ScreenTalk

Chris Knox is a musician, film critic and cartoonist. His music career began with legendary Dunedin punk band The Enemy, followed by post-punk heroes Toy Love, then the Tall Dwarfs and his own solo work.

Knox has appeared as a film reviewer on arts TV shows The Edge and Backch@t, and hosted the series The New Artland. He is also the man behind the long-running Max Media cartoon strip in the NZ Herald. Knox has also hosted an Intrepid Journey to India.

As a singer-songwriter and music video director, Knox is known as a pioneer of lo-tech, DIY classics.

For this special two-part ScreenTalk interview, Flying Nun founder Roger Shepherd chats with Knox about his life and career. (See the first part here.) In part two of the interview, they discuss:

• Knox moving from appearing in music videos to directing his own with the Tall Dwarfs‘ Nothing’s Gonna Happen
• Making the video for the Tall Dwarfs‘ Turning Brown and Torn in Two
• Making the video for his solo classic Not Given Lightly
• Becoming a film reviewer on TV arts shows The Edge and Backch@t
• Moving into television presenting, with an episode of Intrepid Journeys, and the series The New Artland
• Knox’s long-running cartoon strip Max Media

This video is available on YouTube for distribution via a Creative Commons licence.

Credits: Interview by Roger Shepherd, directed by Clare O’Leary. Camera and editing by Leo Guerchmann.

Chris Knox is a musician, film critic and cartoonist. His music career began with legendary Dunedin punk band The Enemy, followed by post-punk heroes Toy Love, then the Tall Dwarfs and his own solo work.

Knox has appeared as a film reviewer on arts TV shows The Edge and Backch@t, and hosted the series The New Artland. He is also the man behind the long-running Max Media cartoon strip in the NZ Herald. Knox has also hosted an Intrepid Journey to India.

As a singer-songwriter and music video director, Knox is known as a pioneer of lo-tech, DIY classics.

For this special two-part ScreenTalk interview, Flying Nun founder Roger Shepherd chats with Knox about his life and career. The pair discuss:

• Knox’s early love of film and how he first got into filmmaking
• The first footage of The Enemy, shot by cameraman Peter Janes
• Making the Toy Love video Squeeze
• Making the later Toy Love videos Rebel and Don’t Ask Me

Part two of this interview can be found here, where Knox talks about moving into making his own videos, being a TV film reviewer and presenter, and Max Media.

This video is available on YouTube for distribution via a Creative Commons licence.

Credits: Interview by Roger Shepherd, directed by Clare O’Leary. Camera and editing by Leo Guerchmann.

Tainui Stephens (Te Rarawa) is one of our foremost Māori broadcasters. He has worked as a reporter, writer, director, producer and executive producer. His credits include Maori Battalion March to Victory and The New Zealand Wars.

Stephens was a stalwart of TVNZ’s Māori Programmes department in the 1980s and 90s, working on the regular series Koha, Waka Huia, Marae and Mai Time.

In this interview Tainui Stephens discusses:

• being raised by his Pākehā mother, and his own personal journey “into my Māoridom”
• beginning work at TVNZ Māori Programmes in 1984, and how much he enjoyed his work there
• how he loves all the programmes he has worked on over the years
• the good that Māori broadcasting can do
• the Maori Television Service, its success, and the important role it plays in New Zealand life.

This interview is available on YouTube for distribution via a Creative Commons licence.

Credits: Interview by Monika Ahuriri, camera and direction by Clare O’Leary. Editing by Leo Guerchmann.

John A Givins (Johnny) is an actor, director and producer.  His independent production company Livingstone Productions is best known for the long-running TV2 gay series Queer Nation, and the award-winning TV ONE documentary series Captain’s Log.

Givins talks about starting out as a TV actor in Children of Fire Mountain, with director Peter Sharp.  He also tells the story of how Sharp helped him get a break into TV drama directing a few years later.

Givins discusses his drama directing days with TVNZ in the 1980s, working on series such as Country GP, The Seekers, and Peppermint Twist.

He talks about working on Shortland Street in its early days, and how he was also developing his own independent production ideas at that time.

Givins explains where the name for Livingstone Productions came from, and its connection to his Scottish heritage.

Givins also talks about being gay and making gay television, starting with the TV productions of the Hero Parade, and moving on to long-running TVNZ series Queer Nation.

He outlines how he developed Livingstone Productions, and talks about the creation of the Captain’s Log documentary series.

To close, Givins talks about the end of Queer Nation – saying its demise was the result of an “assault” by TVNZ.

This video is also available on YouTube for distribution via a Creative Commons licence.

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