David Blyth: Pushing boundaries...

Director David Blyth has created some of New Zealand’s most graphic and challenging movies dealing with horror, sexuality, and the sub-conscious mind. His career began as an assistant director on the film Solo, but it was his first feature Angel Mine which showed his interests in pushing the boundaries of filmmaking. In his time, Blyth has made a number of documentary features, directed episodes of Close to Home and created New Zealand's first horror film Death Warmed Up.

In this ScreenTalk, Blyth talks about:

• Being the first director to get interim Film Commission funding for Angel Mine
• How the film predicted the rise of social media and viagra
• How his confidence as a director was knocked by critics of the film
• Why, despite being a cult horror film overseas, Death Warmed Up failed in NZ
• Having no original copy of the film because it was burned
• Filming his grandfather for the World War I doco Our Oldest Soldier
• How initially no-one was interested in the story
• Making Wound as an antidote to feeling his career was over; the film explores how abuse in the family can lead to dramatic consequences
• How the film has reinvigorated his passion for filmmaking
• How his career has been about looking at the horror in the everyday

This video was first uploaded on 15 March 2011, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside