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PeterCoates

  • Director
  • Producer
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If director and producer Peter Coates was a superhero, he’d surely be ‘Renaissance Man’. His contribution to championing the arts on television is arguably heroic, and his career multi-faceted. From 1971 to 2004 Coates produced, directed or scripted hundreds of TV productions covering a smorgasbord of topics, from operas to soap operas, and from portraits of New Zealand artists to rugby coaching films.

Screenography

Northspur
2022 As: Monk Film
Serendipity - The Art and Life of Stage Designer Raymond Boyce
2018 Writer, Director, Producer Television
Inside Out - Final Episode
2004 Director Television
Inside Out - Veterans Disabled by War
1999 Director Television
Inside Out - First Episode
1998 Director Television

Biography

Peter Coates began developing his musical and artistic skills early, learning piano and performing in local theatre productions. Inspired by his mentors at Wellington Teachers College in the late 1950s, Coates in turn impressed head of art Doreen Blumhardt with his “marked artistic talents”. In the 60s he taught at primary schools in Wellington (where he taught Lee Tamahori), London and Sydney, and also lectured on art education to teachers in all these cities. 

Awards

1975 Cortina Sportsfilm Competition (Italy)
Best Coaching Film: A Running and Passing Game

1975 La Spezia International Film Festival (Italy)
Gold Medal - Flora and Fauna Section: Island of Spirits

 

“The production of Die Fledermaus by Peter Coates was an artistic triumph. It was brilliantly conceived for the television medium, and throughly faithful to the story and spirit of this delightful comic opera.”

— NZ Herald music critic LCM Saunders, on a 1984 TVNZ production of Die Fledermaus

Related images

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A bayonet charge from 1971's War In The North, one of the earliest TV productions directed by Peter Coates.  The docudrama was based on wars between Māori and Pākehā. 
Kindly supplied by Peter Coates
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The Producers' Course of 1970. From left, back row: Peter Sharp, ?, Donald Hope Evans, Wayne Tourell, Alan Lyne, John Whitwell, Michael Noonan, and Bob Blair. Front: David McPhail, Peter Coates, Roy Melford, Murray Reece and Mike Mune.
Kindly supplied by Peter Coates
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Designer Logan Brewer's model for the set of 1980's Pagliacci, a 65 minute television adaptation of the opera by Ruggero Leoncavallo.
Kindly supplied by Peter Coates
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Portrait of Peter Coates
Kindly supplied by Peter Coates
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The miners walk towards the Okarito goldfields in 1973 docudrama Hunt's Duffer, directed by Peter Coates. Based on a riot which occured in Okarito during the gold rush, the production used as many as 50 extras for some of the beach shots, which were shot mainly in Hokitika. Sam Neill and Sam Hunt also had small roles. A small town set was built on the beach south of Wainuiomata, after battles over whether Coates could pull it off for a budget of $300 in materials.  The village was almost destroyed by floods and visiting bikies, before being burned down on screen. A critic for The Dominion argued that "so good were the shots and shading that it might have been filmed in the 1860s". 
Kindly supplied by Peter Coates
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Peter Coates directs a television special for TVNZ on world-renowned pianist and conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy.
Kindly supplied by Peter Coates