ScreenTalk

Actor, musician and comedian Madeleine Sami has been on our TV screens since the age of 18 when she debuted on Pio! and Shortland Street. Since then she has appeared in a number of TV shows including The Insiders Guide to Happiness, The Jaquie Brown Diaries, and Diplomatic Immunity. Sami has also graced the big screen in Sione’s Wedding, Under the Mountain, and in 2012 a sequel to Sione’s Wedding. Her most recent TV appearance was in Super City – a programme of her own creation in which she played five roles.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Sami talks about:

• Having to be taught continuity on the set of Shortland Street
• Learning a lot from her more experienced co-stars on the soap
• The fun and chaos on the set of the feature film Sione’s Wedding
• How action in her most memorable scene was not actually in the script
• Being in the most blood-thirsty episode of Xena
• Loving her role as the comic patsy opposite the lead in The Jaquie Brown Diaries
• Wanting to create a different type of comedy in Super City
• Mixed reactions to the show – from confusion to a cultural icon
• Not realising how much work was involved in playing five lead characters
• Being taken by surprise by the news of a sequel to Sione’s Wedding

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

Thedownlowconcept is an Auckland based production company run by Ryan Hutchings, Jarrod Holt and Nigel McCulloch. Their first TV production was the music quiz show Pop Goes the Weasel. They cemented their TV comedy credentials with the hit show 7 Days, and followed it up with the ‘science for blokes’ series Bigger Better Faster Stronger. In 2011 they will debut their sitcom Hounds. As well as television, thedownlowconcept have made a number of short films for the 48 Hour Film Festival including the award-winning short Only Son.

In this ScreenTalk interview, the team talks about:

• Becoming best friends at AUT and starting a production company
• Being appalled at their first attempts at creating TV props
• Not really knowing what they were doing producing Pop Goes the Weasel
• How not having much of a budget meant they had to do multiple roles
• That the hit show 7 Days nearly didn’t make it on-screen
• How the press bagged the show before it even screened
• How the genesis of Bigger Better Faster Stronger began with the host’s hoarding ability
• Being disappointed in the ratings for the show, but still loving it
• Their new sitcom Hounds and how it taught them a lot about the TV industry

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

Rachel Jean has produced and/or directed over 40 documentaries, made award-winning drama and film, and set up and run production company Isola Productions. Jean has recently moved from producing and directing to the role of Head of Drama and Comedy at TV3 and C4.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Jean reveals:

• Details of her early work at Frame Up Films
• How feature film Memory and Desire was conceived
• Hilarious and embarrassing moments during filming of Love Mussel
• The joys of spending her pregnancy on the floor and laughing while helping write Secret Agent Men
• How The Market came about, and its intriguing production philosophy
• An insight into the making of her documentary Life, Death and a Lung Transplant about her husband’s Cystic Fibrosis and lung transplant
• Her most satisfying achievements so far as Head of Drama and Comedy at TV3 and C4

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

John Clarke is one of New Zealand’s best-loved comic performers. His 1970s TV character Fred Dagg has become an icon of Kiwi comedy. Clarke has worked as a comedian, actor, writer and director in television and film and on both sides of the Tasman.

In Australia, his satirical television series The Games was an Australian Film Institute award-winner, and he also won Best Personality at the 1976 NZ Feltex Awards. Clarke has been based in Australia since the late 1970s, but has recently lent his unmistakeable comic voice to New Zealand television productions bro’Town and Radiradirah.

In a departure from our usual ScreenTalk format, this audio interview with John Clarke was produced and recorded by Andrew Johnstone and Richard Swainson with the assistance of Hamilton Community Radio and The Film School.

Clarke talks about his early days in New Zealand, the development of the Fred Dagg character, his work in pioneering NZ films Wild Man and Dagg Day Afternoon, and his long television and film career in Australia.

Bigger Better Faster Stronger host James Coleman trained as an actor and appeared in the acclaimed film Stickmen, but has mainly made his name as a broadcaster on radio and television. He hosted TV3’s morning show Sunrise, and blended his actor and broadcaster roles in the TV satire The Jaquie Brown Diairies.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Coleman talks about:

• The pleasure of pimping household appliances on Bigger Better Faster Stronger
• Why the show appeals to both men and women
• Unnerving his co-hosts on Sunrise with his ad-libbing
• His reasons for leaving the show
• The strange experience of playing ‘himself’ on The Jaquie Brown Diaries
• Playing a gay man in the short film Thinking About Sleep
• Learning how to act without much dialogue
• How the feature Stickmen was a big step up for him
• Why stylistically the film feels dated now

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

Pio Terei is an actor, singer and comedian, who has been involved in a wide range of TV shows such as: Issues, Pete and Pio, Big Night In and Tangaroa with Pio. He also had a small role in the feature film No. 2 and a dramatic role in Mataku. In 2009 Terei began hosting iconic quiz show It’s in the Bag for Maori Television.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Terei talks about:

• Being a little scared joining legends of comedy on Issues
• Adopting an arrogant persona to impersonate Winston Peters on the show
• Working with mentor Peter Rowley on the comedy show Pete and Pio
• How ‘taking the piss’ out of Pākehā in The Life and Times of Te Tutu raised hackles
• Being inspired by his co-stars in the feature film No. 2
• Loving the unique sense of New Zealand in game show It’s in the Bag
• How winning a booby prize meant so much to one contestant

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

Aussie import Gavin Strawhan is a screen writer who has had a hand in many of our recent TV drama successes. After assisting with the set up of Shortland Street, Strawhan then teamed with writing colleague Rachel Lang to create the drama series Jackson’s Wharf, Mercy Peak, Lawless, and This is Not My Life. Strawhan has worked on Burying Brian, Go Girls, and Outrageous Fortune; and co-created the kidult drama Being Eve. He also helped develop a number of feature films such as Crooked Earth, Whale Rider, and Jubilee, and in 2010 wrote the screenplay for Matariki.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Strawhan talks about:

• The difficulty in finding experienced writers at the beginning of Shortland Street
• How bringing on writer Rachel Lang made a huge difference to the soap
• How Shortland Street brought real kiwi accents and characters to the small screen
• Realising the impact writers have on a show while writing for Lawless
• Go Girls being a show about kindness and optimism
• How This is Not My Life was partly a critique of capitalism
• How the finished version of Matariki was a lot more serious than the script he worked on
• How a director’s vision differs from a writer’s vision
• Why being a writer involves ‘fraud’

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

David Fane failed comedy at drama school. But since leaving Toi Whakaari, Fane has delighted audiences with his comic performances in Skitz, The Semisis, Tongan Ninja, bro’Town, Sione’s Wedding, Outrageous Fortune, Eagle vs Shark and Radiradirah. Fane has also appeared in the drama series The Market and The Strip, and the feature film The Tattooist.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Fane discusses:

• His feelings about Toi Whakaari
• How he landed his first TV role on Skitz
• What it was like acting with his mates on The Semisis
• How his character’s name came about in Tongan Ninja
• Behind-the-scenes observations from The Strip
• How bro’Town began, and the important messages behind some of the silliness
• The joys of playing Falani in Outrageous Fortune
• Hilarious behind-the-scenes details from Eagle vs Shark
• How performances were worked up in Radiradirah
• An insight into upcoming feature film Love Birds

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

Actor Joel Tobeck has played a range of ‘off-centre’ roles from a drug addict to a ‘bastard in a wheelchair’. He has appeared in many TV shows including Shortland Street, Lawless, Mercy Peak, Hercules, Xena and This is Not My Life. Tobeck’s film credits include Topless Women Talk About Their Lives, Little Fish and Eagle vs Shark.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Tobeck talks about:

• Exploring the craft of acting in Niki Caro’s The Summer the Queen Came
• Loving playing Neil in the TV show and then film Topless Women Talk About Their Lives
• Playing a ‘bastard in a wheelchair’ in Shortland Street
• Having to ‘step up’ his acting in the American series Hercules
• The intensity of working on the set of Channelling Baby
• Why shooting the seance scene made him doubt his role in the film
• Working with Taika Waititi on the comedy film Eagle vs Shark
• Enjoying playing another nasty character in This is Not My Life

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence

Jason Stutter – director of Ronald Hugh Morrieson adaptation Predicament – has a talent for going for the jugular, yet doing it in style. In Stutter’s movies, the camera plunges headfirst into haunted hospitals, dodgy smalltown dealings, and fight scenes with Pacific Island Ninjas whose parents were unexpectedly half-gobbled by fish.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Stutter talks about

• why he makes films
• his many projects featuring Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement
• falling in love with the dialogue in Ronald Hugh Morrieson’s novel Predicament
• the lessons that can be learnt from Morrieson’s career
• the bravery of comedians, and why he loves giving them acting roles in his movies
• the genesis of Tongan Ninja, Stutter’s no-budget, three years in the making feature debut
• the unusual way haunted hospital tale Diagnosis: Death was funded
• the importance of staying loyal to the original text

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.