Janine Morrell-Gunn: committed to children's television...

Interview – 2010

Eager to join the television industry, Janine Morrell-Gunn started off as an intern with TVNZ in 1985. She began by directing news and current affairs stories, before taking on various production roles on shows such as McPhail and Gadsby, Fast Forward, Spot On, and Beauty and the Beast. Morrell-Gunn was appointed Executive Producer of TVNZ’s Children’s Unit, but when the unit moved to Wellington in the late 90s she opted to stay in Christchurch. With husband Jason Gunn, she set up Whitebait TV and has subsequently produced a myriad of children’s TV shows such as Bumble, Wannabes, and the re-launched What Now?.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Morrell-Gunn talks about:

Being disappointed with how news was made in the mid 80s
Working with uncontrollable sheep on a story about artificial insemination
Missing a crucial shot while shooting a story for Spot On
Being intimidated by the panelists on Beauty and the Beast
Re-launching the iconic kids TV show What Now?
The challenges of producing The Erin Simpson Show
Working with her famous husband Jason Gunn

This video was first uploaded on 25 May 2010, 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

Kids do deserve to have their own game shows, their own documentaries, their own sports shows. And it's a little hard with our small number, only four million people, to be able to fund that . . . we've got to be looking further afield. We've got to sail our waka in other seas, and look at coproductions and look at sharing of resources with other production companies overseas, to ensure that range of diversity for kids.
– Janine Morrell-Gunn on creating programming for children in a globalised industry

Janine's Full Profile