Philly de Lacey: Screentime NZ CEO on their new studio in Queenstown

Queenstown's film and TV industry finally has a home. 

An old department store has been transformed into Remarkable Studios NZ – already ticking off having its first major drama project filmed there. 

It's located just five minutes from Queenstown airport and close to several hotels. 

Screentime NZ chief executive Philly de Lacey told Mike Hosking they'd been looking for a place for some time when they saw the lease became available. 

She says it was too good to let go, and after some negotiations and working out how it will run, they're open for business. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Queenstown's finally opened it's film production facility five years in
the making. Remarkable studio now open for business. It's an
alternative to what's off And I suppose an Auckland screen
Time New Zealand boss Philly de Lacy happens to be
in France at the moment, but that's not going to
stop it because we got the tech together her on
the old WhatsApp Morning Morning. I remember talking about this
when this whole thing was first mooted. Is it everything

(00:21):
you dreamed it would be?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
The studio, Yeah, I'm delighted. Oh look, we're so excited
about it. We've been looking for a studio space in
Queenstown for I've been looking for more than five years.
I know lots lots of people have been looking for
a lot longer. And we were in Queenstown starting up

(00:46):
for a Remarkable Place to Die at the beginning of
the year and an old department store came available and
we all just like, the whole team ring me and
they're like, we've got to take it. And I went,
oh my god, we've got to take it. And so
we filmed A Remarkable Place Today, which is an eight
hour series which is launching here at Mipcom at the
moment in the studio and it was just too good

(01:09):
to let go. So we've spent a bit of time
negotiating figuring out how we're going to run it, and
we're now open for business.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
So can you answer the question, if you build it,
will they come?

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, since we announced it, we've had multitudes of inquiry,
So I would say, so.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Are you eating somebody else's lunch like Awkland's.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
No, not at all. I think there is a lot
of production that will spread all over the country. It's
a small space, but it's what it does is make
production in Queenstown a lot smoother and much simpler process.
And you know, we've got absolutely spectacular locations in Queenstown
and it needs a facility to really be able to

(01:53):
make the production industry in that region boom, and you know,
and it's a great complimentary industry to so it sort
of goes hand in hand, and we really want to
build the infrastructure there.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
I was going to, do you have the people or
do you need the people? And do they need to realize.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
We've got lots of amazing people and we want to
attract more.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
It's the upshot, what's your state, because you'd be at
the cutting edge of all of this. See, the media
landscape in this country is in some dire straits at
the moment. But then again, on the international stage, you
got all the streamers making no end of product at
the moment. Are things good for people like you? Will not?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
We look, I want to touch wood a lot of
the time because we're having a great year. At the moment.
The industry in New Zealand is really tough. You know,
our broadcasters are going through a really, really difficult time
and I hope that gets rectified because I think it's
really important to protect our terrestrial broadcasters and that's actually

(02:52):
something that's been commonly said around this market. But I
think that we there's also opportunity. You know, there's shrinkage
in the market around the world, which means that people
are looking for different ways to do business, and New
Zealand's a great market to do business. We've got amazing crows,
we've got the New Zealand dollar, We've got you know,

(03:14):
equivalent rebates to everywhere else in the world, and we're
a really good, honest, you know, excellent operators. So I
think that that's what you know, that's a real strength
for us, and I think that there's there's actually real
opportunities for us to do more co productions, look at

(03:34):
different ways of doing business and eventually things will come right.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Good Philly go well in France. Philly lacing screen Time
New Zealand. For more from The mic Asking Breakfast, listen
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