Ron Pledger
Since joining state television as a sound operator in the 60s, Ron Pledger has gone on to win a reputation for his assured coverage of a wide range of live events, from concerts to This is Your Life to the state funeral of Sir Edmund Hillary. A life long music lover, Pledger was awarded an MBE in 1992, helping recognise 40 years of service in a military band.
Annie Goldson
Annie Goldson, NZOM, is probably New Zealand's most awarded documentary filmmaker. Her work — including the feature-length An Island Calling, Brother Number One and Kim Dotcom: Caught in the Web — often examines the political through the personal. Goldson's films have played widely overseas, and won awards in New Zealand, England, Spain, France, the Philippines and the United States.
Jay Ryan
Jay Ryan narrated hit series Go Girls, playing a mechanic desperately trying to understand the minds of his female friends. By then he'd been acting on screen for almost a decade, including time on teen hit Being Eve, and a Logie Award nominated run on Australian soap Neighbours. In 2012 Ryan got a starring role in an American TV update of Beauty and the Beast, as the survivor of a military experiment. The show ran for four seasons. He went on to play a detective in Canadian series Mary Kills People. After another Logie nomination for Aussie military drama Fighting Season, Ryan joined the sequel to Stephen King's It.
Lisa Harrow
Lisa Harrow's CV marks her out as one of New Zealand's most prodigious acting exports. After starring in Twelfth Night for the Royal Shakespeare Company at age 25, she got serious about screen acting in the 1980s and worked everywhere from Iceland to Australia, as well as starring in Kiwi films Other Halves and Shaker Run. Alongside her acting, Harrow now campaigns for ecological responsibility on stage and page.
Russell Campbell
Russell Campbell has been analysing film and television for more than four decades. A longtime lecturer in film at Victoria University, Campbell’s books include Observations, a volume on New Zealand documentary — a field in which he has extensive first-hand experience.
Ron McIntyre
As a war correspondent filming the New Zealand forces in Italy and the Middle East, Ron McIntyre played a key role in supplying the raw material for the early films of the National Film Unit. After nearly four years overseas, he returned home and tried his hand at independent filmmaking. McIntyre spent just over seven years with the NFU as a cameraman and director, and also worked briefly for Pacific Films.
Roger Mirams
Roger Mirams helped launch legendary independent company Pacific Films in 1948, and went on to co-direct Broken Barrier in 1952 with John O'Shea — the only Kiwi feature made that decade. In 1957, Mirams set up a Pacific Films branch in Melbourne. Over the next five decades he won a reputation in Australia for his children's TV shows. Mirams was still working in his 80s; he passed away in February 2004.
John Earnshaw
English cameraman John Earnshaw moved downunder in 1975, just as the local screen industry was hotting up. A director of photography on hundreds of commercials, he shot two feature-length projects: cult movie Angel Mine, one of the earliest entries in the Kiwi movie renaissance, and TV movie A Woman of Good Character. He passed away on 3 March 2014, leaving behind him a passion project involving a mysterious Boeing aircraft.
Temuera Morrison
Temuera Morrison was acting on screen at age 11. Two decades later he won Kiwi TV immortality as Dr Ropata in Shortland Street, and rave global reviews as abusive husband Jake Heke in Once Were Warriors. Since reprising his Warriors role in a well-regarded sequel, Morrison has starred in Crooked Earth, Tracker and Mahana, hosted a talk show and a variety show, and played Jango Fett in two Star Wars prequels.
Howard Moses
In the 1980s ex-NZBC staffer Howard Moses produced and directed a trio of award-winning alpine films: Across the Main Divide, Incredible Mountains and Turn of the Century (a history of skiing in NZ). Winter Olympic chronicle Zimska Olimpijada won best doco at 1987's Mountainfilm in Telluride Festival. Based in Australia since 1991, Moses has worked in TV in Western Australia and the Northern Territory.