As you’ve no doubt already seen, read or heard about, the results for the first ever Flicks New Zealand Cinema Census are in. Or should that be out? Whatever. They’re now online and you can read the findings here, read all about the findings here or just continue reading this to find out how we came to find out the findings in the first place.
Yes, today CritiKarl Mass goes behind the scenes of New Zealand’s first ever New Zealand Cinema Census to reveal the tangled web of intrigue, egos and lies that made it all happen. And, if space permits, I might even talk about how some of the other people involved acted as well.
It was no score and two or three months ago – a rainy day as I recall, though it may in fact have been swelteringly hot – when Ed Flicks (Ed) came to Andrew Flicks (Andrew) and I myself, Karl Flicks (Karl), to talk about an idea that I myself, Karl, had had earlier, then told him all about, then convinced him was a brilliant idea and then had promptly forgotten all about. The terriblest part was that I had forgotten not only the idea but also the telling and convincing him parts as well.
This did not surprise me as the toll of my heavy drinking, much drug taking and meat filled vegetarian diet make me regularly forget my own brilliance. Fortunately I am blessed with amazing recall and often remember my forgotten own brilliance when reminded of it by others or, more frequently, reminded of it by myself.
What was surprising to me now however, was Ed’s greedy and selfish credit claiming of my idea. There was no two ways about it; I was surprised.
“That’s surprising,” I said surprisedly to Ed after he finished regurgitating my brilliant idea for New Zealand’s first ever New Zealand Cinema Census back at me.
“What is?” Ed replied, feigning surprise of his own.
Unsurprisingly I did not find his feigned surprise surprising in the least. He’s a wily bugger is Ed, and is most definitely one cucumber who knows how to play it cool. He is not to be trusted with either ideas or money as he will claim an abundance of the former and a distinct lack of the latter when I know for a fact the opposite to be true. That is why whenever he asks for ideas I present him with an invoice and whenever he asks to split a lunch bill I always have the good idea to decline his request.
“It is surprising to me that you would greedily and selfishly try to take credit for my idea by claiming it as your own idea,” I clarified to Ed, clairfyingly.
“Actually, me and Ant Timpson came up with the idea over a bowl of pate and some Snax yesterday,” he replied, arching his brow in an annoying fashion as he straightened his annoying bow tie that clashed horribly with his annoying shirt.
“Who the hell is ‘Ant Timpson’? Your invisible little friend?” I retorted, stifling a snigger and doing those little finger quotation things around the name that Ed had obviously just made up on the spot. “Don’t insult me with the made up names of your made up friends,” I said looking down at him from my vantage point standing on the sturdy foundations of the high ground.
“Um, yeah. Ant is pretty well known. He’s the guy behind the V48 Hours Film Festival and The Incredibly Strange Film Festi…” Ed feebly tried to reply, but I would not hear a word more of his fabrications.
“ENOUGH!” I barked, interrupting the molasses of untruths spilling out of the upturned open can of Ed’s mouth. “Andrew, were you or were you not present when I had this idea?”
But Andrew was no longer present. As usual he had nipped downstairs while Ed and I were engaged in this Mexican stand-off over idea ownership. Nipped off to get high or drunk or some unholy alliance of the two no doubt, therefore allowing Ed to waltz on in here and claim credit for my idea unopposed.
Curse him, I said silently to myself in my head wishing that it had been me that had had the good thought to furtively sneak out of the office instead of choosing to stand and fight an unwinnable fight against a tyrant’s tyranny. But the fact of the matter was I hadn’t thought to go and do that and now I was stuck at the boardroom table in Flicks HQ with that slavedriver Ed, discussing the finer machinations of how New Zealand’s first ever New Zealand Cinema Census would work.
- Murder in the boardroom? I like to think I would have gotten away with it.
If only, I thought to myself, if only I myself hadn’t had such a good idea… and then if only I myself hadn’t done such a convincing job of convincing Ed what a good idea it was… if only I myself hadn’t done all that I myself had done then I myself wouldn’t be here now, sitting at this boardroom table alone with that braggart Ed while that miscreant Andrew sneaked off to act in what would undoubtedly be a miscreantily fashion.
But I myself only had I myself’s self to blame. The truth of the matter is that I myself had done all those things and now I was well and truly in a hole dug by my own genius.
Well, I thought, let’s not make things worse.
“Ed,” I said to Ed. “let’s not make things worse. That was a good idea you and ‘Ant’ had, and I am behind it every step of the way.”
Like all crooks Ed comes from a sports background, so in an attempt to calm the troubled waters raging underneath the Flicks bridge I employed the vernacular of his sports background.
“Let’s do this thing!” I shouted. “WOOOOoooo”
It seemed to work as Ed, satisfied that I had given up all thoughts of idea ownership, instructed me to begin work on the Census.
“Why don’t you get started on the Census?” he asked, askingly.
“What part?” I asked, also askingly. “The questions or the answers?”
But by then he too was gone. Probably off with that bounder Andrew, both getting up to no good, no doubt. The worms! But I had to think that quietly to myself as there was no one left in Flicks HQ to say it loudly too.
Did they not know that many hands make light work? Did they not worry about asking the probing questions or collating the relevant answers? Or was it that they simply did not care enough about those things? Their actions in sneaking out of Flicks HQ would seem to suggest that this was indeed the case.
Well, that’s not for me. No. These are the very things that I do care about. Someone had to bring my idea to fruition and even if office politics insisted that I stand quietly to one side while that gloryboy Ed basked in the warm glow of celebrity and glory I for one was not going to stand by and let the cretin ruin, debase or discredit the purity of my idea.
New Zealand’s first ever New Zealand Cinema Census had to be completed and damnnit I myself was going to absolutely make sure it got completed. No matter what the personal price or what personal sacrifices would have to be made.
No matter what, this thing was getting done. I had WOOOOooooed. And where I come from, Auckland, that means something damnnabbit.
Yes, I was a man on a mission. I was determined. I was undistracted. I was hungry. But regardless, I sat at that lonely boardroom table in the lonely Flicks HQ on a lonely rainy – or, swelteringly hot – day, writing down all the questions I could think of about what kind of things might be in such a thing as New Zealand’s first ever New Zealand Cinema Census.
- Artist’s impression of the question writing process.
Once I had a list of questions, I then checked the questions, before double-checking the questions, and then questioning the questions. Finally, after an exhaustive 15 minutes, I knew I was done.
After that the rest of the task was easy. I just quickly made up the answers and went home.
It was so easy in fact that I’ve since had the good idea that we should hold New Zealand’s first ever New Zealand Cinema Census again next year. And the year after that too. In reality I would like to see us hold New Zealand’s first ever New Zealand Cinema Census every year, but we’ll have to see how that goes.
But for now you’ll have to excuse me, as before going home tonight I have to finish up work on another one of my ideas, our forthcoming Readers Poll.
Happily it shouldn’t take too much longer. I’m already halfway through writing your answers.
