Great War Stories 2 - Hāmi Grace
In Wellington, Hāmi Grace was respected for his cricketing and rugby prowess. In Gallipoli, his sniper skills became legendary. This four minute short documentary uses Grace's diary entries to recount his experiences at Gallipoli with the Wellington Battalion. The former Wellington College pupil turned lieutenant wrote about the squalid conditions, graves "everywhere", and fighting the Turks. Grace was killed at Chunuk Bair in August 1915. Every year Wellington College holds a remembrance ceremony for Grace and the 29 other former pupils who died in Gallipoli.
Anna Cottrell
Christchurch-raised Anna Cottrell is a prolific documentary maker, with a keen interest in the stories that people tell. Her work ranges widely, from documentaries on immigrants (An Immigrant Nation) and family (Other People's Children), to five seasons of the bite-sized Great War Stories. Cottrell launched her company AC Productions in 2001.
Dave Armstrong
Dave Armstrong writes plays, books, award-winning comedy shows (Spin Doctors) and dramas (quake tale Hope and Wire). He also plays trumpet. Armstrong has been creating comedy alongside director Danny Mulheron since childhood, including Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby — the tale of an un PC teacher — and Samoan family comedy The Semisis. Armstrong also co-wrote award-winning play Niu Sila with bro'Town's Oscar Kightley, which chronicles the friendship between a polynesian and a palagi.
Ivars Berzins
Ivars Berzins fell in love with photography aged eight, en route to TV assignments across NZ, in Norwegian fjords, and in East Timor. Berzins was chief cameraman in TVNZ's Wellington office before leaving in 1996 to start company Pacific Crews (now Pacific Screen), which he went on to run with his wife, producer Amanda Evans. These days he directs as well as films, including on documentary series New Zealand Stories.
Jonathan Besser
A founding member of early electronic group Free Radicals, Jonathan Besser has composed for opera, ballet, theatre (Red Mole) and performance ensemble Bravura. Born in New York but New Zealand-based since 1974, Besser began adding screen compositions to his CV in the 90s. Since then he has composed extensively for documentary maker Shirley Horrocks, been award-nominated for 1995 documentary feature War Stories, and won a TV Guide Television Award for documentary A Cat Among the Pigeons. In 2015, Besser began composing for 3 News' World War One short documentary series, Great War Stories.
Keith Slater
Keith Slater started his journalism career at South Pacific Television before becoming a director, then taking the helm as Auckland Bureau Chief in TV3's newsroom. Along the way he produced shows like Fair Go and Country Calendar, but his heart belonged to current affairs, where his list of credits included TV3's primetime news, 60 Minutes, 20/20, Nightline and Campbell Live. Slater passed away in June 2017.
Peter Metcalf
Peter Metcalf has four decades of experience in making it all look seamless. After 20 years in state television, he became TV3’s first Head Video Editor in Wellington. His credits include classics like Country Calendar and Kaleidoscope, plus Great War Stories, 35 short documentaries for TV3 commemorating the First World War. He also helped launch successful post-production suite Blue Bicycle Flicks.
Hilary Barry
Hilary Barry has long experience of reporting and reading the news. In 1993 she began a two decade stint at TV3. In 2005 she became anchor of the channel's primetime news, alongside Mike McRobert. Barry went on to report from the Canterbury quakes, the 2011 royal wedding and the famine in Africa. She left TV3 in 2016, and began co-hosting TVNZ's Breakfast; in 2018 she moved to primetime show Seven Sharp.