Yvonne Mackay and Margaret Mahy: A special partnership...

Interview – 2008

World-renowned children's author Margaret Mahy and director/producer Yvonne Mackay collaborated on a number of screen projects based on Mahy's books and scripts.

In this collaborative ScreenTalk interview, Mackay and Mahy talked about:

How they began their working relationship
The different processes of writing a script, and writing for the screen
Crafting a magical and imaginative world for children’s TV series Cuckoo Land.
Making TV movie The Haunting of Barney Palmer, and having to write in an American uncle so US actor Ned Beatty could be cast to keep overseas partners happy
The creative process of bringing imagery and text together, and working closely with illustrators on Mahy's picture books
Mackay's 2008 documentary A Tall Long Faced Tale, where Mahy was interviewed by friend and fellow author Elizabeth Knox
Working on the book and the TV series of Kaitangata Twitch, and Mahy being a little apprehensive about the Māori cultural elements

This video was first uploaded on 9 December 2008, 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 - Clare O'Leary. Camera and Editing - Leo Guerchmann

When you work for television or film or anything like that, you work as a member of a team. When you write a book, on the whole you write as a solitary individual, sometimes very solitary. It's a different process, and of course each process has got something to enjoy.
– Margaret Mahy compares writing books and writing for the screen

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