Creating From Anywhere

The edge is the new studio

I keep coming back to a simple idea: the most interesting creative work is moving away from big hubs and toward edges. When I say edges, I mean places with real weather, real distance, and real constraints. For us in New Zealand, it is just as easy to picture the Mackenzie Basin, the Catlins, the King Country, or the Far North. Locations that used to be treated as a logistical headache are starting to feel like the obvious choice.

Infrastructure is catching up with imagination. I don't think people suddenly got tired of cities. I think the tools finally made it practical to build a professional pipeline without needing to be near the biggest buildings and the fastest internet plans.

Satellite internet like Starlink, portable power, and cloud post have turned anywhere into a viable set. I have seen how quickly expectations change once you can reliably shoot, sync, and deliver from a trailhead. The client does not care if you are in a polished studio or parked beside a gravel road, as long as the work arrives on time and looks right.

This changes the industry more than we admit. Gatekeeping by geography weakens when crews can produce broadcast grade work from remote terrain. In New Zealand, where so much of our identity is tied to landscape, that is a big deal. It means the story does not have to compromise just because the location is far from a post house or a traditional production centre.

Budgets follow reliability. As connectivity stabilises, I think brands and studios will commission place based stories that previously got written off as logistics risk. When the risk drops, the creative conversation changes. Suddenly the question becomes, why would we fake this when we can actually be there?

Authenticity becomes a technical feature. A real horizon beats a volume wall when the pipeline is dependable and the crew is small. I am not anti volume wall. I am pro using the right tool. But I keep noticing how audiences react to texture and scale that is hard to simulate. If you can bring back real wind, real light, and real distance without blowing out the schedule, that authenticity starts to behave like a competitive advantage.

Tools need to evolve. Offline first review, proxy by default, and human readable file structures will matter more than big office perks. If your workflow assumes perfect connectivity, it will fall apart the moment you leave the motorway. I have become less interested in fancy systems that only work in ideal conditions, and more interested in the boring stuff that survives mud, battery anxiety, and a weak signal.

AI assists but it does not replace the dirt and wind of a location. I use AI tools and I think they will keep improving. But I also think the more synthetic content floods the feed, the more valuable a specific, grounded sense of place becomes. The texture of place becomes the moat in a world of same looking content.

The winners will be companies that respect local communities and leave a small footprint. The losers will be those who treat remote areas as empty backlots. In a country like ours, word travels fast. If you show up, take without asking, or ignore tikanga and local context, people remember. If you build relationships, work lightly, and leave things better than you found them, you will get invited back.

What it means for the industry

Distribution and discovery will tilt toward creators who move with agility and tap into specific geographies. The centre of gravity shifts from a few cities to a network of edges. I think that shift will show up not just in production, but in marketing too. Stories that carry a real sense of where they are from tend to earn attention, especially when everything else feels algorithmically smooth.

My takeaway is simple. Build for mobility and plan for neighbourhoods without fibre. I plan workflows assuming the connection will drop at the worst possible time. That mindset forces clarity. What absolutely has to be uploaded today? What can wait? What do we need duplicated locally? What can be reviewed on low bandwidth proxies?

If you run a studio or a platform, test your pipeline on a campsite with spotty power. If it sings there, it will fly anywhere. I think this is one of the most honest stress tests we have. If your process works in a place where the nearest warehouse is a two hour drive and the weather is turning, it will probably work in a city office too.