From: Dominic Sheehan <dominic@wingnutfilms.co.

nz>
Sent: Wednesday, 14 December 2016 4:23 p.m.
To: Kevin Lavery
Cc: George Hickton
Subject: Fwd: Please forward to Kevin Lavery

Categories: Printed

Dear Kevin

Below is a letter that Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh have asked me to forward onto you. This follows their
review of the latest plans for the Movie Museum and is in reply to your letter of 8 December.

Clearly you will have questions. I’ve copied in George Hickton. He will be happy to discuss this matter with
you.

Cheers

Dominic

________________________________________________

Dominic Sheehan
General Manager

Wingnut Films Productions Limited

PO Box 15208, Miramar, Wellington 6243, NEW ZEALAND
Email: dominic@wingnutfilms.co.nz
DDI: +64 4 909 3002
Mobile: +64 21 707 344

Begin forwarded message:

Dear Kevin,

Many thanks for your letter.

1
Fran and I are travelling at the moment, but we’ve had a chance to review Pacific Architecture's latest
design changes to the plans of The Movie Museum.

Please understand we completely respect the council’s wish to have a convention centre and a museum in
the same building and in theory this should be achievable - but this recent round of revisions confirms our
long held fear that museums and convention centres are awkward bed fellows, at best. In fact it has left us
wondering if a plan to shoe horn the two together can ever be truly workable?

We have been working on the movie museum project with the WCC for well over two years. During this
time we have personally spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultancy and management fees. We
have made a commitment to spend a further $45 million dollars on the internal fit out of the building. This is
in addition to providing a vast number of props and sets (valued well in excess of a hundred million dollars)
to fill the exhibition space.

Under these circumstances it’s difficult to commit to a museum design that appears to take second place to
the needs of the WCC's convention centre.

When we first entered into this discussion with the WCC the plan presented to us was relatively simple: the
building was to have three stories with the top floor to house the convention centre and the museum
occupying the lower two floors. We have worked in good faith to this brief. Since then, there has been a
constant erosion of the museum space, to provide for the ever expanding needs of the convention centre and
other parties, including retail stores unrelated to us.

We attempted to provide plans showing our minimal needs, but the latest plans provided by your architects
has the convention centre consuming further space in all three floors.

Section 7(2)(b)(ii)

We have put a massive amount of time and energy into attempting to make this partnership work. We have
made 3-D models, we have constantly adjusted and revised floor plans, we have been extremely mindful of
all health and safety requirements and have attempted to incorporate all WCC mandated changes in the
spirit of achieving consensus.

But Pacific Architecture's ongoing determination to chip away away at much needed floor space,
compromising the look and flow of major displays, has driven us to the end of our tether. We are very
grateful for the opportunity to work with the WCC on this project and we appreciate the enormous
contribution of Wellington rate payers to fund the building but frankly, the whole exercise is pointless if the
end result is a profound disappointment.

Our only constructive suggestion is to review the other design submissions the WCC must have from other
architecture firms (before awarding the job to Pacific Architecture) in the hope that we may find alternative
ideas that better accommodate the needs the museum in a shared building. Please forward those alternate

2
submissions to Dom asap.

Cheers,

Peter J