Film industry an early Covid-19 casualty

Great Southern Television chief executive Philip Smith. Photo: Mountain Scene
Great Southern Television chief executive Philip Smith. Photo: Mountain Scene
Arrowtown-based Great Southern Television chief executive and executive producer Philip Smith expects substance from leaders as the region emerges from the Covid-19 lockdown.

The adventure capital of the world is closed. Queenstown’s rowdy airport is silent, the shiny new shops are shut. Arrowtown is a ghost town. It's eerie.

I don’t want to write a piece about what it’s like to hunker down with my family.

Out there in the world the jokes have been told, the observations made. “It’s scary,” says one, “it’s fun,” says another.  “It’s healthy, it’s a message from the gods. Look at me I’m doing yoga!”

OK, enough already!

Here’s the real rub from a cold-eyed southern perspective. There’s plenty of food here. No queues even.  But when there’s no work, there’s no money to buy food. About 60% of our community in Queenstown has an average of three weeks of savings to cashflow their daily living costs. Without pay, after three weeks, they’re bust.

Some are already there. This is a town on the brink. It’s a service town with no one to service for the foreseeable future. The word on the street is that there is going to be a lot of pain. I’m not talking about the big businesses – after years in the sun I would hope they have a cash float. I’m thinking about the little guys.  And the families. Like the rest of New Zealand, Queenstown families are way too heavily leveraged – and we have to look out for these people .

Their financial health, their mental health, their basics, their kids, their workers. Issues such as domestic violence are an inevitable consequence. But food on the table is a major concern, because you need money to buy it. It’s a cycle.

A week into the lockdown and people were  starting to fray. I chatted to a friend who’s doing volunteer counselling in Queenstown. Here, mental health services are being swamped. She says almost 100% of the people she’s counselling aren’t worried about the virus, rather they’re petrified about their financial position. They are looking at the clock – and fretting.

When there’s not enough money to pay the bills, the coronavirus could have a new symptom: seizures.  Home seizures, car seizures. What will the banks do when home owners default? Let’s watch them closely, because at the moment an interest rate holiday simply means more debt added to a mortgage. Further debt within our community.

My business is the film and television industry. It’s really a people industry. A huge bunch of people all doing unexplainable things and suddenly creating magic. This collective workforce brings in over $100m annually into the Otago and Central Lakes region.

Yes, it’s all gone for the foreseeable future . I doubt any drama will be shot in our region for the next six months. I guess we have lost about $40 million in production already. Productions have been shut down, international talent sent home. Rebooting productions takes a lot of time.

The impact is on the workers and the small companies that supply the film industry. Many go paycheck to paycheck to support their families.

As a company owner we are lobbying the Government and our guilds to ensure cash benefits allow contractors to survive – on a quarter of their usual income. But many report that they are already on the breadline.

The loss of this revenue is just a small part of the bigger picture for us all. Let’s use the tools that we have to hand, such as social media, to campaign and look out for those who need help. Givealittle pages, campaigns we can launch. And when we need to call BS on banks and big business – let’s make a noise that can’t be ignored.

In terms of the Queenstown community, it is collectively a risk-taking community. It’s creative. We are going to see some southern spine, some lateral thinking. Jobs will have to be created that service the local needs – rather chasing those far off foreign dollars. Let’s get our thinking caps on.

Often people say Queenstown is "all look and no substance". We are going to have look to our leaders, the company owners, and ask for substance. I truly believe they will respond. Let’s hear from them.  I have already heard about landlords offering rent holidays to restaurant owners. Good on them. It is in their interest to ensure the workers and businesses remain here, so they can relaunch on the other side.

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