The Living Room : Series Two

As for the first series of this Sticky Pictures' production this iteration comprises ten half-hour episodes, each episode is divided into 4 segments, each profiling a different artist or group.

The art-making takes in music, painting, film, fashion, architecture, sculpture, tagging, illustration, dance, writing, poetry, photography and design to ... just about anything as long as it "keeps on pushing" (as one of the featured artists, The Black Seeds, put it).

The criteria for selecting the creative Kiwis featured in The Living Room seems to be only that their imagination has taken flight in interesting and passionate ways. The artists featured are mainly new generation, but many have since gone on to become seriously successful (eg. Flight of the Conchords, Taika Waititi, The Naked Samoans etc).

Each episode is introduced by a different artist: laid-back and informal as he or she welcomes viewers into their own living room. The title refers to the ubiquitous Kiwi TV room, and to each artist's creative living environment - their studio, bedroom, garage, beach, etc.

This time round the slick opening credits focus on the production process of an unusual industrial laboratory (pumping pistons and blood filled needles) where the products are new-born tuxedo-clad men and women with martinis, who line-up in front of a retro-fururistic telly to watch ... space invaders.

Again the opening sets the tone for the Sticky's fresh approach, shirking the lengthy one-on-one armchair interview for short and sharp snapshots. The Living Room's innovation was to take the basic magazine show format and mix it with contemporary story-telling techniques drawn from music video and x-sports (jump-cut editing, dynamic shooting and an alt-music soundtrack).

The respect for the artist, and what they're all about, lends the potentially generic mix authenticity. You get a sense the directors are committed to finding a shooting style true to the artist featured, and to conveying what makes them tick. It's reality TV, but in a good, soulful, way, as Sticky impresario Mark Albiston says: "I wanted it to be about real things".

The result is an honest perspective on contemporary, urban and alternative culture. For 18 - 45 year olds in the audience, starved of intelligent, street-level arts programming, it brought fresh air to a fusty tradition of ‘worthy' arts productions.

For the artists the segments are 5 minute gems: shining, stellar adverts for their art-making, and for Aotearoa, the series is a celebration of our diverse 21st Century creative energy.

A core production group, corralled by Albiston and including directors Makerita Urale, Louis Sutherland, Simon Baumfield, Mike Bridgman, Jason Naran, Bernadine Lim, Nathan Morris and Jane Wynyard, all shared in the directing, camera operating, sound and editing.

Sticky Pictures was formed when its directors Mark Albiston and Amelia Bardsley returned to New Zealand after a 3 year working sojourn in London. Albiston had worked in television and Bardsley was a commercial lawyer. On their return to NZ in 2000 they worked towards producing, according to Albiston, "the kind of TV I like".

Airing on TV3 in 2004-5 the second series of The Living Room continued to be the kind of TV that the critics liked. At both the 2004 and 2005 New Zealand Screen Awards it picked up gongs for Achievement in Directing (Factual/Entertainment/Lifestyle), and Best Lifestyle/ Entertainment Programme. NZ on Air would go on to provide funding for a third series.