Rachel Jean: documentaries, dramas and being a network executive...

Interview – 2011

Rachel Jean has produced more than 40 documentaries, plus comedies and dramas, and run her own company, Isola Productions. In 2009 she became Head of Drama and Comedy at TV3, and then from 2013 to 2020, Head of Development at South Pacific Pictures.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Jean talks about:

Her early work with Owen Hughes at Frame Up Films
The birth of Niki Caro's first feature Memory and Desire
Embarrassing moments during the 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 as Head of Drama and Comedy at TV3

This video was first uploaded on 19 April 2011, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera & Editing – James Coleman

I spent months and months locked in a back room of my office with those three boys, laughing. So my entire pregnancy was just me, quite often lying on the floor laughing, as I tried to teach them anything I knew about drama.
– Rachel Jean on working with Stephen J Campbell, Jon Bridges and Matt McPhail on TV series Secret Agent Men

Rachel's Full Profile