Michael Firth: Oscar-nominated action man...

Interview – 2014

Producer/director Michael Firth made his mark with 1977 ski movie Off the Edge. An early entry in the New Zealand new wave, it was nominated for an Academy Award. Firth went on to direct dramatic features Sylvia, Heart of the Stag and Vulcan Lane. But he loved the outdoors best: he went off the edge again with adventure movie The Leading Edge (1987) and was behind globally successful TV series Adrenalize and fishing show Take the Bait.

Michael Firth passed away in October 2016. In this ScreenTalk interview from 2014, Firth talked about:

How a love of snow skiing led to his first feature Off the Edge
How perfect timing enabled the filming of an avalanche
Delving into a dark part of Kiwi life in Heart of the Stag
Working for the first time with actors
Facing financing issues while making Sylvia
Facing continuity issues recreating that film’s era
Creating the "crazy docudrama" that was The Leading Edge
How the 1987 share market crash affected the box office
Being confronted by Billy T James and a machine gun
Selling sports show Adrenalize to 50 countries
Almost causing a diplomatic incident with a shot of a topless woman
How fishing TV show Take the Bait grew and grew

This video was first uploaded on 24 March 2014, 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 love snow skiing. It's been my background all my life, and I felt 'well I want to get into filmmaking. I'll start on a subject matter I know something about'. I'd seen a lot of ski films and I could see that there was an opportunity to create a point of difference, tell a real story...
– Michael Firth on what lead to his first feature, Off The Edge

Michael's Full Profile