1 RELAXED GUITAR MUSIC Captions by Amy Park. Edited by Ingrid Lauder. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2013 MUSIC CONTINUES Kia ora. I'm Robert Rakete. In the late '80s, Mark Staufer seemed to have it all ` a hugely successful radio career, plenty of money, new house, and the promise of a glittering future lay just ahead. But by 1990, he'd lost it all. And so later, he went off overseas to reinvent himself. After great success in Sydney and in London, he decided to risk everything again when eight years ago, he moved to Los Angeles to follow his dream of becoming a screenwriter. And this is Mark's story. Well, you know, you arrive in LA, and, um,... it's quite a scary city when you first` You know, you get off at LAX, and` and you get on a freeway somewhere ` the 405 ` and, uh, my first thoughts were what` you know, I literally cried. Mate, there was a sudden realisation of, 'What the hell have I done?' 'What am I doing here? I've got this screenplay. I'm not sure if it's good. 'There's the Hollywood sign; the Capitol Records building. Yahoo! 'It's sunny. There's palm trees, etc, etc. 'But what have I done, really, truly?' And then you realise that, you know, 500,000 scripts are` are lodged with the Writers Guild every year, and that you're really just one amongst millions who have arrived in this town seeking, you know, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It's terrifying. MUSIC CONTINUES My advice for potential screenwriters is ` stay away! This is my town. No, I would say that, um, you've just got to, mate, take the leap of faith, and you've got to get on a plane and come here and try it. You tend to get quite excited about every little detail when you first arrive in LA. Um, and so it's, 'Hurray! I've got a meeting,' or, 'Hurray! Someone's answered my phone call.' Um, and you leave meetings feeling really good about yourself and whatever project is you're pitching, but you soon realise that, really, nothing is set in stone in this town until the cameras start rolling. I grew up in Parnell with my grandparents. And because my parents got divorced when I was very very young, um, I grew up also in a state house in Onehunga ` in a very rough part of Onehunga. So it was this weird, sort of, situation where half the time I was in posh Parnell, and half the time I was in very down-and-out Onehunga in a state house. My grandparents were very strict ` Dickensian strict ` and believed in a lot of corporal punishment and believed, uh, that children should be seen and not heard, whereas my mother was quite, um, liberal in her outlook, and I think as direct reaction to her upbringing with them. And so she let me run wild when I was in Onehunga. I think when I got to primary school, I realised that I didn't have a daddy. And my mother` Because their break-up had been pretty messy, my mother told me that my father was dead, just to, I guess, stop me from asking any more questions and` and to` and to remove him from my life completely. And, of course, it wasn't until many years later I discovered that, in fact, my father was very much alive and was living in Ponsonby and, uh, had been living there all these years without my knowledge. Um... So that was interesting. And I don't blame my mother for doing it. And when I asked her years later, 'Why would you tell me such a thing?' Um, her answer was ` 'Well, he was dead to me.' I didn't really show up for school very often, and I kinda fell in with quite a bad crowd, and I discovered punk music, and I was a bit of a handful. Mark Staufer was sitting in the common room of sixth form with green hair. And, um,... Mt Roskill was not exactly a rough school, but it was definitely a boisterous school, and, uh, you know, full of, uh, blokes that loved playing football and what have you. And I looked across at this kid in the common room with the green hair, and I thought to myself, 'I better go and help him, because he's gonna get eaten.' He was a mover and a shaker at the school, you know? He` He was the guy who everybody loved; he, um,... he was a bit of a character; involved in the newspaper and the first 15; and he and I became fast friends straightaway. And I've got some friends that I've had my entire life, and they're brothers and sisters to me. And Russell's one of those. WISTFUL MUSIC I always liked writing, and I was always quite good at it. I didn't have to, kind of, try, which was a bonus for me, cos I was pretty lazy, you know. I think, um, it's not until later on when you get serious about writing that you realise how difficult it actually is to become a good writer. When he was a kid, it was already there on display. He was a wonderful writer; he had a very natty turn of phrase, and he could really really make me laugh. The logical thing for me to do was to try and find a job that would involve me writing. And I wasn't quite ready to be a novelist or a short-story writer, so I looked into journalism. But because I had quite a good voice for my age, I went into radio. He rapidly rose through the ranks. I mean, we'd just come out of high school and... within a year or something like that, he was on air. And then within a couple of years after that, he was part of the number-one breakfast radio team in Auckland at a time when radio was still extremely potent, so these guys were... You know, and what they said in the morning was a big deal. We were very childish, and we were very naughty. We were schoolboys on air, but I think in the stuffy, structured world of radio back in the '80s in Auckland, it just` it hit a note with the public. UPBEAT SYNTHESISER MUSIC I mean, the '80s were the '80s, and everyone, sort of, has heard about them and what went on. And I guess that I was a child of the '80s ` I'm a bit embarrassed to say that ` but they were heady times for us. BELL DINGS I was earning, at the age of 21, far too much money for a kid. And I was spending it on very silly things, and I was partying a lot; I was` I had a succession of girlfriends; I was leading, I guess in hindsight, a pretty empty kind of life. Mark was on a gigantic amount of money for doing this breakfast radio show, and he bought a house and,... you know, his progress was extremely rapid for somebody at that age ` 21, 22. Good morning, friends of the show, and welcome to AIDS Awareness Day with the Top Marks. And this morning, we're practising safe radio, because Alastair from the AIDS Foundation is here in the studio with us with his sophisticate kit. I guess with success comes arrogance, and with arrogance comes a certain amount of, um,... of, um,... of stupid behaviour, you know. And, um,... I, um, gave Ranginui Walker's telephone number and home address out on the air, and, um,... you know, and it's just such a stupid, immature, childish thing to do. So they hauled me off air. But for me, it was a huge moment, because I lost my job; I lost my house; I lost my car; I lost everything. And I went from, overnight, being the toast of the town, one of the Top Marks ` you know, hugely successful; people would stop me on the street ` to being a bit of a leper. It was... time to move on, I guess. 1 UPBEAT NEWS THEME PLAYS CROWD CHEERS, WHISTLES We're here for the first engagement of Princess Rachel Hunter's royal NZ tour. She'll be accompanied to the Amway Classic here by her husband ` the Prince Philip of rock and roll, Rod Stewart, sitting in this box. She might be sitting on this chair here, where my bottom has just been. I really didn't pick myself back up until Neil Roberts and Irene Gardiner grabbed me and put me on Newsnight. And that was` that was... you know, that saved my bacon, because I, uh` before that I didn't have any work and I was bankrupt, and so Newsnight was a great thing for me. I've just got an order, actually. I've just got an order, actually. What are they having? Um, they've ordered` ordering Bacardi and Coke for Rod. He's having those pretty strong tonight. He's having those pretty strong tonight. Any sort of measurements? About 50/50. About 50/50. 50 Bacardi, 50 Coke? Yeah. Yeah. (WHISTLES) Yeah? Rachel's having the champagne. There's champagne in the box tonight. 'Well, you know, I think on Newsnight, I was the idiot, and I'm not embarrassed to say that,' because, um, everyone had their role to play, and it wasn't a particularly heavy news show. But I got to do some kinda` kinda interesting and inventive stories. I know who you are ` you're that guy from Nightline. Away you go. Go on. For me, it was another case of all good things must come to an end, um, which has happened to me far too many times in my life. But Newsnight finished, and I had a couple of, um` I had a couple of tentative offers for shows, and so I just hung around in Auckland, and I didn't have a job. And I had a bit of money from Newsnight, but I spent that pretty damn quickly. A friend of mine ` Charlotte Dawson ` said, 'Come and live with me in Sydney and try to get a gig there.' I literally went to the travel agent in Ponsonby, bought a one-way ticket to Sydney, and I was down to, I guess, my last hundred bucks. And I landed two jobs in one day, and two jobs that I could do at the same time. And one of them was directing at Foxtel; and the other job was working on this` presenting on this show called Sex/Life on Channel Ten. And then the icing on the cake happened, because my producer on Sex/Life, I fell in love with at first sight and, um, is the woman I married. I thought he was a little cocky, actually; thought he was a little sure of himself. But once we got to know each other, he was very intellectual, very bright, very funny. And so very quickly, I was smitten. We married in Sydney, um, at Waverley Cemetery ` for no weird goth reasons, but just simply because it's absolutely beautiful. And, uh, you know, life was absolutely idyllic. I cannot express to you what a wonderful time we had in Sydney. I'd had this... hankering for a while that I wanted to write seriously. Um, I wanted to, you know, do it professionally. The plan was I was gonna write this amazing screenplay, and then we were gonna take the screenplay, move to LA, sell it for a million dollars, make our movies... you know, life was gonna be great. Um... But, of course, it didn't quite work out that way, because the screenplay I wrote, when I arrived in LA three months later, I soon found out it was probably one of the worst screenplays ever written; that I had no idea what I was doing. Screenplays are a lot harder than you think they are. It's not like you go, 'I'll write a screenplay.' There's a lot of structure; there's a lot of intricacies that go into writing a screenplay that I had no idea about. So after I was told, maybe, by 10 or 20 producers that, really, the thing I had given to them was wasting their time, um, I was, uh,... I was a bit down in the dumps. This character needs a secret, right? The whole movie needs to be built around him, in terms of, 'Where is he from? What is his secret? What has he done?' It could be kind of cool if they're not aware of the secret. So they think they've just picked a random guy, but in reality, they just picked the most random guy that in a year can really blow 'em up. Right, exactly. Right, exactly. Blow up their` their whole game. He is denying something. 'The thing about writing is it's quite a solitary profession. 'A lot of people write with partners. 'The problem with that is, of course, that you have to split the money, 'which is not great. Uh, I've always written on my own, but in terms of writing with Josh,' that has worked for me, because he's an actor, so he comes at a script from an entirely different direction than if I were to work with another writer, which would be the same kind of stuff. He just had a really good, interesting voice that translated on the page very well that` It's not normal to what you read here, and it's probably, you know, being from NZ and living, you know, travelling the world. He just had a different, unique sort of, uh,... um,... texture to his voice that came out that just attracted me to it, you know? His scripts have gotten better and better over time. I mean, at this point, none of them have been produced, but that doesn't mean that they aren't quality work. In particular, we have a script together based on the life of Bill Hicks, the American comedian who died very young, and that's a beautiful script. That script's time will come, and it will be made. These days, I don't get excited until the cheque's in the bank, to be honest. Yeah, you can't. Yeah, you can't. You become jaundiced, right? I mean, I've gotten so many jobs that I was so happy about; that I was getting on the plane the next day; that the car doesn't show up to get you. Right. Right. And it's worse for` I mean, Josh and I` Right. Right. And it's worse for` I mean, Josh and I` I'm, like, 'Where's the car? Josh and I have this` Josh and I have this` 'The car ` where is it?' And they say, 'It's not coming.' It's not coming. It's not coming. Yeah. (CHUCKLES) Two more weeks. Hey, I've got a stick as well. Can you please be careful with that stick? I'm scared you're gonna pull Papa's eye out. OK. OK. OK? Where is the stick? Right there. Right there. It's there? Right, OK. Parents tell you as soon as the kid arrives, it changes everything. And you can't get around that. And for me, it was a weirder experience in some ways, because I grew up without any brothers and sisters. So for me, a child is a totally alien concept. They brought a red-tailed hawk. They brought a red-tailed hawk. A red-tailed hawk into school? Yeah. Yeah. Holy moly. I had no idea what to expect when Milo arrived. And he was kind of a mistake. It was, 'Honey, I'm pregnant.' It's, like, 'Great. What are we gonna do?' You know? What can you see up there? Anything exciting we can't see down here? I'd never changed a nappy in my life. Ever. I didn't know what baby poo looked like. I didn't know anything about children. But, obviously, your journalist cap goes on and you start researching, and instinct kicks in. And for me, it was great, because Sarah was working; I would get up at my normal, kind of, early hour of 4.30, and I'd get a good three hours' work in. And then I'd be able to really spend time with my son for the entire day. And that was a luxury. UPBEAT, SPIRITED MUSIC This morning, I'm going to Downtown LA to do my Dadsaster podcast. I do it with a comedian friend called Brian. And, um,... it's a podcast about dads; what it's like being a father. So, discipline today. So, discipline today. Yeah. So, discipline today. Yeah. Um, and we've got a few good guests. And you've got a couple of discipline stories you can tell us? And you've got a couple of discipline stories you can tell us? Yeah, I can share a bit. You can share a little? I love it. You can share a little? I love it. It's a touchy subject, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes. I hope we do it better this time. What does discipline look like in your house? What does discipline look like in your house? Uh, I have` Honestly,... Yep? Yep? ...I have` I've gone through the whole thing. I-I, um... I tried a few spankings, but not like a full-on. More like a sideswipe, does that make sense? No, what do you mean? Explain. > No, what do you mean? Explain. > Meaning not a full, solid... (CLAPS)... on the hinder. Does it work? Does it work? < I don't think so. Personally, I don't think so. Sometimes, my son drives me to distraction. So since he's been very very young, we've had the chair of consequences ` > an actual chair that he sits on in a room and faces the wall, and it's called the chair of consequences. So he's learnt from a very young age that actions have consequences. And he's` You love saying that. Say that again. Actions have consequences. Does that sound good? > (LAUGHS) You just` You` (LAUGHS) You just` You` What? I love it. > (LAUGHS) You just` You` What? I love it. > You just felt so proud. It's like you go, 'And that's when I told him...' DEEP VOICE: Actions have consequences. > SARAH: You know, resilience is everything, especially in this town. Obviously, he has huge talent, but it's a very tough industry, the creative industry. You know, as a freelancer, you never know when the next job is coming. MYSTIFYING MUSIC About 10 years ago, I had this amazing dream, and at the end of the dream ` and I can't even remember what the dream was ` but after the dream, when I woke up, I thought to myself, 'Wouldn't it be amazing if science created technology to film dreams?' And so that was the germ of the idea. He thought that the current state of e-books weren't really delivering much; they weren't that exciting. Here we are, consumers of digital technology and media, and we watch video; we listen to podcasts; we read emails and look at photos. We do all these different things, and we do it kind of seamlessly. So he wanted to combine that experience into a book, and The Numinous Place does that. I know this is the best idea I've ever had in my entire life, and I call it my destiny project, because I just had the gut that this` this is it. If I never have another idea, I'll be fine. This is 'the' idea; this is the idea that I think is` is, um,... makes me happy and is gonna be successful and is going to be what I'm known for. So here it is ` there's audio clips; there's radio documentaries; there's` there's, um, security camera footage; magazine articles; you know, websites that all look truly and utterly authentic. For me, in some ways, I guess because I've worked across all these different jobs in media from journalism to presenting to radio to all these different things, it wasn't as difficult as it could have been. (PANTS) Hank. I want to tell you a few things. I want to tell you a few things. SIREN WAILS DISTANTLY I want to apologise for not being completely honest. I knew what I was getting you into. My daughter will explain. You can trust her, but don't trust anyone else, Hank. No one. You were set up, and so was I. Shit. So you can see what I'm trying to create here is a truly authentic story world, which has a much more visceral reaction from the reader than just a book; than just words on a page or on a screen. For me, this is the way that most of us now experience life and entertainment. When I had the idea for The Numinous Place, that was great, but the technology for showing it wasn't available ` until the iPad came along, which changed my life, revolutionised my whole thinking, because now my book could be read and experienced in the way that I really wanted it to be experienced. So we decided to raise money to build a prototype for The Numinous Place by doing Kickstarter, which is a fundraising platform where people will sponsor you; where people will give you money, and, um, you give them prizes and gifts instead of capital. We set a target of $75,000, which was pretty audacious, but we made it by the skin of our teeth in 30 days, and that was incredibly exciting and allowed for the building of the prototype ` a 40-page prototype on the iPad ` which Mark then took to Frankfurt Book Fair in October. When I heard that he'd put it up on Kickstarter, I just thought that was a really cool thing for him to do, you know? That` you know, put your heart on your sleeve and see if people will back you. And, uh... So I couldn't not` you know, I couldn't not be involved in it, because, you know, um,... all the other things aside, at a core, our friendship lives and breathes because I recognise him as an artist. MYSTIFYING MUSIC SARAH: For someone to conceive of this next generation of storytelling that combines video, audio, text and images into a single narrative... When you hear it, it sounds, like, 'Of course!' But actually to have the foresight to do that is pretty remarkable. So he` he's got a lot of creativity. Beautiful. So what have you done? Explain what you` how you got` put that together. I tried to extract the time factor and tried to toss out the world, and` and I think this is where we land ` into this weightless state; the dream world. It's like all of those experiences that he's had have come together to bring out a truly original idea. And like, you know, most truly original ideas, it's gonna take a lot of time and effort before it gets traction and before people understand just how cool this idea can be. MILO: Red-tailed hawk! MILO: Red-tailed hawk! SARAH: Oh, yeah, wow. MILO: Red-tailed hawk! SARAH: Oh, yeah, wow. MARK: Oh, yeah, there it is. I look back at my life, and it's taken so many turns and twists, and most of them have been... you know, you make plans and they never` they never come off. And I've been down in the dumps so many times, and I've resurrected myself so many times. And, you know, even now at the age of 49, I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, you know. And I think that's probably what's made` what has made my life kind of interesting. It's` It's` It's kept me on my toes, you know? RELAXED GUITAR MUSIC He is a hero to many people. Sounds real good. 'My job's here in the trenches. 'This is like World War I, you know? 'And I'm a foot soldier in the mud, doing the grind, you know, day in and day out. And I love it.'