Tonight on Sunday ` a story of great courage and sacrifice. GUNFIRE Two Kiwis ` an electrician and a mathematician. They were prepared to go to the absolute limit ` to give their lives. NZers who helped change history. READS: 'When wounded, he propped himself up against a tree and continued to fire his gun.' < That's heroism, isn't it? < That's heroism, isn't it? Yeah. All of a sudden, my body shut down. When MS strikes. It's better off me being dead than going through this. But could there be hope? It will change the quality of life to million of people. Revolutionary, controversial, unproven, but... You look healthy. Sexy again. Oh! Thank you. It's not for the faint-hearted at all. I mean, there are massive risks. Settle down or make a movie? We kind of blew it all of that out of the water and just went, 'Yes, we're making a western.' (GIGGLES) To follow their dream. I'm picking the deposit on the house didn't go far. > I'm picking the deposit on the house didn't go far. > BOTH LAUGH You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're absolutely right. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright TVNZ Access Services 2012 Kia ora. I'm Miriama Kamo. Should the names Griff Maclaurin and Steve Yates be added to our war memorials, to the cenotaphs? Maclaurin and Yates are two unsung Kiwi war heroes who saw the threat of Hitler years before the rest of us. They went off to fight in the Spanish-Franco war, and they died there anonymously. But what they did was not only incredibly brave; the Spanish say it helped change the course of history. Ian Sinclair uncovered their story. A Spanish battlefield and an Anzac story like no other is about to unfold. Two Kiwis, Griff Maclaurin and Steve Yates, are on a mission as heroic as Gallipoli or Passchendaele. They were prepared to go, uh, to the absolute limit ` to give their lives. They probably knew, even at the time, that they would be killed and they went anyway. That's how strongly they believed in what they were doing. SPANISH ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC Madrid, today a proud city that holds its secrets well. But behind the beauty, the scars of civil war remain. These are bullet holes left behind from the Spanish civil war in the 1930s. And it's not too hard to find evidence of that battle, but, uh, how many of us know the story of two NZers, Griff Maclaurin and Steve Yates, who played a key role in saving the city of Madrid from the fascist forces back in 1936? Their names aren't anywhere, are they? Their names aren't anywhere, no. I think it's an oversight. At Auckland Grammar, a team photo of the school's second 15 holds one of the few remaining images of Griff Maclaurin. The year ` 1926. He grew up in a wealthy, respectable Auckland family. Uh, he preferred, uh, sport ` playing rugby and other sports ` to his studies when he was at school. Writer Mark Derby has pieced together some of Maclaurin's story. He turned out to have a gift for mathematics. His name on the Grammar honours board marks him out as a star pupil ` a talent that would take him to Cambridge University. He was a gifted student, but he didn't apply himself. He was a party guy. He was well known for dressing up and getting boozed. He was more interested in the social life and the surrounding political life of the campus than he was in his studies. He barely graduated, actually. (SPEAKS GERMAN) But the gathering of war clouds in Europe would change Maclaurin's life completely. AIR RAID SIREN WAILS 1936 ` German and Italian bombers are pounding Madrid. Yeah, a useful, um, uh, rehearsal for World War II for them. Adolf Hitler is backing the fascist general, Franco, who wants to overthrow Spain's new democracy. When he heard the news, Griff decided to act. People like his peers were going to Spain. It was the thing to do at that time. People from all over Europe and elsewhere were arriving to support the cause of the Spanish republic at that point. And he saw it as his duty to join them. With Maclaurin in the column of international volunteers was the other Kiwi, Steve Yates ` a man whose life remains a mystery; a man so long forgotten even his photo remains elusive. We know he fought in the First World War in the British Army. Apparently he was an electrician. At Madrid University, where the Kiwis dug in, they could fill in some gaps. We got, perhaps, the best testimony from John Summerfield, who was this young novelist who travelled with them, and he talks, you know, quite a lot about, um, both of them. He talks about, you know, Yates', um, experience with the machine guns. He talks about, um, you know, how cheerful Maclaurin was. The university would become the front line of resistance to Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. Must have been about here they must've, um, taken the Lewis guns from the trucks. And Yates had used machine guns before. And Yates had used machine guns before. Yeah, he was one of the experts. They got Yates telling people what to do, explaining all the different pieces, explaining how to clean them, how to put them together, how to use them, and we've got to think that must've been Maclaurin's preparation for what was gonna be the next day. Now happy with their weapons, the Kiwis explore their new home. We're walking in Maclaurin and Yates' footsteps here. Must've been so happy to arrive here. They'd been lugging the machine guns. Tired, cold. Must've been just dying to lie down. They had bunked down in the university's philosophy department. Got this really elegant long corridors with all the radiators and the lights and the extremely sophisticated lift that they find in there. And this is, you know` for them, this is modernity. And this, Niall Binns believes, is the very room where the Kiwis set up their machine gun. So around here somewhere the machine gun went. I guess that when the Lewis guns arrived in the afternoon, they must've... they must've set one up here. They must've built up the barricade around the gun ` head height, you know, to stop any, um, sniper getting at them. (SPEAKS SPANISH) Up on the roof, Dr Juan Gonzales shows me graphic evidence of the lethal danger the Kiwis would face ` the old lift mechanism still punched with bullets. So what do Spanish people think of young men who came from places like NZ to fight for the republic? (SPEAKS SPANISH) TRANSLATOR: I believe the arrival of these militia from all over the world had an incredible effect. These romantic international volunteers lifted the spirits of the citizens. And behind a locked door in the basement ` proof of the bravery and ingenuity of these volunteers. Have a look at what we've got here. All these books that have` survivors from the barricades. All of them with their bullets in. Books stacked up in the windows to stop enemy bullets. This has been in a barricade. You can see the bullet. At least one bullet's gone in here. It's eaten into the book. And, um,... Bernard Knox, who was with the NZers on the night of the 8th when they made the barricade up in the fourth floor, he said they discovered very quickly that a bullet could get to page 350. You know, and, um, this is a book` It's I guess` What have we got here? 400 and something. You see the bullet hasn't quite got through, but this is good enough. This works in a barricade. This'll stop the bullet coming. The irony of a philosopher's book stopping a fascist bullet would not have been lost on the brigade. It wouldn't be lost on them, and remember, of course, that Maclaurin had his bookstore in Cambridge. You know, he was someone who had education in Cambridge, he was someone who loved his books, and here he was using those books to protect himself, to protect the international brigaders from fascism. The irony wasn't lost on General Franco either. Later fascists would murder the librarian who gave the brigade those books. But the Kiwis' stay in this building would be tragically brief. The brigade had a mission in mind. They needed their best men. Next up ` for the first time, details of the Kiwis' final hours and how they helped change the course of history. The two NZers ` Maclaurin and Yates ` getting stuck over there, protecting their comrades. MEN SING UPBEAT SONG IN SPANISH They came from across the globe ` young volunteers ready to fight fascism. And in the Casa de Campo, a wood outside Madrid, the international brigade made its stand. In that same wood today, a Spanish historian is searching for the spot where two NZers died for democracy. I... I think, uh,... this part of the Casa de Campo.. Montero's clue ` a photo of the Kiwis' own battalion in the same wood. The pine trees are very similar in the picture are very similar to the pine tree we are now standing. Yates and Maclaurin had only been in Madrid for one night when they got the orders to head for the woods. On the 9th, they were needed urgently. Specialist machine gunners were needed, so Yates, who was a machine gunner, was taken, and poor Maclaurin, who'd had such limited experience back at school with machine guns, he was taken as well. This bridge marked the edge of Madrid and the path to victory for General Franco's rebel army. And I've got a feeling that's when Maclaurin and Yates and the machine gunners were called upon ` to try and drive them back. And they managed to drive them back. But the Kiwis continued on across the bridge, deep into enemy territory held by Franco's feared Moroccan forces. These Arab troops flown in from North Africa by the Germans. They didn't speak Spanish, a lot of them, and they were notoriously ruthless. They didn't take prisoners. They knifed them. Uh, they knifed the wounded. Uh, yeah, they were very very feared troops, indeed. The Kiwis were on a crucial mission ` one the pair would never return from. And it was only back in Auckland that we found the full story on their final fate. I've got some stuff that'll surprise you. Really? Really? Yeah. The man with this fresh evidence ` researcher and author, Mark Derby. The scene ` Auckland University's Maclaurin Chapel built by Maclaurin's uncle, industrialist Sir William Goodfellow. We asked Mark to help us uncover what really happened to Maclaurin and Yates beyond that bridge, and the answer came back from Scotland. Amazing material that is, uh` hasn't been published anywhere, as far as I'm aware. It's the memoir of a fellow volunteer, David MacKenzie. What does he say about Maclaurin? He says that... (READS) 'he had a splendid capacity for distracting our minds 'from the more unpleasant realities of life. From the small, kind, ever-laughing face, 'it would've been difficult to identify him as a military hero, but such he proved to be.' That proof came when the pair crossed the bridge into enemy territory. Their target ` a massive building called the White House on the far side of the wood. 'The fascists held it and were massing their troops for an attack. 'A mixed battalion of the international column attacked them while they were still waiting. 'Maclaurin, with Steve Yates, took their Lewis gun along the right-hand side of the wood. 'They had no one to carry their ammunition, and Maclaurin carried it all and his rifle as well. 'He was wounded almost immediately.' Though mortally wounded, Maclaurin charged ahead through the wood to kill his attacker. GUNSHOT 'It was at the far end of the wood that his body was found dead beneath a tree 'with the Moorish sniper he had shot down beside him.' Maclaurin's bravery in taking out the sniper would've left the way open for Yates to reach his objective. 'Yates continued alone with the machine gun and the ammunition. 'He was the first to reach the gate at the end of the wood, giving covering fire as our men passed. 'When he was wounded, he propped himself up against a tree and continued to fire his gun, 'firing from the hip at the Moors around the house, and he was found standing there days later 'so riddled with machine gun bullets that his body fell apart when they tried to pick it up.' < That's heroism, isn't it? < That's heroism, isn't it? Yeah. These are` These are both guys who died extraordinarily bravely, uh, under orders, doing what they were, you know, asked to do to hold the line, you know, for their mates, and, uh, they both died in the attempt. That's right. Griff Maclaurin still has cousins in his old suburb of Remuera in Auckland. Cam Maclaurin, a retired surgeon, says Griff's death was a tragic mystery. I don't know how much the family knew. I rather doubt that they knew very much at all. And we were now able to clear some of it up. It certainly fills out, um, just exactly what happened to a degree that is quite remarkable all these years later. Have we remembered them well enough? Have we remembered them well enough? Well, I think the short answer to that is no. All those people who fought to try and help, uh, stem Franco's advance in Spain, uh, ought to be remembered as much as in the later battles of World War II. And the actions that they did were pretty decisive, possibly critical, in actually, uh, holding off Franco's assault. With his first chance lost, it took Franco more than two years to take Madrid. Had it not been for what Maclaurin did and others like him ` the kind of stand that he and Yates did, holding back Franco's troops ` then the civil war would've been over in a matter of weeks. So history might've been completely different if in November 1936 Madrid had not been saved and been saved on that day perhaps by the international brigaders driving back, and the two NZers, Maclaurin and Yates, getting stuck over there, protecting their comrades. These guys died in such heroic circumstances, so bravely, and none of us took any notice. I do find it sad, but, uh, I don't think it's too late to remember and to honour their bravery and the reason why they, you know, gave their lives in that terrible manner. You'll be pleased to hear Auckland Boys Grammar is considering putting the names Maclaurin and Yates on its war memorial alongside the 700 others from the school who died in battle. Next ` a godsend or a placebo? It will change the quality of life to million of people. You know, things are possible, you know. I believe. I am an optimist. At OPSM, we use precision technology to look deep in the eye, helping us better detect eye disease such as glaucoma ` just one of the ways we look deeper. Talk to OPSM about an eye-health check-up today. multiple sclerosis. Now, seven years later, she claims to be winning again courtesy of a revolutionary, controversial and unproven procedure which has changed her life and offered hope to millions of others. Here's Rani Sadler. One, two, three. # I fell into the bottle. # Washed up on the shore. # On his private island, # he was waiting # at the door. # Little girl,... # Little girl,... # Ooh. # ...you need something to believe in. Little girl,... # Ooh. # ...here's what I know. # Higher you go, # harder, harder, harder, # harder it gets. # Let's go and do this. Chrissy Amphlett is on her way to hospital for a controversial new treatment. Multiple sclerosis has ravaged her body since symptoms first appeared 14 years ago. Where I think it began, when I was doing The Boy from Oz, when I would hit that last note of Judy Garland, my leg would start to shake, and I just thought it was nerves. Had a few hours' sleep. It wasn't until about 2005, I was walking along the street ` I was walking along 19th St ` it was very hot, and I couldn't walk. All of a sudden, my body shut down, and I couldn't` I had a lot of trouble putting one leg in front of the other. Sometimes you get pretty down. Sometimes you think, 'Well, it's better off me being dead than going through his.' I mean, it really gets you down. I think there's a really high suicide rate with people with MS, right? Cos you just get sick of it. Two decades since her diagnosis, this is daily life for Vicky Costa. At 20, she started getting blurred vision and tingling down one leg. When you had the diagnosis, were you relieved to have one or were you devastated? No, devastated. Devastated. Yeah. The worst thing I ever heard in my life. I last walked when I was 30, which is almost 12 years ago. If you had to explain to somebody who doesn't have MS what the worst parts about MS are, what would you tell them? Not having... any hope... for a cure. But here in Italy, there is a new hope. I've come to meet Dr Paolo Zamboni, a vascular surgeon. In 2008, he devised a radical treatment after his wife, Elana, was struck down by MS. Paolo Zamboni wasn't prepared to just accept his wife's diagnosis of MS or her seemingly hopeless future. Instead, he applied his scientific training and experience to finding out all he could about one of life's most baffling diseases. A disease like this in families is very heavy. You can see the blockage right there? You can see the blockage right there? Yes, exactly here. Dr Zamboni discovered most patients with MS had blockages in the veins in their neck. His theory was that because the blood was not circulating properly, deposits of iron were building up in the brain, becoming toxic and attacking the nerves. His method is to unblock the veins using a tiny balloon threaded up via a vein in the groin. His first patient was his wife. The results were incredible. It brings a big smile to your face. > It brings a big smile to your face. > Oh yes. (CHUCKLES) Other patients, like these, followed. Every one has found improvement. For me, it's, uh, very difficult to... to walk. Now I dance, and, uh, it's fantastic. I have a heart full of, uh, happiness. But the blocked-veined theory contradicts everything the medical establishment believes. Most neurologists dismiss Zamboni's apparent success as mere placebo. Patients just think they're getting better. The treatment is so new, there haven't been large clinical trials to back up his view. As a scientist, I need of... study capable to prove this. And if the studies bear out what you found so far, how much of a difference could it make to millions of people around the world? It will change the quality of life to million of people. You know, things are possible, you know. I believe. I'm an optimist. Patients like Chrissy Amphlett aren't willing to wait. It's been something I've wanted to do, oh, for over a year now. I wake up in the morning, and everything hurts ` everything ` and sometimes it feels like I have a python that's wrapping around my body and squeezing my body. It's the weirdest... Sometimes I feel like a big shark is biting me on my shoulder. They say that I` I will be in a wheelchair in four years. Unblocking the vein seems not only to alleviate the symptoms of MS, but to stave off further damage. Do you want a hand? Do you want a hand? Yeah, I'll just take your arm. We'll go down this way, it will be easier. After the break ` the prognosis for rocker Chrissy Amphlett. Yeah, you've put on weight. Your face has filled out a bit. You look healthy. You're sexy again. Oh! Thank you. Oh! Thank you. (LAUGHS) I knew that would make you happy. I'm very excited to know that I feel that I'm going to get some symptomatic relief from this. She's hoping for a result like Kerry Cassidy ` How much have we got? a Melbourne accountant and mum. This is home video of the spasms Kerry suffered before hearing of Dr Zamboni's blocked-vein theory. When it was explained that people have had blocked jugular veins, I actually went, 'Wow, that's amazing,' because I have this stiff neck and I get pain in here. And I thought... you start` I kind of was second guessing. I didn't want to get really excited and go, 'Oh yeah, this is it!' But I thought, 'Hey, that actually makes sense to me.' On the 11th of March 2010, Kerry took a chance. She was the second Australian to try the operation. The next day I got out of bed and opened the curtains, and I went... (GASPS) I almost` I was saying to the kids, 'Look outside. It's so blue. Look at the trees. Oh my God.' Everything was so clear. And I was just sitting in the room just going, 'Is this me? Is this because I want to see this?' I didn't realise how much my vision had been affected by the MS. I've just walked out of the operation. It was a really great experience, and I know it sounds weird. I am a bit knocked out. I'm a bit blown away from what's happened. I have had cameras up inside me. I've had veins opened that was stenosed. I've got the biggest jugular vein he's ever seen. There is as yet no scientific proof of Dr Zamboni's theory. For sufferers like Vicky, it's too late. As the disease progresses, the damage cannot be reversed. Everyone have a go on the punching bag. Her old self is just a distant memory. # Happy birthday to you. Oh, look, I'm not holding! < Does that surprise you? < Does that surprise you? Yeah, I feel like telling her, 'Hold on. You're going to fall.' I haven't taken time to play these, so, yes, it's been a while. Um, yeah, I wanted to protect her not to fall, and it's me, so it's weird. Mm. I have suppressed a lot. I've been, uh, too busy ` uh,... too busy being strong. Good evening. So, how are you feeling now compared to how you felt before you had the treatment? Well, it's eight weeks now, and I have got my motivation back. I don't have the fritzed, nervous feeling running through my body. Um, I am now walking eight blocks, whereas before I was walking one block. But I just am really starting to feel like I can look into the future again and have a life and I can possibly have a job. APPLAUSE, WHISTLING # Saturday night. And on a night not long ago, Chrissy took to the stage with Cold Chisel,.. # ...my steps have shown... ...performing again. # ...I can walk away... # I feel very grateful, because I think I took my body for granted before. But all of a sudden, it's been like, 'I don't think I'm going to be in a wheelchair in three or four years.' I know I'm not. # Said to me, 'Shh.' # I'd already lost my voice. # Over and over and over, # over I struggled with my choice. # I'm still getting stronger all the time. Like, I've got weight on now. Yeah, you've put on weight. Your face has filled out a bit. You look healthy. You're sexy again. Oh! Thank you. Oh! Thank you. (LAUGHS) I knew that would make you happy. Yes. # Little girl. # I think we got it. I think we got it. I think we did. > I think we got it. I think we did. > I think we did. Nice work. > Don't you love her reaction to being called sexy? It's estimated MS affects 4000 NZers ` one in every 1000 people. Next ` our very own home-grown spaghetti western. WESTERN-STYLE MUSIC TRAIN HORN BLOWS And you won't believe this ` the NZSO flash-mobbing at the Wellington Railway Station. WESTERN-STYLE GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS MUSIC CONTINUES Inspired by spaghetti westerns of the '60s and '70s, the movie Good for Nothing has been dubbed the world's first pavlova western. It was shot entirely in NZ and proves Kiwi ingenuity is alive and well. Pete Cronshaw takes us on a spirited ride into the wild west and introduces two young Kiwis who sacrificed everything to pursue their childhood dream. WESTERN-STYLE MUSIC A breath-taking mix of spectacular scenery and sound. TRAIN HORN BLOWS GUNSHOTS This Kiwi-style spaghetti western ` full of gunfights, galloping horses, and a bizarre sexual tension between a desperado and beautiful captive is testimony that you can achieve anything if you're willing to sacrifice everything. You were amazing. You were so amazing. Mike Wallis, no real formal training, is the writer-director. I'm a 35-year-old Kiwi. I haven't left the country for my OE or anything like that. I've got practicality and adaptability running through my bones. Mike's fiancee, Inge Radeymeyer, no formal training, is the producer and lead actress. Have you always wanted to act? Yes. Really? Really? I just haven't always had the guts to admit it. Why were you afraid to admit it? Why were you afraid to admit it? I think cos the moment you admit it, you have to actually go for it. Making your own movie ` it's one of those alluring childhood fantasies that the starry-eyed couple have turned into a reality by sacrificing their life savings. We were working at Weta Digital for a long time, and the responsible thing to do was to buy a house, cos we were earning good money. The house of their dreams was an affordable do-up in the Wellington suburb of Melrose. We had put offers on three houses, and they had all fallen through. And so on the last house, we decided, after we found out that we didn't get it, to go for a drive up to have a look at it again. We both looked at it, and we were actually feeling relief and not disappointment. I said to Inge, I said, 'I don't really want to buy a house.' And Inge was, like, 'Me neither.' And Mike said, 'Oh, I want to make movies, and I said, 'Yeah, me too.' So we said, 'Let's do it. You know, let's really do it.' And that was the key moment. In an industry that can count millions as loose change, Mike and Inge had set themselves the seemingly impossible task of making a feature film with just $60,000 in their pocket. We felt that if, you know, we put everything into it and we ended up homeless and on the street, that we still had enough time and each other to make it all back and start again. Was there an element of naivety? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think it actually worked to our benefit, you know. Um, you have to work with what you've got, and naivety is something that we had. (CHUCKLES) A bit fresh this morning. A bit fresh this morning. It is fresh. That naivety/drive/determination caught the eye of Jamie Selkirk. I think he's got a lot of talent. Selkirk, if you don't know, teamed up with Peter Jackson on Lord of the Rings and walked away with an Oscar. This is certainly a great honour. Thank you to the Academy. Give a person an opportunity, and they can blossom from there. Look at what Peter's done. He's just gone from strength to strength to strength. With any luck, Mike might be the next young talent that's coming through. It also caught the ear of one of NZ's greatest composers, John Psathas. Mike and Inge are, um, probably the most inspiring people I've met in the last decade. It's just getting a lot of fullness in the bottom end. They're honourable, they have incredible integrity, they're entirely positive in their outlook on things, and they are the most phenomenal problem solvers, and probably the most incredible problem solvers I've ever met. TENSE MUSIC Not content on making any old movie, Mike and Inge wanted to throw away the rule book... ACTION MUSIC ...and be the first in NZ to make a spaghetti western, or 'pavlova western', as they like to call it. If you make an independent film, you try and not do a period piece,... Lovely day, Inge. Lovely day, Inge. It is. ...try and not work with animals or children. All these things to keep it contained, keep it cheaper, keep it easier. We kind of blew all of that out of the water and just went, 'Yes, we're making a western.' (CHUCKLES) This is a national treasure, this building. It's a, uh` It's an old mining hut. One of the key decisions around making a western as well was that being, you know, low, no-budget film was, um, where can you get great production value? And in NZ, you can get it out of the landscape. Central Otago's panoramic backdrop might've been free, but stretching the shoestring meant turning your hand to new and novel things. For Mike, that meant a year at the gun club learning the intricacies of black powder revolvers. So actually included a scene of this in the actual movie. You get the idea of the palaver these guns. So you clearly like a bit of authenticity. Oh, absolutely. Well, I think the more it's based on reality, the more believable it is. The loading process looks dangerous, but that's how they did it in the old days. And everything is safe until the firing cap goes on. < Push hard. Real hard. Real hard. That's it. It takes a skilled gunslinger five minutes to load one of these and a little longer for someone like me. It's only been an hour. We're doing well. I feel strange pointing one of these at my head. Mike, the film director, also became on-set armourer ` the man in charge of all the guns on location. How much do you reckon that saves you? How much do you reckon that saves you? Oh, a ton. A ton of money. Got to sound tough when I'm doing it. It also helped him add a touch of reality to his wild west gun fights. I wanted the real deal there, and also to have lots of smoke, and as you've seen when these things fire, they give off a lot of smoke. How much did that influence your storytelling? > A lot, a lot, because I understood the gun so much, and when you're actually firing them, you understand. You smell the smoke. It's easy to relate to the characters, what they would've been going through. Scene seven, Charlie, take two. It took two years of planning and six weeks of shooting to get their feature-length film in the can. TRAIN HORN BLOWS I'm picking the house deposit didn't go far. > BOTH LAUGH BOTH LAUGH You're right. BOTH LAUGH You're right. You're right. You're absolutely right. So there must've been a fair bit of begging. So there must've been a fair bit of begging. Yeah, begging, borrowing... ...stealing? ...stealing? No. No stealing. We borrowed one traffic cone once, but we put it back. I remember that. (GIGGLES) Shoot done, money gone ` long gone ` Mike and Inge were forced to return to their day jobs. It would take another four long years to get their indie labour of love on to the big screen. It was... way more challenging than I thought it was gonna be. The ups are really ups, and the downs are really down. How taxing was it on your relationship? Did you nearly break up? > In some ways, it brings you a lot closer as well, cos you're sharing` In some ways, it brings you a lot closer as well, cos you're sharing` Oh, come on! > BOTH LAUGH Drop the PR spin. > No, it does. It totally does. We had times absolutely when we wanted to pull each other's hair out. Just, like, 'Grr, frustration.' Um, I don't think it was ever a question... No. No. ..about whether it was putting the relationship on the line. Desperate for cash to finally finish the film, the couple approached the NZ Film Commission. Sadly, they didn't have an appetite for pavlova westerns, but Jamie Selkirk did. You know, Peter had the same situation. He was making his first movie, Bad Taste, and he'd gone to the Film Commission several times to make it. They kept on saying, 'No, go away. This is a home movie. We're not interested in that.' So, uh, I said, 'Yeah, OK, we'll put some money up for post-production, 'get it completed so you get it on the big screen.' How much has it cost you? How much has it cost you? Well, I think it ended up being around about 280,000. It was like a trumpet sounding. (CHUCKLES) (CHUCKLES) It was amazing. It was really amazing. I'll walk a while. My horse is tired. Mike and Inge's quirky western is essentially about a trigger-happy outlaw who's desperate to have his wicked way with a pretty English captive. I'm not going to run. Unfortunately, the lovesick cowboy suffers from erectile dysfunction and is in need of a cure. < Do you like the movie? < Do you like the movie? Yeah. Of course I do. I think it's one of those things that's unique. We try acupuncture. Uh, which? Uh, which? Nee-Needle. He's got a nice little Kiwi slant about this sort of humour, which I think'll make people laugh. Some of the shootouts are so funny. GUN CLATTERS There's a tracker guy in the river, and that's just like a tennis match. You know, that was kind of cool. GUNSHOTS Guns do run out of bullets, you know,... (CHUCKLES) and you never ever sort of see them reloading. At least in Mike's movie, you see the real way of doing it. (CRIES OUT) (CRIES OUT) It was that Kiwi humour that also attracted composer John Psathas. I laughed a lot, and I felt like I would be able to bring something to it. You know, I would be able to turn those feelings, those really strong emotions, that big heart the film has into music somehow. I'd find a way of expressing that through music. So we're getting into the kind of actiony stuff now for a while. John Psathas found international fame after composing the music for the 2004 Olympics. Since then, there have been repeated requests for him to write movie scores, but this is the first time he's ever said yes. Hey, that's great. It was really good fun. It was fun all the way. But hard. Hard fun. It was really good fun. It was fun all the way. But hard. Hard fun. What did you get out of it? The biggest thing is that I have something that I'm incredibly proud of. I'm picking you haven't made a lot of money. I'm picking you haven't made a lot of money. (LAUGHS) There weren't a lot of bucks there. There weren't a lot of bucks there. Money was definitely not part of the equation for it, but, you know, that's a testament to the film and the people behind the film that, you know, I didn't care about any of that. In the last year, there's been red carpet premieres in America and rave reviews during international festival screenings. (CHUCKLES) We're in... Times Square. But financial rewards are still to come. Have you made any money out of it yet? > Have you made any money out of it yet? > BOTH: No. We're still putting in. We're still putting in. We're still losing money. We're still putting in. We're still losing money. Gosh. Not sure when the tide turns. We'll see. The truth be known, creators and crew are all waiting for the pay date. Same as we did before? Turning around and riding off? So, the crew's been waiting four years to be paid? Well, I mean, they're... the crew aren't sort of demanding. They're awesome people, so they're sitting there waiting for it to come out, to hopefully be a success, and then if it goes well, you know, hopefully eventually they'll get paid. Does that weigh heavily on you? Does that weigh heavily on you? Um,... it` it does. I mean, we take it seriously. We want to, um... We want to pay them because they did such an awesome job, and so hopefully if it goes well, then everyone will walk out happy as Larry. They could've been your average suburban couple, but they wanted more ` much more ` and they're determined the spirited ride into the world of movie-making won't be their last. Would you do it all again? Would you do it all again? BOTH: Absolutely. Yep. Yep. Yeah. It's not for the faint-hearted at all. I mean, massive risks. You do it because you love it, really. Well, that's why we do it. It's an itch that I definitely want to keep scratching. (CHUCKLES) So looking forward to seeing that. Good for Nothing will be in cinemas from May the 3rd. Well, we'd love to hear your thoughts on our stories tonight, so do go to our Facebook page. Ka mutu te mahi nainei. That's nearly it from us, but before we go, something kind of special as we promised from the pavlova western ` the NZSO in a flash mob at Wellington Railway Station. It was a promotion for their soundtrack Good for Nothing. Enjoy. Hei kona. WESTERN-STYLE GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS MUSIC CONTINUES ORCHESTRA PLAYS WESTERN-STYLE MUSIC 1 1 1 1 APPLAUSE GUITAR SOLO CONTINUES Captions by Desney Thorogood. www.tvnz.co.nz/access-services Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright TVNZ Access Services 2012