Gavin Strawhan: writing the favourites...

Interview – 2011

Australian import Gavin Strawhan has had a hand in writing many New Zealand TV successes. After assisting with the set-up of Shortland Street, Strawhan teamed with writing colleague Rachel Lang to create Jackson's Wharf, Lawless, This is Not My Life and Nothing Trivial. Strawhan has also worked on Black Hands, Go Girls, and Outrageous Fortune; and co-created kidult drama Being Eve.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Strawhan talks about:

The difficulty in finding experienced writers at the beginning of Shortland Street
How bringing on writer Rachel Lang made a huge difference to the soap
How Shortland Street brought real Kiwi accents and characters to the small screen
Realising the impact writers can really have while writing for Lawless
Go Girls being a show about kindness and optimism
How This is Not My Life was partly a critique of capitalism
How the finished version of movie Matariki was a lot more serious than the script he worked on
How a director’s vision differs from a writer’s vision
Why being a writer involves "fraud"

This video was first uploaded on 8 February 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 and Editing – Andrew Whiteside

I remember writing this scene where Kevin Smith was supposed to meet this crim and find out some information . . . And then I went out on set . . . you're watching it and thinking 'I just wrote that because I just wanted to make passing on of information a little bit more interesting. And now I've sent a hundred people out into the bush for a day, and it's pissing with rain.’ And it made you aware of the responsibility of writing. One of the things about learning to write for TV is you have to learn the consequences of what you write.

– Gavin Strawhan on writing an ambitious scene set in a boobytrapped dope plantation, for TV movie Lawless

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