To Steve Barr

Look, again, you are welcome to play fan fiction writer and wish that I would include Dakumentary or Shipwrecked or Perfumed Garden material in your ripoff prestige drama idea that was illegally derived from my Weeded Out screenplay, but you have no legal right to include any of that material without my consent, much as you had no right to suggest that production of a series based on my spec was immininent. This was untrue and an unethical ploy that was designed to force me into production by introducing substantial peer pressure. This, despite the fact that contracts aren't held to be valid if they're entered into under duress, is unethical.

My legal rights remain absolute, and you have to tell people you fucked up. -

Michelle, you have to accept that hitching your desire to direct or DP this project to his wagon has resulted in me refusing to talk to you. Steve has to kill it before Amanda will consider interacting with the film industry. I don't have to, I don't really want to, so I'm not going to until I'm given an equal and fair opportunity as a director and NOT as an actor. Ainsley and the Film Commission seem willing to provide that opportunity for the real queer documentary* I'm developing, while TVNZ was unable to. Not stepping on a set for one of the shorts to find hints to be Tina strewn around by people that Steve had promised jobs to. He wanted to replace Wellington Paranormal. He overpromised and has to give up. He can find another young, talented queer and give them a series. Mine has to die to allow The Plaything and other fables to be made. *Beyond Trans, my Dakumentary for the rainbow community. - To Steve, You would be much better off licencing or commissioning material written by another writer for some drag person that actually wants to star in their own series. I already did that, and I am thoroughly fed up with any suggestion - particularly from some overprivileged California prick - that the Dakumentary didn't do the thing. If you'd executive produced the Dakumentary, you'd have shouted from the rooftops how bold and innovative it was; but, as it was a response to your bullshit, you chose to attack it instead. You're an opportunist, and it's obvious in all your decisions. I would not be better off because I would lose my creative freedom, and I would be in the illegal position of being told to make a film that the producer can't produce. Steve didn't manage to prove that his writers could access my time stamps, nor that they had any prior knowledge of the 30+ pages of script written in 2020 before I dug them up. Steve was given a realistic opportunity to purchase the script in early 2023, a realistic opportunity to contest the rights to the script in arbitration or mediation in early 2024, and hasn't demonstrated any willingness to consider those options in 2025 because he can't emulate my ability as a filmmaker, and it's become clear that my eye is more valuable than my body or my words. As science demonstrates, even the small amount of $20,000 for the script would have had significant positive impacts on my wellbeing. That's what he didn't do, because he had judgmental views of my gender expression. My angles, my innovations: he needs those to win over his US benchmarks, so now he's begrudgingly suggesting I could star/direct, or direct James Cain. I refused, and James isn't even close to good enough at being a woman. Cast your favourite drag queen that you're close and personal friends with, Steve, not the Wellington punk non-drag trannie that you see as a threat to your hegemony. - In real world terms, Amanda came out: a sizable NZ audience saw her do so, not just via the films but via the transmedia experience that I promised to the industry when we attempted to win some money from the NZ ON Air/RNZ Joint Innovation fund in 2018 with our Fresh Culture pitch. Yes, it's a real word. Since 2018, hundreds of thousands of people have seen my videos. That's plenty, so consider that overall aggregate, rather than the few hundred who saw The Dakumentary. People recognise me in NZ: that's how famous the cause has made me. You are enabling a conservative agenda by suggesting I 'silence' my opera by merely folding it into a drag film, or that my baseline sexual and gender expression wasn't palatable for a mainstream audience. Steve, the offer is dead and I'll take you to court if you ever suggest that you have a right to offer me career advice ever again. I consider your behaviour harassing as well, so we could both claim against each other, but I'll win the IP fight and you'll end up paying even more than the $70,000 in lawyer's fees. This, Steve, is why I want to swear at you, and to get a public apology from you. APRA owns all my music rights. TVNZ doesn't. - Another World as title song = no. Viability of even one episode of Weeded Out = no, because I am writing a book. You have no legal claim to any of the script or song material, and I won't licence it. At this point, dealing with you has become so onerous and irritating that I'm more than willing to take this to court and get lawyers involved. TVNZ owes Amanda Riddell an apology and a cheque for copyright violations. I'll take a $20,000 cheque, and you won't get to make the series. That's the deal. The book will be published - as is my legal right - and then people that didn't ruin my life will be given a fair opportunity to option the rights to make a film of that book, and those people could even include a new TVNZ head of programming. One that hasn't demonstrated a marked pattern of disrespect to the very community that he sought to spotlight in his opportunistic drama series. Goodbye, Steve Barr. I hope you never even consider fucking with me again. Amanda