Director & Editor Jack Woon: How I Got Started in the Industry

I made my first film when I was about 8. I hijacked my dad’s chonky Hi-8 home video camera, hit record, stopped, then hit record again. I could make people vanish!

In my first year of high school, I made a Star Wars parody about the ozone hole for a social studies project. The ozone molecules did a trench run and blew up the chlorine Death Star and the universe rejoiced. My teacher screened it in the school’s little theatre where I got a standing ovation. 25 years later, I’m still idiotically chasing that rush.

My addiction followed me to university where I formed a film club with the dream of making a feature film. After about a year and a half of begging people for favours (what I believed the role of a director truly was), abusing student loan funds for late-night shoots in between lectures, and editing in my bedroom, we put up posters and sold tickets like drug dealers around campus. (Incidentally, one foolish stranger who handed me cash on the street was Hweiling from a few blog posts earlier). We managed two full houses at the Academy Cinema.

Rocking the Aaton Super 16mm camera for the short film ‘Venture’ / Photo: Supplied

That cheesy Bollywood-inspired musical rom-com was the turning point for me. Word got out that this kid could finish what he started. I met some of my dearest friends and mentors because of that reputation. One of them was Steven Chow, who gave me my first paid gig, assisting him on Kōrero Mai. Not long after that, my name got put forward for an Online Editor job. I didn’t tell anyone that I’d never worked as an Offline Editor before. It turned out just fine – I had already suffered through years of Avid clunkiness and had even begun to love it.

Left: Timeline for NHNZ doco, Right: Jack’s Edit Suit at NHNZ / Photos: Supplied

After each gig, I faced unemployment and contemplated changing careers. But at the last moment, there would be a call or email, buying a lifeline of another few weeks or months. I’m constantly amazed that I’m still even in this industry.

I went from editing at TVNZ on FRESH, to NHNZ Dunedin where I worked not only as an editor but also writing and directing factual programmes at an international scale. I had stints in China and India, as well as time in Samoa with my ‘film family,’ Stallone and Abba-Rose Vaiaoga-Ioasa. As their editor and camera assist on Three Wise Cousins and Take Home Pay, I got a front-row view of how they make feature films #forthepeople. Covid hit and I directed live streams for Tourism New Zealand’s Chinese market, directed/edited TVNZ food show Sik Fan Lah! and became a drone pilot. That lifeline continues even now, as I start my next job editing season 7 of Ahikāroa.

Shooting ‘Sik Fan Lah!’ (Left: rugged shoot in Wellington, Right: shooting Sam Low’s meal) / Photos: Supplied

Yes, I edit – it’s how I get fed. But I never saw myself as an editor. I also love writing and directing – it’s just hard to make a living that way. Good editors are forever in demand (we fix things), while directors just cause problems (half joking). The latest problem I’ve caused is an NZFC kung fu short film, Let’s Settle This!, which may just top my Ozone Depletion Trilogy. I can’t wait to share it with you all.

I reckon this blog should be called ‘How I’m Always Starting In This Industry.’ Everyday feels like step one, not knowing if there will be a step two, but at least I’m buff as because of all the treading water I’ve been doing. But I guess if I look back, there are plenty of mountains that I’ve crossed.

If there’s something to take away from my rambling journey, it’s that starting is the easiest part. What’s hard is finishing.

About Jack Woon

Jack Woon is a Kiwi-Malaysian filmmaker with two decades of experience in escaping boxes and labels. He enjoys practising his diverse skills as a director, writer, editor, cinematographer, drone pilot, engineer and coffee maker – anything to do with sharing his love for unique visual stories. As a cross-cultural nerd, he has worked on Samoan comedy feature films (Three Wise Cousins, Take Home Pay), Kiwi shows (Teine Sā: The Ancient Ones, SIS, Ahikaroa) and directed factual TV in China and India for National Geographic, Discovery and Tencent Video. He wrote, directed and edited Sik Fan Lah!, a Chinese food series, which rated in the top 10 of locally funded shows. He has put his love for food and kung fu together into an NZFC short film, Let’s Settle This!, now beginning its festival run.

 

How I Got Started in the Industry is a guest blog series from the Directors and Editors Guild of Aotearoa New Zealand (DEGANZ). Our members reflect on how they made their way into assistant editing, editing, and directing—with no two stories the same. They offer advice for those starting out. Get in touch with admin@deganz.co.nz if you’re a member and would like to share your story.

 

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Theatrical Ain’t Dead for Local Films

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The success of director Miki Magasiva’s Tinā in theatres brings into focus theatrical exhibition at a very relevant time with the Ministry Of Culture and Heritage’s Media Reform Discussion document out for feedback.

Tinā ranked the third-biggest opening week for a New Zealand film, behind Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Sione’s 2: Unfinished Business.

In only its second week of release, last weekend’s attendances saw Tinā’s total take increase to $1,992,389 at the NZ Box office, pushing it into the top 10 films in NZ of all time.

At a time when streamers, digital convergence and a high cost of living are supposedly ringing the death knell of theatrical, it’s clear that Kiwis will still turn out to theatres for a film that resonates.

And it’s not just in New Zealand.

Reported in screendollars.com, “the popularity of movie going in China fueled a US $3.8 billion global box office take for February 2025. This made February the second highest grossing of the decade to date, only falling behind July 2023 when the ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon drove receipts. What’s more, it also meant that Global results topped the pre-pandemic three-year average (2017-2019) by 7%.” And it’s Chinese films that often drive the box office there. Read the full article here.

In France, where film is seen as a key component of French culture, Le Monde reports that The French industry recorded a million more cinema-goers in 2024 compared to the year before and is back to the same level of revenues as the pre-Covid era, setting it apart from its peers, industry figures show. The French being French, they ensure through government policies, various incentives, taxes and fees that French film production and distribution is well funded, and that French audiences get to see films at reasonable prices. Read more here.

While other European countries aren’t faring quite as well as France, The European Audiovisual Observatory told us at the end of last year “that cinema attendance in 2024 was down 2% over 2023, and that it appears to have settled at around 24% below pre-pandemic levels (2017–2019), suggesting that the post-pandemic rebound has run its course and that the market may have reached a new equilibrium.” Read here.

Back home in New Zealand, we can see similar indicators from box office numbers thanks to Box Office Mojo, with a decrease in receipts in 2024 from 2023 at a higher 10%, and a drop of around 28% from pre-pandemic levels in that 2017 – 2019 period. Whether or not we are reaching a new equilibrium or not here is unclear, at least to me.

New Zealand Yearly Box Office

Data as of Mar 11, 19:47 PDT

YearTotal Gross%± LY
2025$13,488,156–
2024$87,786,884-10.4%
2023$98,018,580+9.8%
2022$89,227,396+37.5%
2021$64,881,995+0.4%
2020$64,631,961-47.6%
2019$123,284,717+6.7%
2018$115,590,406-7.4%
2017$124,828,159-12.6%
2016$142,847,305+11.3%
2015$128,323,590-9.1%

Source: Box Office Mojo

 

Our domestic film ecosystem is far more fragile and far less supported than in Europe, which is why it’s so important for Kiwis to keep turning out for New Zealand films, as encouraged to in this RNZ article here.

But that isn’t to say that every Kiwi film has to be a box office smash to be a good film. More importantly, it has to find its audience, both domestically and internationally, whether that audience be niche or broad.

In the meantime, let’s celebrate the success we are having. Congrats, Miki and team!

 

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

 

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It’s A Wonderful New World

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As we sit and contemplate if we should reform our funding bodies, how to rewrite their governing legislations, and look to squeeze funding out of the recalcitrant studios and streamers, the wonderful new world we work in moves on.

Streamers are now becoming digital TV stations, with a number scheduling their programming (the next episode drops on this day at this time). Read here.

They are also moving more mainstream in their content while offering a broad range from sports, reality, documentary and drama to feature films.

And advertising. But you have to pay for the ads on the streamers now, not get them for nix like you do with free-to-air broadcasters and their digital platforms.

Some streamers are seeing the value in theatrical windows for films—even Netflix—who is more and more caving in to auteur filmmaker demands. Read here.

Meanwhile, the US broadcasters at least are finding audiences and revenues in licensing their content to digital platforms, breathing new life into their aged operations. Read here.

While the ground under our screen feet feels increasingly shaky because of what’s going on internationally, I’ve sat in three Ministry of Culture and Heritage sessions so far related to the NZ Media Reform Discussion document, and I’ve got two more to go.

These meetings have essentially confirmed the view I’ve held for some time now: New Zealand is essentially ten years too late in adapting to what is happening in the global screen industry.

Peak TV, which started with Netflix’s House of Cards in 2013 and according to most pundits well and truly ended in 2023, is something New Zealand has completely missed the boat on creatively. Except for providing crews to international outfits coming here to make it with Peak TV money.

Change now is rapid, constant, and often catches us by surprise. Take AI.

Not much more than a year ago, many of us in the screen industry were wondering what the fuss was about.

Now we have jobs threatened and impacted, while Donald Trump and his cohort of tech billionaires are doing their utmost to ensure the US dominates the AI world. Chinese company DeepSeek out of nowhere may have upset that applecart.

IP is being scraped for AI use with scant regard for the creatives who laboured long and hard to develop it. The 82 year-old Sir Paul McCartney is just one of many Brits who are opposing proposed amendments to copyright legislation that would allow UK companies the right to scrape IP more easily in an effort for the British to keep up. Read here.

Our government has gone hands-off on legislation on how to deal with AI. Is hands-off now the new hands-on? The acting PM sitting next to me in the lounge this morning certainly thinks so.

While there are some elements of the Media Reform that will be useful in times ahead, the analyses conducted to determine the content in the document are already aging, some a touch inaccurate in my view, and by the time reform comes into play, the playing field will likely have changed again.

The nursery rhyme lines “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick…” couldn’t be more applicable for us all right now as we continue to navigate the fraught times ahead.

Isn’t it ironic that the “Jack” refers to Black Jack Smatt, an infamous English pirate who operated in the Caribbean, and who was more recently portrayed by Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow.

 

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

 

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Shake Up

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On Wednesday, the Ministry of Culture and Heritage issued the Media Reform Discussion Document.

This is the biggest shakeup to affect our sector next to that of the advent of international streamers, which has forever changed the global screen industry.

The changes proposed are significant. Many are long overdue.

Simply put, the proposed reform is due to:

  • The Broadcasting Act and New Zealand Film Commission Act being out of date.
  • The wider New Zealand media landscape—print, online and screen—is suffering because local advertising is being hoovered up by global platforms that do not pay tax in New Zealand.
  • The advent of streamers and online platforms has fractured New Zealand audience viewing habits, with more and more eyeballs going to content made internationally.
  • We are now part of a globally competitive content market and our shows in large part suffer from a lack of quality due to the lack of funding available firstly for development, and then for production.

The reforms proposed are:

  1. Ensuring accessibility of local media platforms: Require TV manufacturers to ensure local media services are prominent and visible on devices such as smart TVs so they can be easily found by audiences (Page 11).
  2. Increasing investment into and discoverability of local content: Require streaming platforms and TV broadcasters to invest in local content and implement measures to ensure it is more ‘discoverable’ on their platforms, supporting the production of and engagement with New Zealand stories (Page 15).
  3. Increasing captioning and audio description: Require more captioning and audio description on content that is broadcast or streamed to ensure access for disabled New Zealanders (Page 19).
  4. Modernising professional media regulation: Revise the broadcasting standards regime (including the Broadcasting Standards Authority) with platform-neutral and system-level regulation of professional media (Page 22).
  5. Streamlining Crown content funders: Consolidate NZ On Air and the Film Commission into a single entity, supporting efficient administration of government funding for local content and industry development

If you review the industry’s Aotearoa New Zealand Screen Sector Strategy delivered to the then Labour Government in 2020, you can see that many of the items up for discussion—and more—were mooted for examination. Read here.

Perhaps most contentious in the proposed reforms is the establishment of a single entity to replace NZ On Air and NZFC. There are advocates for and against this.

The merging of TV and film into screen content brought about by the streamers is highlighted in the document as one of the reasons a single entity should be considered. Another, is undoubtedly the current government’s sometimes misguided drive for greater efficiency and productivity, with the reasoning being one entity could do the work more efficiently and cost-effectively than two.

As our screen world continues to be affected by the constant change happening to it, which includes that being wrought by AI, it’s important that we do our best to influence how it will be governed.

I encourage you to read the Media Reform Discussion Document and to provide feedback on it as outlined by the deadline of 23 March 2025.

As part of our response, we will shortly conduct a survey to ascertain your thoughts on the proposal for a single funding body entity to replace NZ On Air and NZFC. Please take the time to do this.

 

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

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Here We Go

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We’ve got Trump in the White House again and billionaires running that country, LA’s still burning, and the war in Ukraine ongoing, while a tenuous ceasefire has been reached in Gaza.

On the domestic front, The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill is an expensive problem on the select committees’ agenda. It shouldn’t be there.

Christopher Luxon has reshuffled his cabinet to deal with our continuing economic problems, with the biggest loser Melissa Lee, former journalist and producer, resigned to the backbenches… for now.

The NZ broadcasting and wider media industry woes are likely to continue. Next on the block is the NZ Herald, Business Desk and Newstalk ZB. Read here. TVNZ still feels like a walking disaster, while at Warner Bros. Discovery the reality seems far more scripted than factual.

The Government has “put on hold” the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, citing developing events in Australia as a helpful determiner for a new way forward. Read here. More likely, they caved to the pressure from Google.

The Screen Production and Development Association (SPADA) is still declining to register for collective bargaining under the Screen Industry Workers Act (SIWA), even after a year of active effort from some guilds including us to encourage them to do so.

At the end of last year, DEGANZ made a submission on the Ministry of Culture and Heritage’s draft strategy Amplify. Read here. Our view is that without additional ongoing investment, the government’s aims aren’t achievable. One of those aims is to raise New Zealand’s position to be in the top 25 countries globally for culture and heritage soft power.

Over in the UK, Keir Starmer’s Labour Government has recognised that soft power is a hugely important driver of UK economic growth and security, which deepens their relationships, builds alliances and enhances their global influence. They have established a Soft Power Council and delivered a £60 million investment package to kick-start things. Read here. A Kiwi in the UK messaged me after I reposted the Variety article on Facebook, saying that many there consider the investment a pittance. But look at what just $50 million in Premium Fund funding did for NZ.

In our screen industry, for crew at least, there does seem to be a flow of international productions coming to our shores up to the middle of the year, and some domestic production, albeit much more modestly funded. But for above-the-line, things will continue to be tough, which is why we so desperately need additional funding.

It’s harder than ever to attract international investment into NZ production, including with international streamers who see us as too small a market to put production funding into. We don’t have enough philanthropists to go around, and private equity returns and tax advantages aren’t attractive enough for investors. Without the government stumping up with some solutions, the multi-million dollar question is: Where is additional funding going to come from? If you’ve got an answer to that dilemma, then this year could be rosier for us all.

There’s some light seeping through at the end of the tunnel, though.

I believe most New Zealanders understand that we have a tough 2025 ahead across all sectors. Inflation though is down, interest rates are coming down, and cost of living increases should slow.

The New Zealand Film Commission after four years of instability, which saw three CEOs and three chairs in that period, is finally righting itself. A significant restructure under current CEO Annie Murray sees a new approach and fresh blood on the smaller team, with new guidelines for development funding due in February. The NZFC Terms of Trade are under review and there will be changes there as well.

DEGANZ has been very vocal for change at NZFC across those four years, engaging with management and the board. I thank the current board and leadership team for the recent opportunities to be heard. They have listened. There’s a feeling of optimism in the screen industry air about the film commish that I haven’t experienced for quite some considerable period of time, even though funding is very tight.

A refreshed board at DEGANZ with an editor president in Ben Powdrell—the first since Peter Roberts stepped down in 2016—will drive us into the year ahead, facing the challenges and maximising the opportunities to come.

Welcome to 2025!

 

Tui Ruwhiu
Executive Director

 

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