Getting into the movies is easy — if you get

behind the camera. Richard Williams tells Briony

Bennett, 18, how he did it:

Do you want to do more than just watch movies? Do you

aspire to be the next Peter Jackson? Richard Williams, a 2007 graduate of

South Seas Film and Television School in Glenfield, Auckland, certainly did.

After admitting to “a childhood of chucking toy cars down staircases with

increasingly battered video cameras tied to them”, Richard got serious and found

a career. Richard wanted to get the most out of school, but didn’t want to spend

years afterwards at university. When his seventh form year at Glenfield College

ended, something steered him towards South Seas. He says: “I’ve always

wanted to work in television and movies ... however, I saw it as an industry that

was really hard to break into.” He thought filming his friends doing

“I just liked making people laugh,” he says. But it turns out that New Zealand’s

film industry was looking for exactly this kind of talent.

Within a year of leaving high school Richard had job interviews at Prime

and SkyTV, which came as a surprise to him. However, there is room and money

for fresh film-school graduates in this growing business.

Richard took the advice of a few friends and his high school’s careers

office and earned himself a Diploma in Film and Television specialising in

post-production. Today he works at Lumia Active, an Auckland production

company, as a full-time editor. The company makes a lot of promotional

videos, dance videos and advertisements.

Some of Richard’s friends have jobs directing New Zealand children’s

What does he do all day?

“Well”, he says, “it can vary.” Sometimes he will sit at a computer

stringing together sequences, editing scenes and adding effects. “It’s a very

creative process and as the company is still quite small it includes a wide

range of tasks.” Other times he’s out in the field operating a second camera

or working on audio. There’s a lot of freedom in the job, creatively and

time-wise. His hours are apparently super-flexible, as long as he fulfils

his 40-hour week quota — and meets those deadlines. In a sense, Richard

says, he feels like an apprentice, because he’s working one-on-one with

very experienced people every day, learning as he goes.

Has he worked with anyone famous? Well, anyone in New

Zealand television has assisted in airing Shortland Street, but Richard

has also met Suzie Cato and Damian  McDonnell, assistant editor on films

such as King Kong, 10,000BC and TheTattooist, among others, and he has

managed to get his paws on an esteemed Academy Award. I just hope he didn’t

leave it smudged with fingerprints! It all happened so fast. Richard had a goal

to be working full time before he turned 20 and is now doing so, with recognised

qualifications under his belt. So what’s next? He’s already asked himself. He

might start putting some money away for a house, or perhaps start his own

company one day. Although this is way off in the future. There are lots of paths

Richard could take to advance his skills and career, but right now... he’s

pretty stoked to be doing what he’s doing!