-action role in the forthcoming video, she insists “I am a very good sport, I am not a.good athlete.”

If there is one aspect of our tourist playground that has taken her by surprise it is the nippy nature of our winters. Gazing out from the womb-like warmth of the hotel to a brisk 7deg. morning she wistfully observes: “We just don’t have winters in Los Angeles.”