Screentalk

Producer Ric Salizzo started out as a sports reporter and newsreader on the radio. In his early television days, he was criticised for frowning during news bulletins, and he freely admits that conventional sports broadcasting was not his forte. Salizzo found his production niche with the ground-breaking rugby documentaries The Good, the Bad and the Rugby and Blood, Sweat and Touring. He was also producer and co-host of long-running sports entertainment show Sportscafe, and is currently executive producer of The Crowd Goes Wild. In this ScreenTalk, Salizzo talks about:

• Believing he was terrible as a sports newsreader on One Network News
• Having his face compared to a rubber tyre by a TV reviewer
• Showing the ‘human’ face of the All Blacks in The Good, the Bad and the Rugby
• How the need to create a job for himself led to Sportscafe
• Lana Coc-Kroft joining the show because Marc Ellis fancied her
• Trashing the set in the final programme - his favourite episode
• Learning a huge lesson from the ‘terrible’ Sugar Shack
• Creating a new twist on sports news with The Crowd Goes Wild
• Coming through the tough times of losing his wife Cathy Campbell, and still wanting to tell good stories

Veteran broadcaster and journalist Ian Johnstone helped pioneer current affairs programming in New Zealand by hosting and reporting on the shows Compass and Close Up in the 1960s. Johnstone was the first host of the regional magazine programme Town and Around and went on to co-host Tonight at Nine after the debut of South Pacific Television. Since then Johnstone has been involved in a variety of TV series and documentaries, and has even turned his hand to a bit of character acting in television dramas. Johnstone is perhaps best remembered as the long-time host of the Crimewatch series. In this ScreenTalk, Johnstone talks about:

• Learning on the job as the host of the original Close Up current affairs show
• How government officials were baffled on camera
• Becoming a household name on Town and Around
• Coming to terms with working in a police state for the ground-breaking documentary South Africa – the Black Future
• Realising that one of their ‘helpers’ was a government informer
• How being tall, English, and bald got him an acting role in Pioneer Women
• Bringing the drama of crime to the screen in Crimewatch
• Loving the live aspect of the show

Frank Torley is a Kiwi television legend. Forever known as that Country Calendar guy - he has variously narrated, directed, produced, and reported for the show, over a period of more than 40 years. But Torley hasn’t always been Mr Rural. He has also spent time as a newsreader, Top Town presenter, documentary maker (including an early doco on Aids), and spent time in religious programmes. In this ScreenTalk interview, Torley talks about:

• breaking into radio as a rural broadcaster, during his Mark III Zephyr/slouch hat period
• the joys of producing Country Calendar (starting in 1982), and offering a front window into farming for the common man
• the origins of Country Calendar’s spoofs, and contributions by cartoonist Burton Silver
• the early Country Calendar producer who kept offending those being interviewed
• the nail-biting dog versus sheep tension that was A Dog’s Show, thanks to host John Gordon - plus the show’s premature death
• being compared to a startled rabbit, while newsreading for the newly reborn TV One
• handling birth scenes for documentary From Here to Maternity
• the days when ratings weren’t so important
• to retire - or not to retire