From the Editor

By Matt Cooney, April 18, 2006 @ 5:05 pm

Rock’n’rollers always say the third album is the ‘difficult’ one. So it’s probably no coincidence that this, the third issue of Idealog, features so many stories about the Kiwi battler.

Take George Nuku, Dan Willdridge and Omeka Takiari. As we go to press they’re furiously working away in Dan’s garage, racing the clock to get their amazing perspex marae completed in time for its unveiling at Cambridge University in May. N-ZO cycle kit designers Gary Sullivan and Glen Anderson are looking over their export orders in Rotorua but they’re still wearing the bumps and bruises of their rough journey. A new wave of art dealers, too, is taking the tough route: dealers like Michael Lett and Hamish McKay want our artists to have international profiles so they’re packing up their artists’ precious works and taking them to the world’s hippest art shows. Simon Good, an ambitious young filmmaker we met writing our cover story on Generation C, is making a seven-minute stop-frame animation movie in his parents’ attic. It’s hot, hard work and unbelievably slow—the first three minutes took a year to assemble—but he’s determined to create something great. And the subjects of our picture profiles on page 28 know all about risking everything on a big idea: they’re the winners of this year’s Incubator Awards.

If they’re looking for inspiration, it’s hard to go past the stories of former MTV International supremo Brent Hansen and Trade Me tycoon Sam Morgan. Both have ‘made it’ by anyone’s standards, but they had to put the hard yards in to get there. Morgan remembers when Trade Me had no money and was at serious risk. It’s hard to believe that was only a few years ago.

So when Kiwi battlers strike the big time, everyone understands why they retire to the bach and the boat. Not Morgan, though—his job just got a bit more exciting and he enjoys it so he’s staying put, thank you. As teenage filmmaker Good says: “You have to love it or else you’d never do it.” Commercial creatives don’t let success stop them—which is just our economy needs.

In the meantime, how does the battler get through the tough times? Take a look at this issue’s How² article on page 88, about getting cash without giving away control. As Sam Morgan can probably confirm: you can go a long way on a credit card.