For the past 45 years the Dunedin longitudinal study has been charting every aspect of the lives of 1037 people, making it one of the most important studies in human history. José Barbosa talks to producer Mark McNeill about how you make interesting TV about hard science. Mark McNeill makes TV the way Steven Segal fights Tommy … Read more
Education is a topic critical to us as a nation. It deserves so much better than the pandering polemic Bryan Bruce delivered last night on TV3. Last night TV3 screened a “special report”, “written, directed and produced” by Bryan Bruce, the veteran of dozens of documentaries over the years, many of which he has fronted with a … Read more
Mark Thomas was just 30 when, on the cusp of becoming a National MP, he was publicly knifed by his own Prime Minister and made history. He was our first sacrificial lamb under the MMP electoral system, ruthlessly cut by Jim Bolger two days before general election day in 1996, when National decided Act’s Richard … Read more
In 2013 Chris Pryor and Miriam Smith moved to the small Waikato town of Reporoa to shoot a documentary about the local club rugby team. One year later they emerged with a stunning meditation on what it is to be a farmer, a teammate and a man in rural New Zealand. Don Rowe talks to … Read more
Over 20 years since it aired on TV One on a quiet Sunday night, Aaron Yap remembers Peter Jackson’s hoax-documentary Forgotten Silver. Peter Jackson might have sold New Zealand to the world as a viable enchanting Middle Earth filled with Hobbits and Gollums, but his greatest trick remains convincing us – for a brief moment – … Read more
“So you want to tell the history of student radio in New Zealand,” asks Mikey Havoc of his one-time sidekick Jeremy Wells. “Do you think you’ll be able to do it in a commercial television hour?” Havoc is, as always, deeply cynical. And perhaps right to be – student radio might be seen as a … Read more
In three minutes you could make yourself a bowl of two minute noodles (prep time + meditation included), look through someone’s ‘Bali 2009’ album on Facebook, or watch some incredible short kiwi documentaries on TVNZ Ondemand. Part of the Loading Docs initiative, filmmakers are given the opportunity to produce three-minute documentaries across a wide range … Read more
Joseph Harper splits a Rekorderlig with three members of The Hunter’s Club and finds out why their show stylistically slaughters the rest of their outdoor TV competitors. You notice pretty quickly that The Hunter’s Club doesn’t look like our more familiar hunting and fishing shows. Where shows like Outdoors with Geoff often feel procedural – … Read more
My Life in TV is a weekly feature interview with a member of the television industry. This week, Alex Casey talked to Anika Moa about tutoring on Maori TV’s Songs From the Inside, Ed Sheeran’s looks and why she likes to impersonate famous New Zealanders. Anika Moa is obviously chiefly known as an accomplished musician, but she … Read more
Alex Casey watched the Sunday special on the escapees of Gloriavale, and explains why you need to don a bonnet and get involved in this bizarre ongoing story. What’s it about? Gloriavale is the name of a small religious community in Haupiri Valley, first established by a man called Hopeful Christian (yep) in 1969. The … Read more
Chris Bell tuned in to a National Geographic special called Hitler the Junkie, intrigued to find out the dictator’s penchant for unusual recreational remedies. It wasn’t cocaine, barbiturates or crystal meth that got me hooked. It was Bulgarian peasant faeces. Since it was Adolf Hitler who supposedly ingested them, wouldn’t Aryan faeces have been safer? I … Read more