The Wahine Disaster
This award-winning documentary chronicles how events unfolded for passengers on the morning the ferry Wahine hit rocks in Wellington Harbour on 10 April 1968. Aside from interviews with survivors and crew, there are memories from two key rescuers — tugboat Captain John Brown and policeman Jim Mason — who both saved many people from rough seas. Writer Emmanuel Makarios argues that a distance of 20 feet would have made all the difference in avoiding disaster. This 2008 programme was made and narrated by Sharon Barbour, later to become a BBC reporter in England.
A Flying Visit
The father of veteran weatherman Jim Hickey was a Spitfire pilot during World War II. In this early 2000s series, made while Hickey junior was senior weathercaster at TVNZ, he channels his heritage and flies a Cessna 182 around New Zealand airstrips, taking the pulse of the people and landscapes peculiar to each region. The airborne Heartland was one of a series of programmes that he made with producer Dave Mason, under their Rustic Road Productions banner (starting with Jim’s Car Show in 2000). Hickey would later open cafes at Queenstown and New Plymouth airports.
Jim's Car Show
By the year 2000, popular TVNZ weatherman Jim Hickey had a programme with his name in the title. The motoring show looked at everything from the psychology of buying a car to road testing new editions and revisiting classics. Hickey's co-presenters were Mark Leishman and onetime MTV host Marie Azcona. After leaving in the second season, Azcona was replaced by Jeanette Thomas. Jim's Car Show was produced for TV One by Dave Mason. Hickey and Mason formed company Rustic Road productions in time for the second season, and went on to make further programmes together.
Jim Hickey
Jim Hickey spent more than two decades using his dextrous vocabulary to predict the likely path of sun, rain and wind. A longtime TV One fixture as weather forecaster on the primetime news, Hickey has also brought his distinctive presentation style to a host of other shows, including Country Calendar and A Flying Visit.
Dave Mason
After a career producing a range of TV programmes in the United Kingdom and Germany, Dave Mason relocated to New Zealand in 1999. He began working with Julie Christie at Touchdown Productions on cooking show Ready Steady Cook, then started producing Jim’s Car Show for TVNZ, hosted by weather presenter Jim Hickey. Working on this and further shows with Hickey (A Flying Visit, The Real Middle Earth) he formed Dave Mason productions in 2004, and in 2007 launched long-running careers show Just the Job. Mason has also directed and written further TVNZ shows, including Ellerslie and Maggie’s Garden Show.
Jim Moriarty
Jim Moriarty's screen career has ranged from 70s soap Close to Home and Rowley Habib's The Protestors, to starring in mock-doco The Waimate Conspiracy and playing Dad in The Strength of Water. Committed to theatre as a tool for change, he has often worked with troubled youth (eg 2003 documentary Make or Break). Moriarty's directing work includes TV's Mataku, and a stage musical of Once Were Warriors.
Rowley Habib (Rore Hapipi)
Rowley Habib — also known as Rore Hapipi — was one of the first writers to bring a genuinely Māori perspective to New Zealand stage and screen. His play Death of the Land is seen as a landmark in the development of Māori theatre. In 1983 Habib won a Feltex Award for land rights drama The Protestors, part of a trio of pioneering one-off plays for television. Habib passed away on 3 April 2016.
Ian Cumming
Ian Cumming is a producer and director with more than 40 years of television experience. Among the shows he has worked on are the longrunning It's in the Bag and What Now, and the 1974 and 1990 Commonwealth Games. For the last 17 years Cumming has worked in Canterbury regional television.