Diana Rowan
If the measure of success for a casting director is the subsequent success of the actors they pluck from the crowd, then Diana Rowan has certainly done time at the top of her field. She is the casting director who helped Anna Paquin, Keisha Castle-Hughes, Kerry Fox and Lucy Lawless on their way to international careers, while developing her own talents as a writer and director of short films.
Paul Leach
Paul Leach was the man behind the camera on many classic Kiwi films; author Duncan Petrie described him as New Zealand's "camera operator of choice". His CV spanned landmark titles Sleeping Dogs, Utu, Smash Palace, and breakthrough comedy Came a Hot Friday. He passed away on 10 April 2010.
Derek Wooster
Derek Wooster is a veteran producer, director, reporter and writer who made milestone mainstream and Māori programming — from Mastermind to Marae — throughout his 30-year career with Television New Zealand. As well as creating and producing the country's longest running Māori current affairs series, Wooster has worked on significant national broadcasts including the tangihanga of Dame Whina Cooper and the Māori Queen.
Alan Erson
Alan Erson captured the everyday lives of New Zealanders in 1990s documentary series First Hand. His directing credits also include Heartland and Nuclear Reaction. Since 2004 Erson has built a successful career in Australia as Head of Documentary and Factual Programmes for the ABC, and General Manager at Essential Media and Entertainment. In 2016 he became Managing Director at WildBear Entertainment.
Allan Martin
Allan Martin, OBE, worked as a television executive on both sides of the Tasman, but had his roots in programme making. He began making TV in England in the early 60s. Returning home, he developed influential programmes for the NZBC in Compass and Town and Around. Headhunted by the ABC in Australia, he returned to NZ in 1975 to set up the new second channel, and later became Director-General of TVNZ.
Oliver Driver
Oliver Driver's career has seen him fronting arts programmes and breakfast show Sunrise, and portraying everyone from villainous alien Mr Wilberforce to a sensitive sperm donor and a wacky nurse. The ex-Auckland Theatre Company artistic director has also done time with music station Alt TV, co-starred in chalk and cheese comedy Sunny Skies and directed many episodes of Shortland Street.
Dell King
Editor and director Dell King’s plans to be a filmmaker faced a challenge when she discovered that the Government’s National Film Unit had closed its doors to women directors. Instead King began her long screen career as a negative cutter, and later worked as editor or sound editor on a run of documentaries and features, including the classics Ngati and Vigil.
Michael Heath
Though Michael Heath helped create a run of pioneering examples of the Kiwi cinema of unease, his contributions to our culture defy easy categorisation. His scripts include many films which have made a comfortable home between genres: children’s vampire tale Moonrise/Grampire, nostalgic Ronald Hugh Morrieson chiller The Scarecrow, Heath’s work with director Tony Williams, and his acclaimed song-cycle A Small Life.
Anna Marbrook
Director Anna Marbrook came to the screen from an extensive theatre background (she co-founded Auckland company Theatre at Large). More than 150 episodes directing on Shortland Street laid the groundwork for a run of factual work, focused on Pacific themes: including food series Real Pasifik, award-winning waka documentary Te Mana o te Moana – The Pacific Voyagers, and reality series Waka Warriors.
Fiona Samuel
Fiona Samuel, MNZM, has worked prolifically across so many fields that she defies labels: aside from acting on stage and screen, she is a playwright (The Wedding Party), director (TV movies Bliss and Piece of My Heart), scriptwriter (Consent, Outrageous Fortune) and singer (musical revue Babes in the Mood).