Richard Driver: on his serendipitous TV career...
Once upon a time Richard Driver was punk singer Johnny Abort. He made his TV presenting debut replacing the irreplaceable Karyn Hay on Radio with Pictures, and hosted the show for three years. Later he made music shows, ran the local arm of production company Screentime, and formed his own, Visionary Productions. Driver has made several documentaries including Hokonui Todd, about an African statesman born in New Zealand, and bike racing portrait Love, Speed and Loss.
In this ScreenTalk interview, Driver talks about:
- The difficult task of replacing Karyn Hay on Radio with Pictures
- How TV presenting didn’t come naturally to him
- The major fight between RIANZ and TVNZ that took Radio with Pictures off air
- The challenge of directing his first documentary Hokonui Todd
- An emotional journey through the life of bike racing legend Kim Newcombe in Love, Speed and Loss
- Why chefs, sharks and Nazis led him to create The Documentary Channel
- Being happy with having an "accidental" career in television
Interview Credit
Copyright
This video was first uploaded on 21 June 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.
