{"id":7346,"date":"2019-04-15T00:27:55","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T00:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nyglamour.net\/?p=7346"},"modified":"2026-02-03T04:09:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T04:09:40","slug":"its-always-hard-to-get-started-and-sex-is-a-big-subject-so-where-do-you-start-lisa-burd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/?p=7346","title":{"rendered":"“It\u2019s always hard to get started and sex is a big subject so where do you start?”- Lisa Burd"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lisa\u2019s worked in the film and television industry for the past 18 years. She started out as Camera\/Director (one person crew) and now works as Director \/ Producer. Her specialty has been factual observational and reality TV shows such as \u2018Life Flight\u2019 (emergency TV show), film research projects for Nga Pae o Te\u00a0Maramatanga for the University of Auckland through to\u00a0Qantas Award-winning \u2018Best Informative Show\u2019 \u201cPepi\u201d for Maori\u00a0Television. She also worked on the \u2018Real Housewives of Auckland\u2019 as a casting and field producer. She has created three independent,award winning documentaries, “Changing Gear” (2005), “Monterey” (2016) and most recently “Let’s Talk About Sex” (2018). She is currently working on a new formatted reality show that she has co-created, a new arts, food and Maori culture series and the amazing new documentary \u201cFight for Time\u201d.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Exclusive Interview with Filmmaker Lisa Burd<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam: Congratulations on being accepted at the prestigious\nInternational Filmmaker Festival of New York. Can you tell us about the film\nand the process of making it?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank-you! We are excited to be included. \u201cLet\u2019s Talk About\nSex\u201d is an independent documentary directed by myself and hosted by Julia\nSloane, one of the New Zealand \u201cReal Housewives of Auckland\u201d. Together we hope\n\u201cLet\u2019s Talk About Sex\u201d encourages conversation about sexuality and increasing\nacceptance around gender and sexual diversity. Julia talks to porn and sex experts,\nsex industry participants and people on the street about sex and sexuality. It\u2019s\nat times humourous, sad and educational. The adventure takes you through\ndominatrix dungeons, virtual reality porn, \ntransgender issues and more. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY\nGlam:<\/strong>\nHow did you go about casting for the\nfilm?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\nwas interesting how we got host Julia Sloane on board. I first met Julia when I\nwas 1 of the casting directors on the \u201cReal Housewives of Auckland\u201d.  That show was an interesting experience, quite\nunlike anything I\u2019d ever worked on. After the filming finished we were talking\nabout the episode where Julia brought out some sex toys and how the viewers and\nother cast mates reactions to it were rather prudish. I then decided it could\nbe interesting to see how New Zealanders in general reacted to sex and\nsexuality and then it began, evolved and built into the documentary you see\ntoday. Julia and I interviewed on camera around 30 people that we whittled down\nto 8 to fit into the time frame. From doing a lot of casting over the years I\nhave a little black book so I picked up the phone and started calling people.\nSomeone always knows someone that knows someone! When I take on a project I\nbecome immersed in that project. When<\/em> I\u2019m going about\nmy day to day stuff, I\u2019m looking at everyone as potential talent and when I\nthink they have something I just ask them. I got a lot of the talent this way. Julia\nhad friends in the sex industry that we were able to get an \u2018in\u2019 with as they\nare quite a closed community. Not only was Julia a great host but she was an\namazing researcher. She was so good that we met with an incredible number of\namazing people who were keen to share their story. We really feel that they are worthy of a series.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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NY Glam:<\/strong>\nWhat is the story about and how did you\nachieve it cinematically?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nstart off with Julia visiting her parents in a small provincial town in New Zealand\nand realised how discriminatory the views were 50 years ago and how sex and\nsexuality was just never discussed. Then Julia starts speaking with sex experts, sex industry participants and people on\nthe street about sex and sexuality. She gains a lot of knowledge and it changes\nher own views and feelings toward sex and sexuality. It was an amazing\nexperience for both of us. When we showed it at the DocEdge NZ International\nFilm festival and then at a private viewing at the film school, we had many\npeople thanking us for uncovering myths and increasing awareness. Cinematically\nwe were lucky to have on board one of New Zealand\u2019s pre-eminent Directors of\nPhotography, Rhys Duncan. Rhys will possibly be best recognised by Americans\nfor his work on cameras for Peter Jackson\u2019s rendition of King Kong. Rhys and I\nworked together on different shows over time. Rhys is a natural at capturing\nthe moment in the moment. Often stories about sex are shown to be seedy and\ngrainy and I wanted to do exactly the opposite. And we did film it in a\nbeautful way capturing the essence of the people through the images we shot.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam: Will you be attending the IFFNY festival in New York\nin May?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, we are hoping to. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong>\nHow long have you been making films and\nvideos?<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nstarted making films whilst still at film school so that makes it 18 years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong>\nWhat film was your directorial debut? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\nwas \u201cChanging Gear\u201d, the documentary that I made about\na group of women over 50 cycling across the Southern States of America raising\nmoney for Breast Cancer Awareness.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong>\nWhat was the most important lesson you\nhad to learn that has had a positive effect on your film? How did that lesson\nhappen? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nall my films it is without a doubt keeping my mind open, not being judgemental \u2013\nwhich gives our subjects room to believe that their story would be told without\nunfair editing or a negative spin on it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nexample for \u201cLet\u2019s Talk About Sex\u201d I remember all too well the vulnerable\nstories a young woman told us about her work as a prostitute earlier in her\nlife and just knew that she was sharing too much. My judgement was that she was\nin a vulnerable state at the time of filming and as much as it would have made\namazing viewing I just sensed that she would have lived to regret that being\ntold. She came to us after the film was shown and thanked us for not using her\nstory, realising that perhaps she\u2019d gone too far. I always feel its important\nto listen to my gut feeling.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong>\nIs it\nharder to get started or to keep going? What was the particular thing that you\nhad to conquer to do either?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s always hard to get started and sex is a big subject so\nwhere do you start? And it started with the first phone call and then there\u2019s a\nmeeting and you just go on from there. It\u2019s certainly not easy to pick up the\nphone and say to someone you don\u2019t know yet \u201ctell me about your sex life\u201d, or\n\u201chow did you get into virtual reality sex\u201d. But so many of those people were so\nwonderful at sharing their stories with me and I\u2019ve made friends from it. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY\nGlam:<\/strong>\nHow has\nyour style evolved?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My first documentary was just me, my camera\nand radio mikes. There is something really intimate about being a one person\ncrew when doing these stories which I do like to do with all my documentaries\nas there is a level of trust you get when it\u2019s just you. With time passing it\u2019s\nbeen lovely to be able to bring in specialised people such as sound recordists,\nDOPs and co-producers. I\u2019ve been lucky to have found people that share the same\nmindset because I do believe that if you have a good collaberative team it will\nshow in the end product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong>\nWhat has been your personal key to\nsuccess? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My personal key to success is that I\u2019ve\nbeen able to interview and film at the same time. The gold often comes from\nbeing able to be there in the moment, at one with the talent. And often the talent\nforgets the camera is there. So a small and caring crew is the key to success.\nWhich is what we had for \u201cLet\u2019s talk about Sex\u201d. Julia built a great rapport\nwith her talent while interviewing for \u201cLet\u2019s talk about Sex\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong>\nWhat are you thinking about doing next?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am working on a lot right now. In film\nand TV it\u2019s essential to have irons in the fire. With John Davies, my\nco-producer, I have two TV series looking for homes first on New Zealand TV and\nthen hopefully formats that can work on a greater world scale, and another\npassion project film \u201cFight For Time\u201d, an amazing story following the ups and\ndowns of the teams competing in the dragon boating season. It\u2019s a mission to\nfilm but is looking amazing so far. Of course, it would be wonderful to make a\nseries out of the Documentary \u201cLets talk about sex\u201d also.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NY Glam:<\/strong>\nWhere does your studio want to go from\nhere?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want myself and the team to be known for\nbeing a safe vehicle for people to tell their stories. The ultimate mission is\nto make a difference in this world and to learn from other people\u2019s stories. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lisa\u2019s worked in the film and television industry for the past 18 years. She started out as Camera\/Director (one person crew) and now works as Director \/ Producer. Her specialty has been factual observational and reality TV shows such as \u2018Life Flight\u2019 (emergency TV show), film research projects for Nga Pae o Te\u00a0Maramatanga for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19386,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7346\/revisions\/19386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nyglamour.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}