A new television series set in Waitara is breathing life into the reality genre with a fly-on-the-wall style that gets up close and personal with a diverse bunch of young people in the Taranaki town.
The young 'stars' of Taranaki Hard. Photo: supplied
Taranaki Hard focuses on a group with differing personality types and ranging in age from 18 to 27.
Show producer Charlotte Hobson said they spent time in Waitara before casting the characters, with one of the show's directors spending a few weeks there getting to know the people in the community.
"So we went to the local school, the local community leaders, the churches, the local walking group, the local pubs and just got talking to people and kind of got connected to different people we thought might be quite good for the series."
They are a diverse bunch of characters.
One of them, Leon, is involved with running the Facebook page 'Keeping Up with the Waitarians' which has more than 63,000 followers - impressive given Waitara only has a population of around 7000 people.
Hobson said unlike the other characters in the series, Leon is on a quest for fame and has already had a taste of that through his social media platforms.
But he also works at Countdown supermarket and was one of the frontline essential workers during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Hobson said they had no idea that Covid-19 was going to hit when they started filming for the series in February but "you can't ignore that as a story beat".
Others appearing in the series are much more introverted and Hobson said they realised early on that relationship building would be a huge part of making the series.
"So we put a huge amount of effort and investment just into spending time with people and getting them to trust us."
She said the documentary makers initially attracted a lot of suspicion in the town.
"But slowly but surely we got people on side and they truly began to trust us and then when we started filming we kept the crew really light, so it was very small and intimate and for the most part it was the same people filming all of the time and so they became ... yeah part of the wallpaper I guess."
Much of the filming is intimate and 'fly on the wall' and Hobson said after a time those in the series trusted the crew enough to let them into their lives.
"I think perhaps part of it was because they were curious as to what we were wanting to achieve."
She said the series makers had to convince people that they were not there "to beat up on the town" and do another negative story about Waitara.
"We were there to genuinely get to know the characters and what it is really like growing up in the regions in New Zealand, in heartland New Zealand."
Hobson said she has a small town background and there is a vibrancy about the regions that is hardly ever portrayed in the media.
She said it is also important not to underestimate the power of social media, with many of the younger characters living their lives on social media.
"So we got to know them via social media often before we got in touch with them, so we had a bit of background as to what they're like and they upload videos of themselves and their friends et cetera."
Hobson said that meant they had a sense of what was wanted of them when a camera was pointed in their direction, which is a change from the previous generation.
She said the tone of a show which has a narrator is quite different, but it was clear from the start that this show would have no narrator.
"It was all our own characters telling their own stories, becoming their own heroes of their story and their journey."
She said that type of content is more difficult to make because it cannot just be crafted when it is edited.
Hobson said the series aims to push the boundaries in terms of what is seen on primetime television in New Zealand and that will become more obvious as it progresses.
"I must say that it's a brave and bold programming move by TV Three to put this to air because it doesn't fit a conventional international format."
The next part of the series is set to screen at 8.40pm on Three on Monday.
