Colin McRae: forty years of news, current affairs and documentaries...

Producer and director Colin McRae has a television career spanning 40 years. In that time he has worked in news and current affairs for both TVNZ and Three, and was the private channel’s Head of Sport to boot. His groundbreaking historical series The New Zealand Wars won Best Documentary Series at the 2006 Qantas Media Awards. In recent years, McRae has produced Native Affairs and Anzac Day coverage for Māori Television. 

In this ScreenTalk, McRae talks about: 

• The challenges of producing regional news show Top Half
• Asking legendary music reporter Dylan Taite to focus on Hamilton stories for the show
• How field directing on magazine show That’s Fairly Interesting was a breath of fresh air
• Producing Sunday night current affairs show Frontline
• Feeling sadness when researching a documentary on Cave Creek 
• The challenges of making acclaimed historical series The New Zealand Wars
• Bringing pathos and drama to series Legends of the All Blacks
• Feeding his documentary experience into Māori Television’s Anzac Day coverage
• How his career has evolved over the years

This video was first uploaded on 18 May 2015, 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