Tony Williams: director of iconic TV commercials...

Interview – 2010

Tony Williams' directing career spans more than five decades. At John O’Shea's company Pacific Films Williams shot two features, and directed many documentaries. In the 1970s he directed his first movie Solo, and a series of documentaries including Getting Together, Take Three Passions, Rally, and Lost in the Garden of the World. Williams has directed some of New Zealand's most iconic TV commercials including the Great Crunchie Train Robbery, Dear John, Spot and the infamous Bugger commercials.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Williams talks about:

Working for Pacific Films in the early days
Learning to be a cinematographer on the film Runaway
Technical nightmares with his first feature as director Solo
The real story behind the memorable Crunchie ad
Borrowing items to set dress the Dear John commercial for BASF
Finding the furry star of the Spot Telecom commercials
How a car commercial changed the nation's vocabulary
Being proud of commercials that have won the public's heart

This video was first uploaded on 18 November 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 and Editing – Andrew Whiteside

It was extraordinary how quickly the public, after a bit of uproar from some people, how quickly they were just hushed. And then the word 'bugger' suddenly became acceptable and usable. I don't know if I've done a good thing or a bad thing there, but it was certainly very popular.
– Tony Williams discusses the impact of the Bugger - Toyota Hilux television ad

Tony's Full Profile