Philip Smith: Great Southern producer...

Interview – 2010

Producer Philip Smith comes from a family of entrepreneurs, so it’s always been in his nature to pursue opportunities. The head of production company Great Southern Television had an eventful career in journalism, before moving into producing. He was once expelled from Tanzania while working as a print journalist, and sold his first production company for several million dollars while still in his early 30s. Great Southern has produced Lion Man, Eating Media Lunch, The Cult and One Lane Bridge. Smith lives in both Auckland and Queenstown, where he does lots of brainstorming out in his woolshed.

In this Screentalk interview, Smith talks about:

Working as a print journalist, police reporter for The NZ Herald under Susan Wood
Being expelled as a journalist from Tanzania
Working to deadline each night as a line producer on Holmes
Not realising that the guys in the boardroom he was meeting actually just wanted to buy his production company
How his young son helped come up with the idea for Lion Man
How reading a Ben Elton book led to Eating Media Lunch
Developing The Unauthorised History of New Zealand
Getting Jeremy Wells into primetime television with Birdland
Finding unexpected inspiration for The Cult, from his crazy neighbours

This video was first uploaded on 18 October 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 & Editing – Clarke Gayford

My son came in one day and said he'd been to a backyard zoo . . . I'm thinking 'oh backyard zoo, good show!'. Yeah, even trying to get ideas off your two or three year old, I think he was at the time. And then I got a researcher, and I said find every backyard zoo in New Zealand and see what's out there.
– Philip Smith on the origins of hit show The Lion Man

Philip's Full Profile