Popular Culture Review Vol. 11, No. 1, February 2000 | Page 10

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Popular Culture Review

1899, Whitehouse had photographed ten short (one minute each in length) films,
and presented them at the Paris Exhibition in 1900 (Churchman 49). Other
pioneering filmmakers followed, including Joseph Perry, W. Franklyn Barrett (who
specialized in short narrative films), and James M. McDonald, who created a series
o f travelogue “documentaries” between 1907 and 1923, photographing Maori
dances, “a canoe race, and various newsworthy events” (Churchman 49). In the
meantime, George Tarr produced Hinemoa (1914), the first feature film shot entirely
in New Zealand, based on a famous Maori legend of two lovers whose match is
opposed by their respective parents. Shot in eight days in Rotorua, New Zealand
on a total budget of £50 (Churchman 49), Hinemoa is lost today (due to archival
neglect, and nitrate deterioration), although some publicity stills survive in the )9