Now is the time to cast a vote for the "Wellywood" sign. Cast your vote here. The vote closes on Friday, November 18 and the winner will be announced on Monday, November 21.
The sign will be located at the entrance to the Miramar suburb. Elsewhere in Miramar you will find Park Road Post Production facilities, the Stone Street Studios, the Weta Workshop, Weta Digital, the Weta Cave, the Roxy Cinema, and huge number of other film industry companies.
There's been a lot of local debate for and against the sign. Personally, I'm totally in favour of it.
The Wellywood sign would be perfect - it yells "film industry", which none of the other options do. That was the whole point of the sign in the first place. Currently, if you are a visitor to Wellington, there is nothing to photograph as an iconic "Wellington film industry souvenir" photo. Paris has its Eiffel Tower, Sydney has the Opera House, New York has the Statue of Liberty. And of course, Hollywood has its sign as well. Our little town isn't important enough for a tower, but a simple sign on the hill would be perfect.
Some of the early options included a giant Weta (a NZ insect), or the phrase "Middle-earth". All cool signs, I'm sure - but Wellywood is more than the Weta Workshop, and certainly more than the Middle-earth films. Even in Wellington, there are lots of people who don't realise the Weta Workshop has been involved in more than 120 movies since the LOTR trilogy; including such huge franchises as Narnia, and the X-Men movies, and of course Oscar nominees Avatar and District 9, and more recently the new Spielberg/Jackson production of Tintin.
The two other options - the Taniwha (a sea-monster from Maori mythology), and the wind-blown Wellington sign - are interesting choices, but neither say anything about Wellington's huge achievemnents in the world's film industry.
"Wellywood" celebrates it in one iconic and easy to recognise sign. Vote now, and lets get this going viral among Wellington's many fans outside the country! Please repost this message elsewhere too!
Again, you can cast your vote here.
- Jack Machiela, from the NZ Noldor blog
PS - in case this is reposted and the hyperlink is lost - the voting link goes to http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellywood-or-what/wellywood-poll/5927480/Vote-now-The-final-Wellywood-vote
OK, I voted for the Wellywood sign. It's got to be better than the current beware-of-the-poisoned-possum-bait signs. Or are those gone since I last visited?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the vote, Kristin! :)
ReplyDeleteAnd no, the "possum killing in progress" signs will remain as long as there are possums in NZ... it's not the signs that bother us here - it's the imported tree-killing possum pests...
- Jack M.
The Wellywood sign looks tacky. With the creativity in that little bit of land, I would have hoped for better.
ReplyDeleteEverybody hoped for better, nobody came up with better. This is it, Sharron. There was plenty of time, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteThere's going to be a sign, no matter what. Let's make the most of this one and get behind it.
The problem is also that the Film Industry doesn't blow its own trumpet particularly well. We should do that for them, I think.