ScreenTalk

Vanessa Alexander wrote stage plays before turning her hand to writing, directing and producing for film and television.  She is best known for her feature film Magik and Rose, for producing innovative children’s drama series Being Eve, and as a director on popular westie TV show Outrageous Fortune.

Alexander tells how extreme persistence paid off early in her screen career when she got to make Magik and Rose, and she discusses her strong working relationship with producer Larry Parr.

She credits Parr with being the first reason she made it into film and television, and says South Pacific Pictures head John Barnett is the second reason.

Alexander discusses why she thinks Barnett gave her a break into producing with Being Eve.  She speculates that this was partly because she was young and female and the series needed that, but says she also puts it down to a story she told at the SPADA conference about her energetic marketing work for Magik and Rose.

She explains that this involved buying all the tickets to a premiere screening herself so that it would appear the film had sold out quickly, and seating family and friends near critics to talk up the film.

Alexander also talks about her directing work on popular TV3 drama series Outrageous Fortune.  She says working on the first episode of the series was extremely stressful because the original idea was so good and expectation was very high.

This interview is available on YouTube for distribution under a Creative Commons license (Non-Commercial, Attribution).

Credits: Interview by Clare O’Leary, Camera and Editing by Leo Guerchmann.

Producer Elizabeth Mitchell set up Firehorse Films to produce the popular TV3 animated comedy series bro’Town.

Mitchell was a print journalist turned television promotions director, and she explains that her only experience in animation prior to bro’Town was a TV ad on the white spotted tussock moth.

Mitchell outlines how the original idea for bro’Town came about, and talks about her long friendship with Naked Samoans and bro’Town star Oscar Kightley.

She also talks about the early development for the series, how she got the animation team together, and what the production process for bro’Town is.

Mitchell discusses audience reaction to the series – thinking it would be watched by “young brown people” only to find that it was also enjoyed by “old white people”.

Lastly, Mitchell discusses the future for bro’Town now that the last TV series is on air – a future that includes television specials and a bro’Town movie.

This interview is also available on YouTube.

Credits: Interview by Clare O’Leary, Camera and Editing by Leo Guerchmann.

Michael Hurst is an acclaimed theatre actor and director, but has also featured in a broad range of television and film roles, including his long-running gig as sidekick Iolaus in the American TV series Hercules.

In the mid-90s Hurst also began directing for the screen, initially on episodes of Hercules and Xena, but also helming the feature film comedy Jubilee, and TV mockumentary drama Love Mussel.

Hurst talks about his early days in theatre, his first television appearance in 30 Minute Theatre – Tinkling Brass, and his first major roles in the Sunday Theatre one-off Casualties of Peace, and rock band drama Heroes.

He also talks about his first feature film role, in the 1984 David Blyth splatter film Death Warmed Up, and reveals that he hated seeing himself in the film and thought he had “made an appalling job of it”.

After Death Warmed Up, he decided he would never work in film again, but recovered from that fairly quickly with the feature Dangerous Orphans in 1985.  His work on 1993 classic Desperate Remedies made him “love film again.”

Hurst discusses the making of Desperate Remedies, in particular the delights of working with celebrated cinematographer Leon Narbey.

Hurst also tells the story of how he won the part of Iolaus in Hercules, and of his on-going connection to the role through Hercules and Xena fan conventions.

And he discusses how Hercules and Xena led him into television and film directing, including the feature Jubilee and the television mockumentary Love Mussel.

Hurst closes the interview talking about his latest project – a feature film called Bitch Slap.

This video is also available on YouTube.

Credits: Interview by Clare O’Leary, Camera and Editing by Leo Guerchmann.

Veteran television script-writer Michael Noonan’s screenography reads a little like a list of New Zealand’s significant early TV dramas, including the historical epic The Governor.

Noonan talks to NZ On Screen about working as the first script editor in TVNZ’s fledgling drama department in the 1970s.

He tells the story of the letter-writing campaign that boosted 1973 drama series Pukemanu.

Noonan talks about the importance of having good producer/director partnerships. He discusses his strong working relationship with Murray Reece and the late Tony Isaac, and their work on early 70s dramas Richard John Seddon, The Longest Winter and The Games Affair.

Noonan was also the interviewer for the classic 1975 Janet Frame interview in the Three New Zealanders documentary series, again directed by his close colleague Tony Isaac. He says Frame was quite different from the image of her in popular myth.

Although Noonan was involved in the production of the other Three New Zealanders documentaries, he chose not to interview Sylvia Ashton-Warner, and he explains why this was.

Noonan also speaks about his and Tony Isaac’s work on the landmark series The Governor in 1977.  The series was controversial in its day, and Noonan suggests that some of this controversy was fanned by film industry people who were annoyed about so much money going to a TV project.

Referring to the 70s as the “developmental decade,” and a great time for NZ TV drama, Noonan says the 1980s were a tougher time, but he enjoyed his work on the Legacy series, and the drama Homeward Bound, which was started as a rival to Shortland Street.  It got the good reviews at the time, but Shortland Street got the viewers.

Noonan also talks about setting up the NZ Writers’ Guild.

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute.

Credits: Interview conducted by Clare O’Leary with camera and editing by Leo Guerchmann.

Documentary filmmaker Leanne Pooley’s award-winning films have examined some of the most potent issues of New Zealand’s recent history from euthanasia (The Promise, about euthanasia advocate Lesley Martin), to sport and politics (Try Revolution, about the effect of protests against the 1981 Springbok Tour in South Africa), to controversial murders (Relative Guilt, about the effect of the David Tamihere trial on his family).

She has sensitively paid tribute to some of our most potent, but complicated, artists, dancer Douglas Wright (Haunting Douglas) and conceptual artist Billy Apple (Being Billy Apple); and she has profiled the first Buddhist High Lama incarnated in the Southern Hemisphere, in Kiwi Buddha.

Canadian-born Pooley talks to NZ On Screen about her career, from working for international broadcasters from London (BBC, Channel Four, ITV, Discovery Channel) to the challenges of, and motivations for, making docos in NZ: “my criteria: is it a great story and will it resonate with the world.”

Pooley discusses The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls, her documentary on Kiwi icons Lynda and Jools Topp. The doco looks at the yodeling country music comedic phenomenon and examines the subversion amongst the sing-alongs: “Every really important social change that’s happened in New Zealand over the last 30 years the twins have been a part of, and in some cases even provided a soundtrack for.”

This interview was conducted by Clare O’Leary with camera and editing by Leo Guerchmann. It is available to embed and distribute on YouTube.