Hawke’s Bay student filmmaker Rosie Reid finishes her Video and Electronic Media course at EIT this week and is packing her bags for Wellington. And it’s all thanks to a newspaper report on Rosie spotted by Weta Workshop’s Sir Richard Taylor.
A photo of Rosie with a model of a Dutch village she made for her EIT short film project appeared with a newspaper article in June and caught Sir Richard’s eye. He contacted Rosie and offered her an internship at WETA starting on November 28th. It’s a dream result for Rosie who was inspired to take up a film career by a visit in 2004 to the Te Papa Lord of the Rings exhibition.
Rosie’s short film, which she scripted, made the props and models for, directed and edited, screened at Reading Cinema last week. Titled Dorps Held (Dutch for Village Hero), her film is about a young boy who is saved from punishment at the hands of a Nazi soldier by the actions of a quick thinking bystander.
Rosie found that post-earthquake Napier has very few of the brick buildings needed to recreate World War II Holland, “I wanted it to look authentic, so I thought of Minus Tirith and Helms Deep and I thought, why not? Making a model Dutch townscape is a low-budget solution to what I want to do.” Her design tutor Jonathan Rogers worked in the Art Department on The Frighteners, Lord of the Rings and King Kong so he was able to help her with her ambitious project.
Rosie also called on the help of her ex-drama teacher from Woodford House English HOD Matt Brebner to play the lead role in her short film, “I couldn’t have done it without him. He does a fantastic job playing the role of Hans Burkhard, the Nazi officer.”
Rosie is sad to be waving goodbye to EIT and says she loved every minute of her course. “I got to use all the equipment from day one and had some really valuable work experiences. “ This year she got to be an extra on cult TV series Power Rangers: Samurai during a field trip to Auckland and she was a runner for the first episode of TV3’s new series of The Jonno Project, which was filmed at the old Napier Prison. But now it’s time to pack her bags for “Wellywood”.
The internship at Weta is for two weeks and Rosie has her fingers crossed it will lead to employment, but for now she is thrilled to have the opportunity to work alongside her industry heroes. “It is wicked!”