How much do you know about The Tribe?
Did you know…
1. The idea and bringing the Tribe to television screens
The Tribe officially started as far back as 1980 (!) when Executive Producer Raymond Thompson had the original idea.
It was not until 1997 that the actual series came to life after Raymond Thompson along with his co-creator Harry Duffin structured the characters and storylines.
The scripts were commissioned in March 1998, and pre-production for series one commenced in June 1998, with official filming commencing in August that year.
The six-month production continued until March 1999 when the team were given a well-deserved rest prior to starting again on preparing series II.
Each episode might take half an hour to watch, but overall the Tribe has taken several years to bring to the screen.
By comparison, a normal blockbuster movie may take up to around six weeks to film so filming series one of The Tribe was the same length as shooting about 5 blockbuster films. Thats a lot of work!
After the footage had been filmed, it then goes into post-production where the footage is edited, and music and sound effects are added – which took another six months.
2. The Tribe`s shopping mall is a purpose built massive set that fills up a huge studio.
The mall is actually the biggest single set for any television or film production ever made in New Zealand – bigger than sets used in films like The Piano, and television shows like Hercules and Xena Warrior Princess (all filmed in New Zealand).
3. The name of the shopping mall which is the home of our tribe in the series is called “Phoenix Mall”
Phoenix Mall is destined to become one of the most famous shopping malls in the entire world and yet no one will ever shop there or even visit there except the cast and crew of the Tribe.
4. Making the Shopping Mall
There were actually 37 sets used in the production of series one of The Tribe.
The Phoenix Mall set took hundreds of people working around the clock over 5 weeks to construct, paint and complete.
There are so many nails used in the Phoenix Mall set that it would form a line of nails about 75 miles long!