Director/producer Tony Hiles worked on everything from documentaries to Bad Taste to TV classics like Country Calendar. In 1980 he left state television to make the films he really wanted to make, including a series of documentaries featuring artist Michael Smither. In 1996 Hiles won an NZ Film Best Director award for his debut feature, Jack Brown Genius.

Tony Hiles died in February 2021. In this ScreenTalk interview from 2009, Hiles talked about:

• Busy days at state television's Avalon Studios, in the mid 1970s
• Founding production company City Associates with his partner Judith Fyfe in 1980, and making local history documentaries
• Making films with Michael Smither and photographer Robin Morrison, and the fun of small crew, seat-of-your-pants shooting
• Capturing Smither as he tried to fly
• Helping bring Peter Jackson’s breakout splatstick debut Bad Taste to the screen
• Directing Good Taste Made Bad Taste, a documentary on Jackson and the movie
• His friendship with producer Jim Booth, and the impact Booth's untimely death had on Hiles' movie Jack Brown Genius