THE SCENE-SETTERS

A high- flying creative couple ‘ land’ at a heritage villa in rural Hawke’s Bay and transform it from worn- out to wonderful

FOR SOME, THERE is a precise moment when destiny comes stampeding in, centre stage. For Tim Coddington, it was the day he walked onto his first film set for the 1984 Kiwi western Wild Horses. Although hired as a horse wrangler, Tim couldn’t shake the feeling his non-equine colleagues needed a little rounding up and he was the one to do it. This movie thing was it. He could feel it.

Not that Tim, now an executive film producer, had much formal production experience to prove it back then. As far as his CV was concerned, the former military officer was proficient in showjumping, sheep shearing and pretty much anything that could be sorted with graft and creativity, a can-do attitude honed while growing up on his parents’ small sheep farm near Waipukurau, an hour’s drive southwest of Napier.

Looking back, Tim always had the makings of a producer. “Film production is like farming — decisions have to be made quickly based on the information you have at hand. And when dealing with livestock, there’s no time to procrastinate or do a workshop on how to get the best outcome. Decisions must be made quickly and regardless of potential consequences,” says Tim.

Today Tim and his Vietnamese-Canadian partner Duyen Hackett are in post-production mode in Waipukurau, less than 10 minutes from where he grew up. But this rural operation is a touch slower than their past film and television projects, such as Crazy Rich Asians and Disney’s live-action Mulan. There are no cameras or movie stars at Mount Vernon Villa, their recently restored Victorian-era homestead. It’s just a crew of two — he a producer and she a wellness coach/caterer for film crews and events. And after returning from an eight-month television stint in Thailand, they are off-duty and home at last. “When you’ve lived in a city all your life and then come home to a place like this, it feels like a blessing,” says Duyen, who’s lived in Hong Kong for most of her adult life.

Getting a break from work means the gallop slows to a trot. Together, Tim and Duyen bottle peaches they’ve plucked from their orchard and snip silverbeet from the veggie patch out back. It’s a scene they and their frequent visitors could practically drink up — 14 hectares of rolling countryside and homemade quincello (a limoncello-esque tipple made with last year’s quince harvest) always go down a treat.

“Home” is an ambiguous word for a man who’s lived out of a suitcase for much of his career. In the 1980s, the aspiring producer moved to Auckland to start forging his way into the industry. At his first entry-level gig, Tim was told he needed overseas experience. So he got it, moving to Britain, where he worked on films such as Clockwise (1986) and Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987).

Tim may not believe in such a thing as the perfect film, but he does believe magic happens when the right people, props and setting come together