Australia & New Zealand Special: Mark Albiston

Though he occasionally imagines himself as a superhero and went into films as a way to get laughs, there’s nothing flippant about Mark Albiston’s approach to his career. He learned his craft in TV news, went on to win awards at Cannes for his short films and co-founded his own company to make docs, promos and ads. Now with The Sweet Shop, the director talks to Carine Buncsi

Growing up on the Kapiti Coast, north of Wellington, Mark Albiston’s career aspirations were many – but none involved filmmaking. An early desire to become a ‘pick-up artist’ (aka a bin-man), hanging off the back of a rubbish truck, gave way to loftier ambitions: specifically, a masked superhero driving a kick-ass car saving Gotham City. And of course, like any rugby-mad Kiwi lad, he dreamed of making the All Blacks team.

Today, notions of emptying bins or scoring tries for a living are far behind Albiston, but, as his portrait opposite reveals, he still harbours caped-crusader fantasies and admits “It would be cool to own Batman’s motorcycle.”

Although directing wasn’t on the cards, he learnt the art of storytelling young, at the family dinner table. “I was the third out of four kids who gave each other shit,” he says. “After we had all eaten at lightning speed – as you have to in a competitive dining environment – our parents would ask: ‘What happened today that you don’t want us to know about?’ There weren’t too many secrets in our family and everyone competed to tell the best story.”

Starting off with exploding trousers

While studying fine arts at Christchurch’s Canterbury University, Albiston began dabbling in film as a hobby – with surprisingly explosive results. “I made a film about a pair of radioactive trousers that blew up,” he remembers. “I liked attention and making people laugh so I decided to get into filmmaking.”

After graduating from film school, he spent some time overseas playing professional rugby, before returning home to take up a job in a timber treatment plant. One day, it flooded completely: a disaster for the environment but serendipitous for Albiston, who reconnected with his future creative partner in crime, schoolfriend Louis Sutherland, when the latter was working with a local TV news crew that came to cover the event. Sutherland suggested he resign from polluting local waterways and get a job making TV documentaries.

“That was ultimately my real film school,” Albiston says. “Making short documentaries on locals, whether they were about Tiger Moth pilots or an old lady and her snoring dog. We would check the local paper and shoot stories – hoping they’d make the programme that evening.” Their offices? A ‘tourist farm’ where travellers would feed llamas and watch sheep getting clipped.

“We had farm animals rocking up to our production meetings,” he laughs. Nonetheless, having to direct, shoot and edit his own films stood him in good stead when he later embarked on various film projects abroad, such as mountain biking and triathlon documentaries.

In 2000, he returned home to launch his own production company, Sticky Pictures, with wife Amelia Bardsley; a fruitful partnership that has yielded three children and a raft of successful short films. Co-directed with Sutherland, Run (2007); Six Dollar Fifty Man (2009) and Shopping (2013) garnered awards at Sundance, Cannes and the Berlin Film Festival and established Albiston as an indie director to watch. But man cannot live on laurels alone. Cue a move into commercials.

Reflecting on the crossover, Albiston muses, “It’s not until I started making commercials I realised they could be a lot of fun and a great way to hone your craft – working non-stop as a director keeps you sharper than writing. It’s experimental and always a speedy turnaround, which suits my background.”

Embracing the creative chaos is key. “There’s an incredible momentum which swells from client to agency, spilling onto crew and director, it’s a mad force which somehow comes together to make something really special.”

He joined The Sweet Shop in 2010, when its roster was almost entirely Kiwi directors, and over the years has seen it evolve into “an extraordinary smorgasbord of talent” – something that keeps Albiston on his toes.

“With world-class directors on the roster, it encourages us all to keep striving to make [the website’s] homepage. There’s always stiff competition.” The last 12 months have seen Albiston predominantly working in the UK, drawn by a combination of “immense creativity and street casting. When I’m in NZ, I often cast my own commercials. Ultimately, it all comes down to tight casting budgets Down Under, yet the value of superb street casting is recognised in the UK and agencies don’t seem to try to save money on it.”

As anyone who’s seen his recent, brilliant spot for Thomas Cook, Pool Kid – featuring the fierce free-stylin’ moves of the young protagonist – would undoubtably agree.  

Ending up on Batman’s motorbike

Travelling so often, Albiston doesn’t see much of fellow Sweet Shop directors, but he says “It’s great to share war stories, chat about the process and realise that what we do as directors carries similar challenges. As a director it’s your job when shit hits the fan to stand firm and make sure that you do everything in your power to keep the creative vision afloat because, like it or not, when things get hard you can often be the last one left sailing.”

What is it that makes for a smoother voyage? “Pre-production is key, plus having the right team.” Albiston also greatly values working with good people: “You realise pretty quickly that making films mostly requires more than just you playing together in the sandpit.” And when things get tough, Albiston still asks himself what his superhero self would do. “I see myself escaping in one of Batman’s indestructible motorcycles – then it’s back to reality.”