By all accounts, the selection of Hawai`i Island as the site for filming of WaterWorld is attributable to the work of Robin Kealoha Black, who, in 1993 and for part of 1994, was managing director of the Big Island Film and Video Association, a non-profit group formed to encourage film projects on the Big Island, to serve as an information clearinghouse, and to “serve as a facilitator between our members and potential clients” — that is, to help its members find work.
In 1994, BIFAVA received a $75,000 contract (financed in part by DBEDT funds) from the county of Hawai`i Department of Research and Development to promote the Big Island as a film location. In 1993, BIFAVA had received a smaller contract for similar services.
As BIFAVA’s managing director, Black ran interference for the producers of WaterWorld with most of the agencies from whom permits or approvals were needed, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Office of State Planning’s Coastal Zone Management Program, the Department of Transportation and the Department of Land and Natural Resources. Black also may be credited with negotiating the extremely favorable rental agreements WaterWorld received from the Board of Land and Natural Resources.
In March — less than a month after the 1994 contract was signed — Diane S. Quitiquit, director of the county’s Research and Development Department, was pressing BIFAVA for a “final audited report of revenues and expenditures of BIFAVA” for 1993, as required in the 1993 contract. According to BIFAVA officers, an accountant was hired to comply soon thereafter.
In May, a statewide organization — the Film and Video Association of Hawai`i — petitioned DBEDT’s Hawai`i Film Office, “requesting that the funding received by the BIFAVA organization be re-assigned to a full-time position of Film Coordinator… We, the Board of Directors of FAVAH, believe that enrollment, membership, and referrals made by the Hawai`i County Film Office should be open to industry professionals on a state-wide basis.”
On June 8, Quitiquit notified BIFAVA’s president, Michael Bonahan, that her office was “seriously concerned about the ability of your organization to fulfill the terms of our contract.” BIFAVA had still not provided “accurate financial information in the handling of public funds,” she wrote. Then, too — Quitiquit said — there was the matter of the petition, signed by 73 people professing one or another association with the film and video production industry.
What seems to have prompted the letter, however, was “a formal complaint” about Robin Black from two people associated with King Kona Productions. (On the copy of the letter provided by the county to Environment Hawai`i, the names of the complainants were blacked out.) “They have specifically stated that they do not want her on or near the WaterWorld set now or in the future,” Bonahan was informed. According to Black, she was locked out of her office at Kawaihae Harbor the next day. On June 24, Quitiquit served Bonahan with 30-day notice of cancellation of the contract. No reason for cancellation was provided.
According to Quitiquit, the county will be hiring a film coordinator to promote the Big Island. And, as FAVAH petitioned, the search to fill the position will be statewide.
Volume 5, Number 6 December 1994