New Plymouth Documented

Film-maker here for a look at home-made movies 30 September 2006
By ROCHELLE WESTTaranaki's film history is, itself, being documented on film.
Former New Plymouth woman Elizabeth Hoyle has returned to Taranaki from her Melbourne base to make a film about the region's film makers for her Masters Degree at the Victorian College of Arts film school.
"I'm coming back and re-discovering the fact that New Plymouth has an incredible background of film, post war," Ms Hoyle said.
"It began as amateur films of family and scenery, but a lot went on to make documentaries."
Ms Hoyle, with the help of fellow film student Caro Macdonald, has been interviewing Taranaki people who have worked in film, either for their jobs or as a hobby. Her subjects include a variety of film enthusiasts, such as Rowan and Aileen Guthrie, who documented big events in Taranaki on film as well as commissioned pieces, the New Plymouth Film Club's Ron Mundell and Max Clarke who runs his own cinema called Max's Old Time Movies.
Many of the local films are documentary style, covering everything from the Queen's visit in 1954 to the old New Plymouth Post Office being demolished and the central city floods in the early 1970s.
"Taranaki seems to have this insane creativity going on in all sorts of mediums and methods. Some people say it's the air, the mountain and the sea. The landscape has a really big effect on people. Other people have said it's very much a kiwi thing. A lot of these guys started (film making) before television, as a form of entertainment," Ms Hoyle said.
The thing that has impressed Ms Hoyle and Ms Macdonald the most is their subjects' technical abilities, with the film makers being mostly self-taught.
"It's very inspirational to see. They are very creative and innovative. We are capturing something of the creative spirit that is around," Ms Macdonald said.
Entitled 16mm Maxwell, Ms Hoyle's documentary film will be screened at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne and then at various film festivals.
Ms Hoyle also wants to screen her film in Taranaki in the future