Giant paddlecrabs to star in movie filmed in Golden Bay
The cast and crew of Crab Island on location at Tata Beach last week. Photo: Marg Braggins.
Tata Beach became a film set earlier this month.
Independent film-maker Michael Tandecki and his cast and crew were shooting Crab Island at Tata, Pohara and Wharariki beaches.
Tandecki describes his film as “a fun beach movie with great big crabs killing people”.
“It’s been three years in the planning,” he said, “and is a New Zealand story about a bunch of Kiwis off on holiday at a Kiwi beach. It’s not trying to be anything it’s not. The movie will be partly stop-animation, so there’s an awful lot of hard work involved.”
Elliot Travers is the first assistant director of Crab Island. He says that now is a very good time for New Zealand film, with the recognition New Zealand film-makers are getting via the Oscars and through film festivals.
“Independent work often gets shown on the university circuit through independent film collectives that show only local films. In the US there are quite a few indie festivals too. Michael is hoping to get Crab Island to the Slamdance Festival in Utah.”
The cast and crew said that they had enjoyed being on location in Golden Bay for 10 days, especially at Wharariki.
The movie will take the rest of the year at least to complete because the stop-animation process is so painstaking.
Asked whether a world premiere in Takaka’s Village Theatre was a possibility, Tandecki was very keen.
“We’ve admired the theatre and its excellent mural. It would be great if we could premiere Crab Island here. If we did, maybe the artist would be able to add one of our giant crabs to a corner of the mural.”
Neil Wilson
