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GAYLENE PRESTON Gaylene Preston Director/Writer/Producer Gaylene Preston has been making feature films and documentaries with a distinctive New Zealand flavour and a strong social message for more than 30 years. In 2001 she was the first filmmaker to be made a Laureate by the Arts Foundation, recognising her contribution to New Zealand film and television. Meeting the Market Head On: WW: Many well known companies have a story behind them – briefly tell us your story from the initial idea to your name and reputation as it is today. Since 1978 Gaylene Preston Productions has had only one purpose – to generate finance from what ever source to fund the making of my films and television programmes, and facilitate delivery of the best possible creative result to audiences on time and on budget. WW: How would you describe the defining essence of your brand? Gaylene Preston Productions is personal to my artistic voice and vision. WW: How have you differentiated your brand in a competitive market through marketing and the product you offer? By making a distinctively personal product that audiences enjoy and want to engage with. WW: What was your initial set-up capital and how long did it take for your brand to become profitable? My initial set-up capital was $2,000 and then $22,000 from international sales of my first independent film in 1979. WW: Once you became profitable, in which areas did you mainly reinvest to develop your brand? Every year GPP invests in updating a very small amount of plant – edit facilities, high resolution cameras, rent, etc., but by far the most investment is spent on developing projects, research assistance and production/publicity assistance. WW: What were some of the core values you built your name and reputation on? Telling truthful stories that make people think while being entertaining. WW: Just how are you ensuring your product and films are closely aligned to market needs? The film and television market changes very rapidly, while it takes years to develop and deliver a feature film or a television series. Therefore, I tend to develop projects that interest me, that I think are stories that need to be told. Then in the course of developing the product and attracting finance the project attracts the market to it, rather than the other way round. I suppose that is what Steve Jobs was doing on a much larger scale! WW: What are the three biggest ways that film making has changed since you began? There are far less independent distributors in the world, so far less possibilities to find partners. The cost of filmmaking has steadily increased, the audience has diversified and there is a very noisy, busy entertainment environment operating over many platforms. 16 | WHO'S WHO 2012