Veronica McCarthy-de Friez
Veronica McCarthy-de Friez has produced documentaries on everything from artists to the human body, to earthquakes. En route, she has done time in production management, public relations, and marketing.
In 1995 McCarthy-de Friez was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to research children's television overseas. This experience fed into her later work with Raconteur Productions. She founded the company in Christchurch in 1996, with her partner, director Bill de Friez. Raconteur has ventured into children's series and education programming, although it has concentrated most on one-off documentaries.
One of the earliest Raconteur productions was The Big Chair, aimed at children aged from four to nine years. The roll call of Kiwi authors featured across four seasons included Margaret Mahy, Kate de Goldi, Oscar Kightley, Joe Bennett and Tessa Duder. The stories were read by personalities sitting in a large green chair, while the accompanying illustrations were drawn by children. Animation Station, made for late afternoon slot Sticky TV on TV3, showcased the pool of talented 12 to 18-year-olds who were "hungry to make and watch New Zealand animations", while bite-sized show Cow Chase was made for young audiences.
McCarthy-de Friez went on produce many documentaries and profiles for 2000s arts show Artsville. Between the Lines - Denis Glover 1912 - 1980 takes an intimate look at the life of the New Zealand poet, via interviews with family, friends and art notables. It was a finalist in the Best National Medium Documentary category.
McCarthy-de Friez also produced Artsville documentaries on artists Grahame Sydney, and Julia Morison (Madame Morison). The later was described by Auckland Art Gallery Senior Curator Ron Brownson as "one of the very best profiles of an artist that I have seen on local broadcast this year".
In the same period she worked on reality show Making Italy Home, which followed a Hastings family on a six-month working holiday in Italy.
After the Christchurch earthquakes of 2010 and 2011, she produced two related projects for company Paua Productions. Two-parter A Shocking Reminder chronicled how the quake had affected various people, and was so popular it was repeated on Prime Television a week after its debut. Series Aftermath examines reconstruction in and around Christchurch.
In an interview when the documentaries first went to air, McCarthy-de-Friez spoke of how thanks to the quakes, New Zealand had become "the goldfish bowl of the world — a First-World country experiencing something" of major magnitude. She argued that it was important to document what had happened for future generations, because "there are many, many lessons to be learnt — what we've done correctly and what we could have done better."
Raconteur's four documentaries on male and female genitalia — The Naked Breast, The Naked Bum, The Naked Vagina, and The Naked Penis — presented health information in accessible ways for mainstream audiences.
Veronica McCarthy-de Friez was a founding member of Screen Canterbury, and is a board member of the Screen Production & Development Association (SPADA).
Profile updated on 31 July 2023
Sources include
Raconteur Film and Television Productions website. Accessed 31 July 2023
Will Harvie, 'City's recovery under microscope' (Interview) - The Press, 17 August 2013
Unknown writer, 'Young animators' chance to shine' - The Dominion Post (TV Week pullout), 30 July 2002, page 8