A LITTLE ABOUT ESTRATA
Estrata Productions was first founded in 2005 by Shaun Garea as an umbrella for his work. Estrata creates independent film, video, music, and other art projects in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Garea is an award winning filmmaker and writer based in the Manawatū.
The name Estrata is not based from the Chips police officer -as has been suggested prior- but by a word spoken by Professor Knowby in the film Evil Dead 2, a word that summons de profundis, monsters and mayhem.
With over twenty years experience now navigating the, at times, murky waters of arts funding, festivals, and live performance venues Estrata has a track record of proven results with projects screening locally in theaters, overseas at festivals, on VOD global services, in published books and annuals, touring the country via music and cinema venues, you name it! With this comes coverage in the press and all the 'good' stuff that runs tangential to art project creation and promotion.
The Kafka Triptych
The last several years has seen a focus on what has become the 'Kafka Triptych' which covers three main works centered around the work of Czech author Franz Kafka and also unavoidably became enmeshed with the earthquakes in Christchurch of 2010 where all bear their indelible stamp. The first was A Dream of Dark Colours a re-imagined film adaptation of the novel The Trial this work had several scenes shot and a preview presentation made in order to generate funding for the full work when the first earthquakes began, the next was A Dream... which was based on the short story of the same name by Kafka. This was an installation artwork that filmed several 'stanzas' that played in random order giving new meaning to each viewing. THis was repackaged after its exhibition run at Te Uru Galler Auckland and turned into a short film which is available now from IndieReign.
The third Kafka was A Dream of Loss Last Remembered, a live performance of viola by Honoured Artist of the Ukraine Anatoly Zelinsky teamed with a video montage that took themes from the other two works and alowed them room without narrative to be carried by the musicans performance. This work has had several successful performances in Auckland and Christchurch and a VOD package is being prepared now.
Our main page has links to more about each of these projects.
Support for our Work
We have had lots of help to get our projects made over the years; from Creative NZ and Creative Communities NZ funding to Oscar and Palm d'Or winner Jane Campion, music video producer for Nirvana, U2, Metallica Richard Bell, Faith No More bassist and Koolarrow Records CEO Billy Gould, Honoured artist of the Ukraine Anatoly Zelinksy and more.
We have also worked with and been helped by some incredible local talent including NZ Film Awards winner for best cinematography Grant McKinnon, star of McLaren, The Tribe and the soon be released #211 (alongside Nicolas Cage) Dwayne Cameron as well as a host of fantastic musicians, writers, production staff, actors, and artists.
What is going on now?
Estrata has films on DVD and VOD, comics published in annuals, music on CD, you name it. We try hard to make sure that we can make something worth making, and then get it to audiences that may appreciate it.
Current and ongoing projects include The Legend of Gareus comic which you can view HERE, Garea's semi regular writing gig at The Weekly Spoon HERE and the live performance of A Dream of Loss Last Remembered HERE. There are several projects in the pipeline but more details on them as they progress.
Garea is also currently doing his PhD looking at loot boxes in video games (see the writing/other projects page for more on this).
If you have any questions, requests, or even projects you wish to discuss please drop us a line - contact details at the bottom of the main page. We do not contract out often, due to time restraints, but we have on occasion formed partnerships with others to create joint works where the aims of all parties are in sympathy with, and benefit, each other.
Oh and there are some additional video and social media links down the bottom of the page too if you are a link-clicky sort of person ;-)
About Estrata Productions and the creative work of Shaun Garea
Don't get too excited, most of our works are art projects but we still have a few entries here, notably A Dream... which has a nice audience rating.
Press Coverage
As a way to show that, yes we are busy, and yes we do do the things we say we do here on the site; here are some articles and press coverage Estrata Productions has garnered over the years. Some press articles have disappeared offline so here you will find what we could locate, and then below that, some photos of hard copies we managed to get our hands on or photos of which were sent to us of them.