George Lowe
Wallace George Lowe got interested in cameras as a child in Hastings. As a climber he was pivotal in helping his mate Hillary summit Everest, and he filmed the mission after the official photographer got pneumonia. The Lowe-directed doco The Conquest of Everest, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1954; the film he directed on the first trans-Antarctic crossing was also Oscar-nominated. Lowe died on 20 March 2013.
Peter Janes
Peter Janes has been capturing images of NZ — and its musicians — for longer than some of his camera assistants have been on the planet. Through Janes' diverse screen career, music forms a major thread. After directing his first music videos as a teen, he went on to helm iconic clips for many Flying Nun bands. Janes has also been director of photography on TV's Jackson’s Wharf and The Topp Twins.
Allison Webber
Alongside her experience as a journalism tutor and media advisor, Allison Webber has worked on many television documentaries investigating social issues — including as driving force behind then controversial series Expressions of Sexuality.
Jane Wrightson
Jane Wrightson is Chief Executive of Crown agency NZ On Air, which funds Kiwi television, digital media, radio and music. Prior to taking on the job in 2007, she spent a decade at Television New Zealand, was New Zealand's first woman Chief Film Censor, and headed both the Broadcasting Standards Authority and screen lobbying group SPADA.
Dan Hennah
Art department veteran Dan Hennah worked on a range of screen projects before becoming an art director and set decorator on The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Five times Oscar nominated, he won an Academy Award for his work on The Return of the King. Since then Hennah has graduated to production designing on a number of features, including taking on the job for Peter Jackson's three-parter of The Hobbit.
Nathan Rarere
Nathan Rarere was voicing the midnight to dawn shift at Hastings radio station 93FM while he was still at high school. Television fame followed in the 1990s, as one of the trio of presenters on madcap youth show Ice TV. Since then, many of his screen appearances have been in tandem with Oscar Kightley — from a run of TV3 sports shows, to bro'Town (Rarere provided voices for 12 characters), to co-hosting origins documentary Made in Taiwan. In 2015 Rarere hosted Māori Television's satirical news show Brown Eye. The following year he produced Māori TV sports show Play, and joined the breakfast crew on Radio Sport.
Hilda Hayward
One of the earliest New Zealand women to work in movies, the late Hilda Hayward collaborated with her husband Rudall on four silent feature films in the 1920s. Author Deborah Shepard argues that her coverage of the 1932 Auckland riots make her New Zealand’s first known camerawoman. Hilda Hayward passed away in 1970.
Christopher Bourn
From the mid 1960s into the 1980s, Christopher Bourn’s name was synonymous with entertainment on New Zealand television. But the man behind talent shows Studio One and New Faces also played a role in groundbreaking sports broadcasts, including the first All Black test screened on television. Bourn also held senior management roles in both the old NZ Broadcasting Corporation and TVNZ.
Fiona Copland
Producer Fiona Copland is noted for quirky and ambitious films, many of them made with first-time directors. 2009's The Strength of Water won praise at festivals in Rotterdam and Berlin, while multi-stranded narrative feature Matariki arrived in New Zealand theatres in 2010 via the Toronto Film Festival. These days she is part of company Field Theory, with producers Philippa Campbell and Tim Sanders.
Julia Parnell
Producer Julia Parnell’s CV boasts a diverse range of credits — from comedy (Wayne Anderson: Singer of Songs) to sport (Wilbur: The King in the Ring), music (The Chills - The Triumph & Tragedy of Martin Phillipps) and te ao Māori (Restoring Hope). Parnell’s production company Notable Pictures is behind a run of award-winning short films (Dive, Friday Tigers), plus long-running mini-documentary series Loading Docs.