The Gathering documentary 97/98
Oct 25th, 2007 by AliG
Woohoo! and yaay! I put The Gathering documentary 97/98 online over the long weekend! Just as well it was the “long” weekend – it took nearly 2 days to upload! Crikey!
I’ve put it on Google video, because it’s nearly 50 minutes long, and it wouldn’t fit on YouTube.
And if you want to view it at a larger screen resolution – go here to Google video.
The 97/98 doco was the first one we made about The Gathering – here’s the story…
Two weeks before the start of The Gathering 97/98, I thought it might be cool to make a documentary. It must have been karma, because a few days later I bumped into my old friend Kylie Plunkett (who was working at TV3 at the time). Kylie took the idea and ran with it – and made it happen. She was amazing actually – she spent so many hours of her own time editing it after the event. The documentary cost us under $1,000 to make.
We put together a team of friends who worked in TV and film, and persuaded Rocket Rentals to lend us a Beta SP camera for 2 weeks – for free. How craazy is that! Thanks a million, RR!
Our film crew of Kylie, Zef Fugaz and Weston Owen worked pretty much non-stop before, during and after the event to create a record of TheG 97/98. They recorded behind-the-scenes views of the setup and running of the party; the wild and crazy days and nights of the party itself; interviews with the crew, and you – the party animals; and interviews with “grown-ups” like the Mayor of Tasman District and the local police.
The 19 hours of raw footage was then edited down to 38 minutes by Kylie (first edit) and Nick Murray (final edit) and Katie Wood mixed the awesome soundtrack. Kog Transmissions in Auckland got together a bunch of NZ electronica artists involved with The Gathering and they produced a double CD of original tracks for us to use. Some of the tracks had been released on NZ CDs already, and others were previously unreleased and were created especially for the film.
The documentary premiered at the Wellington Short Film Fringe Festival the following July, to a packed house – the first in the Festival’s history – the compere got us all doing a Mexican wave to celebrate. Woohoo!
After the premiere Gatherers across the country wanted to see the movie. I organised an independent tour, and the documentary played to packed houses in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Nelson (as part of the Nelson Cultural Tourism Symposium). I spoke at each screening, covering all aspects of the movie and of The Gathering itself. It was a very effective communication tool – and great to get such positive feedback!
The extended version of the movie was completed a few months later. It’s about 50 minutes long and includes the documentary itself, plus extra bits that we wanted to include but which had to be cut as we tried to get the movie down to half an hour, out-takes and funny sections of interviews, and more partying footage.
The raw footage, master tapes and copies of the documentary and the extended version now reside at the Film Archive, and the documentary is now part of the New Zealand National Collection.
I hope you like it!
Alison . Thanks so much for putting this up!
Thanks to Kylie and all the film crew. I know they worked really hard under some fairly trying circumstances to make the documentary happen.
It’s nice to be reminded of the energy that was around during the early Gathering years. There was such a strong sense of optimism and life in the dance scene.
Thanks for all your hard work Alison and helping to keep the story alive. You keep reminding me of all the amazing things that happened and all the amazing people that came togeather to make the Gathering events so unique.
I am so proud to have been involved with the gathering and have it end up on film as a slice of our collective history.
.simon
Brilliant! I loved The G, the crew and even the multiple emails from the G List!
.. and the trees .. these trees are wicked!
Good times!
nice work, The days of the Gathering were highly inspiring for me
Awesome – the gathering was a huge tangent in my life – without which I can’t see how I would be the person I am today.
The doco really captures the essence of the event which to put it simply was ’special’.
woohoo- ive been searching for this doco for the past few years, so good to now have the reference available.
The Gathering was and will always be a very ’special’ memory for me and many people i know.
thank you for setting up this site and of course for your work on the initial party’s.
also the doco holds a very good insight into the musical sound of that time which i consider to be of ‘very unique flavour’.
peace out…
Thankyou so much for the doco and getting the website up! The Gathering helped many peoples lives, including mine.
the dreams are still coming true….
thanks
xm
Alison you rock good job! Thoroughly enjoyed watching it and many stories emerged while we were watching it, about Tane’s time there in 2000!
What a trip to see Murray, and you on it 10y ago!
Thats just Gold.
Got me all shivery tingles with memories.
Big ups from the video posting/site Alison.
Fucking awesome, for me these were the golden years and a big reason i became a dj, big ups for the trip down memory lane!!!! It doesn’t feel like 10 years ago hahaha
@Simon Kong – my lovely .si – I’m so, so grateful for your support with this project – it means an awful lot to me. Thank you.
Yeah, Kylie and the film crew did an AMAZING job – I still look at it in amazement and wonder how it was they managed to be in so many places at once and how they managed to capture such seminal moments – from the speeded-up raising of the tents, to dawn (and the stilt birds) at the Star Gate. How they managed to be in the Trance DJ box at midnight, and in a primo position for Salmonella Dub… and how they also managed to find time to do all the Nelson and “grown-ups” footage too. Just fantastic.
@miss_spiked – now that reminds me – maybe I should do one last post to the old G mailing list, just to let people know when the site goes live. I wonder how many addresses would still be working after all this time…
And the trees! That’s one of my favourite bits of the doco – the guy in the blue patterned shirt (I’m sure I know him actually, but his name escapes me for the present) who’s still dancing, long after the music is over. Now that’s a gatherer!
@ddog – well thank you kind sir! Considering all the massive things you’ve done for the dance scene over the years, that’s a pretty big compliment.
@Andrew – wow that’s pretty cool that TheG was such a huge tangent in your life – but then, like ddog, you’ve also done a huge amount within the NZ dance scene – so maybe we should be thanking you!
@willy – you are very welcome! The Gathering was such a huge part of my life and something that I’m so proud to have been a part of – it seemed like the right thing to do, to create a place where we could remember how fabulous it was, and where we could celebrate its awesomeness
@Tom – another influential dance scene dude! Thanks heaps Tom! I don’t exactly know what it was about TheG that was so special and so influential – I mean, I know it was – but sometimes I find it hard to put my finger on exactly why or how. Maybe it was simply the magic…
@Matthew – ah my lovely Matthew – the reason (along with misda nil) why I’m going up the hill for New Year again this year… And yes, you are right – the dreams are still coning true. We can achieve anything if we want it badly enough and are willing to work to make it happen…
@Peti – heehee – so glad you finally got to watch it! I’ll be coming after Tane very soon to get him to write some of those memories down so we can put them in the “Your stories” section of the site. 10 years! I know! Seems like only yesterday…
@Jim Morrison – oh my God! You’re still alive! Love your music, dude… All joking aside though (great name btw), thanks so much for your lovely comment. How totally excellent to produce shivery tingles!
@Sticky Fingaz – they were the golden years, eh? Pretty special time for all of us. Wow it’s pretty cool to hear that TheG was a major reason why you became a dj. That’s huge! Nice MySpace page, btw. I’m listening to it in the background as I write this…