NEW ZEALAND FILMS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19333, 25 May 1937, Page 13

NEW ZEALAND FILMS

NO NEWS-REEL VALUE FILM EDITOR’S STATEMENT “New Zealand, at the present moment possesses absolutely no topical subjects of world interest for sound-film newsreels—just none!” said Mr. 11. G. Guinness, Sydney editor of Fox Movietone News, who visited Wellington in the course of a world tour. Mr. Guinness had interesting comment to make on the subject of international tastes and appetites in the way of news-films. Mr. Guinness, as editor, supervises the task of “covering” the Australian news interests with a. battery of four cameras. Every week his studio publishes a newsreel of'the week’s events in Australia and New Zealand. That is for local consumption. Subjects of international interest are also sent, to the Movietone centres in Europe and America: two international newsreels are produced for every local one. Thus New Zealand and Australian subjects and scenes -find their way on to cinema screens all over the world.

New Zealand is not, on the whole, rich ill such subjects, which depend not only on the actual news value of the event but also on the particular tastes of the country in which they arc to he shown. For news-reels, says Mr. Guinness, are carefully edited to please the audiences who are to see them on each umnlry’s screen.

Different Countries’ Preferences “Paris loves soldiers and funerals; London, prefers soldiers and the King. Italy and Germany must have pictures of Mussolini and Hitler respectively. Both dictators appreciate their own publicity value; they arc never too busy to grant cameramen super facilities, or to pose for the camera,” said Air. Guinness. He stated that entirely different aspects of the Coronation, for example, would he circulated in each country. Cameramen had been instructed to try and obtain shots of Mr. Savage in conversation with tho King for New Zealand consumption ; of Air. Lyons and the King for Australian audiences.

New Zealand’s most successful newsreel picture for a long time was of a Wellington happening—the Wubinc’s crash into the l’ipitea wharf last year, when the steamer was more damaged than the wharf and the passengers had to land by a rope ladder over the bow. That caught the imagination of overseas audiences. They had seen a surfeit of wrecks at sea, hut never a shipping mishap quite like that. It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good. . . .