Helping to get more rangatahi Māori interested in animation and design industries, the first class from the Māoriland MATCH programme are set to graduate today. The Māoriland film festival is run every year out of Ōtaki, a small town on the Kāpiti Coast. The five-day event hosts a number of Indigenous storytellers every year, with … Read more
The 48-hour film festival is back, self-isolation style. While the judging panel is deciding the winners, The Spinoff is showcasing seven films from the competition. We’re sharing one a day in the lead up to the one-hour awards special, airing on TVNZ2. Today, Ice Cold Killer from team Proto Primate. It is a still and … Read more
Posting your art online is a no-brainer: it’s a gallery and marketing all in one. It’s also a cesspit of digital thieves. Josie Adams spoke to three artists about theft online. Ardie Savea has just changed his Twitter profile picture to a drawing by Toby Morris. Morris is stoked the rugby player likes his work, … Read more
Aroha Bridge writer and director Coco Solid talks about the new characters on the show, the ‘psychic vat of reality’ that birthed them, and her Ihumātao call-out of PM Jacinda Ardern. In season two of locally made cartoon series Aroha Bridge, 10-year old wunderkind pop star Angeline announces on television: “I’m Māori so obviously I … Read more
Sam Rutledge dives into Arthur, the 90s animated classic making headlines for a recent gay rat wedding, because of course it is. Remember that absolutely delightful kids TV show Arthur? Chances are, if you’ve spent any time on the internet in recent weeks, you have. The 90s classic has jumped back into the cultural conversation due to … Read more
Last week an Auckland cinema hosted a six-hour Shrek marathon. In a show of classic Kiwi stoicism, Josie Adams found that what didn’t kill her made her stronger. At the end of the first Shrek film, our hero turns to his loyal friend and noble steed, Donkey. “Donkey, can you ever forgive me?” From the … Read more
Family Guy has been on our airwaves for a slightly interrupted nineteen years, and it’s been critically reviled for almost as long. Sam Brooks has seen all of it and thinks it’s time he stood up for the perennial punching bag. There have been three hundred and nine episodes of Family Guy and I have seen every … Read more
Nearly 30 years ago The Animals of Farthing Wood debuted – and promptly traumatised a generation of children with its cavalcade of animal slaughter. Picture it: an idyllic wood, teeming with all sorts of delightful creatures big and small, feathered and furred. Thick with green leaf and underbrush. Perhaps there’s the sound of a gentle … Read more
International co-production Nori: Roller Coaster Boy is one of two new Lightbox Originals, representing the TV service’s first foray into original programming. Alex Casey talked to the NZ creatives behind it. Nestled in the shadow of Peter Jackson’s enormous Park Road Post studio in Miramar is POW studios, a small sound production company in quiet … Read more
Liam Maguren talks to the Mukpuddy team about the return of The Barefoot Bandits, Māori MacGyver in space and getting adults excited about cartoons again. Ryan Cooper, Tim Evans and Alex Leighton are a triforce that take the form of New Zealand animation studio Mukpuddy. I burned my shoes for them when I celebrated their … Read more
Coco Solid reflects on the state of adult animation and representation in New Zealand, and reveals the inspirations and motivations behind her own animated web series Aroha Bridge. Friends hate picking movies with me because they know my preferences. I’m one of those ageless hams who love cartoons, generally any type. I watch them all the … Read more