This genre-bending series follows Kent Briggs as he pieces together one of New Zealand’s most outrageous slices of history, with lions on the loose, suspected gang activity, a clown named Larry and the alleged cold-blooded murder of a performing poodle.
Writer, Director and Presenter Kent Briggs spoke to MWF about “New Zealand’s answer to the Tiger King”, Who Killed Lucy the Poodle? (NZL)
What experiences motivated turning an old memory into an investigative documentary series?
Firstly, thanks a bunch for selecting and nominating the series. It’s a privilege to be part of the festival. I’d always had this crazy story floating around in my life. I’d bust it out at the odd barbie, or when someone mentioned the circus. But, it wasn’t until I got yarning to my mate and Producer Orlando Stewart about it, that we realised it would make a hell of a documentary. Plus, a cold case investigation about a Circus Poodle, felt like something original.
Who Killed Lucy the Poodle? Trailer
What inspired the choice to re-enact scenes with miniature diorama figures?
I work as an ad creative and one day this Art Director, Tona Torres showed me a really amazing video for “Music has no enemies”. It recreated a story about a guy in the second world war with similar techniques and it never fails to give me goosebumps. So, I thought that we could do a childish spin on that for our recreations. We had no moving footage of the escape to work with, so we had to come up with something rad, to help bring people’s memories to life. However, if those freaking lions escaped today there’d be footage for Africa.
What was your greatest challenge creating the series?
There were actually two big challenges. Firstly, the investigation; that was a tonne of work, but also strangely addictive. Sure, the murder of a Circus poodle from the 80’s is a ridiculous thing to investigate, but on the other hand, it was seriously engrossing. Everytime we discovered something new, it threw up all these other questions and coincidences; it literally consumed my every thought for a long time. Plus, it happened in a bit of an archival blackhole, it turned out that the 80s was a time when records and a lot of footage wasn’t always kept. But, we went hard and luck was on our side.
Secondly, finding the right balance of holding back the juicy gossip I picked up along the way, but also creating a riveting show. I didn’t want to create something that was just dishing dirt on people’s lives; that weighed on my mind – I’m not a hard hitting investigative journalist, but we definitely got some crazy-arsed stuff on screen without hurting anyone, and I’m kinda proud of that.
What is your favourite part of the series?
It’s really hard to choose my favourite part. There’s some archival footage of circus owner Tony Ratcliffe taking his elephant to a rural pub for a beer, that’s superbly surreal. In a lot of ways this is New Zealand’s answer to the Tiger King. The show definitely gets stranger and more tangled and twisted as it goes. I think my interview in episode three with Jenny the knife thrower is pretty classic. She was a hard case with some pretty wicked answers; and she had some excellent intel on one of my favourite suspects – Larry the Clown.
How did you fund your series?
We were very lucky that Vicki Keogh and Tony Manson were at TVNZ. They greenlit this project for the OnDemand platform and stood by it from start to finish. As far as commissioners go, they’re pretty flash.
How long have you been working on your series?
Overall it was about 18 months worth of work, with a real solid 5 months of full time detective and TV making work.
Why did you decide on the web-series format?
The 15 minute, 7 part series gave the show a format that helped us create something pretty damn bingable. Plus, I would’ve been surprised if mainstream TV had funded “Who killed Lucy the Poodle”, so we were lucky. But when all is said and done, as a doco series I think it stands up on its hind legs and puts on a bloody great show, just like any good circus poodle should.
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