Celebrating the "unsung heroes of our film industry", the Desktop Cinema Season is on at the Film Archive in Wellington every Wednesday night until 26 September.
In part six of a six-part series of interviews with digital filmmakers, Desktop Cinema curator Diane McAllen talks to NZ director Campbell Walker about his film Little Bits of Light.
Tell me about the process of making the film. How was the script developed?
The film was based on my experiences with my then-partner, Grace Russell, of dealing with her depression and the strain that put on our relationship. We wrote a detailed treatment for the film together, which was used to get funding from Creative New Zealand.

We spent a month before the shoot working with the actors, reworking the material substantially, adding and altering scenes within the detailed character and narrative framework. As I always believe in, we used a lot of improvisation throughout the process, always adding and changing scenes as the situation demanded.

I shot the film myself, we had two other crew members, and what was for me a luxurious shooting period of a month with relatively few distraction, apart from the effect making a film about depression has on the people working on it.

Then I spent a year plus editing the film in my study, usually between the hours of 10pm and 3am, with a glass of whisky, between living a normal working life.

How long did it take to shoot your film, and how much did it cost?
For Little Bits, the whole production period was two years, the shoot was a month in the Taranaki. It cost about $33,000 all up.

Did you apply for or receive any funding/support?
Production funded by Creative New Zealand/SIPF – $25,000. Post-production funding from NZFC – about $8,000.

What attracts you to the digital video format?
First, because it meant I could make films. Then I out found how well it suits my peculiar notions of how to make films – small crews, real locations, long takes, compact filmmaking apparatus, etc. And now because it's the medium I work in, and I know how to make it work, so the process works for the film, not against it.

Have you had your film accepted for any festivals?
It premiered in the NZ Film Festival, and also played in a festival in Ghent, Belgium.

Have you had formal training/experience in television or film previously?
I made two features as a director before this, and worked on many others. What the hell is formal experience anyway? Training has been wholly in film theory, BA at Vic Uni.

Are you working on any new projects?
Of course! I’ve shot 75% of a new film on a recent trip to Wellington, have three others in different stages of preparation. Probably two of these will never be made for personal reasons.

Where do you see the future of digital filmmaking going?
I think increasingly this kind of no/low-budget DV/HD filmmaking will become more prevalent in making things for TV and Internet broadcast - less for "cinema" as we now call it. This is combined with lower attention spans and a major change in the ways we watch things, and is alarming. I hope there's always a ghetto for the kind of work I'm in interested in making.

Little Bits of Light
(2005, R16 – Contains content that may disturb, 116 minutes)
Director: Campbell Walker
Screening: 26 September 2007, 6:30pm
Where: Film Archive, 84 Taranaki Street, Taranaki Street, Wellington
Tickets: $8 ($6 concession)