Keoghan’s Heroes
Phil Keoghan’s pre-Amazing Race screen education included profiling Kiwi adventure sport thrillseekers in a series of short vignettes for TV3’s Mobil Sport. Scored to a sampler of early 90s pop music, these clips focus mostly on rad airborne acrobats: a ‘para-bungee’, the then-new sport of skysurfing, riding atop a Tiger Moth, Phil losing the sponsor’s product flying with veteran fighter pilot Bryan Cox, plus surfing down sand dunes on snowboards. Keoghan later took the Keoghan’s Heroes concept to Canada and the United States (including a slot on CBS news).
Louise Wallace
Eclectic certainly describes Louise Wallace’s screen career: from baseball cap-wearing host of Mobil Sport, to presenting and reporting for current affairs programmes 60 Minutes and 20/20, to headline-grabbing reality TV host and participant (The Weakest Link, Celebrity Treasure Island) and acting (as a judge in Street Legal). In 2016 she was cast in Real Housewives of Auckland.
This is Your Life - Malvina Major
Host Paul Holmes puts the life of opera star Dame Malvina Major in the spotlight and discovers her origins in a large Waikato family whose first love was country music. Guests include John Rowles and Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (a fellow pupil of their often terrifying teacher, “the tiny force behind the biggest voices”, Dame Sister Mary Leo). Major’s triumphs are revisited, as is her decision to give up her international career to farm with her husband in Taranaki. A good sport throughout, she even manages a yodel for a ukulele-led family sing-along.
Steven Orsbourn
Producer Steven Orsbourn has 30+ years of screen industry experience. As a cameraman, he shot everything from travel to sport (he was embedded with the All Blacks and David Tua), and was nominated for four NZ TV Awards. After producing high profile rugby films (including Qantas Media award-winner The Test), he shifted platforms to digital, leading content production at the NZ Herald online and Culture.
Phil Keoghan
After presenting children's television, sports and magazine shows (Spot On, That's Fairly Interesting, 3:45 LIVE!, Keoghan's Heroes), Phil Keoghan moved to the United States. In 2000 he was picked to host The Amazing Race, one of the most awarded shows in the history of reality television. Multiple Emmy-winner Keoghan has also written book No Opportunity Wasted, and created a bevy of accompanying TV series.
Neil Stichbury
Neil Stichbury trained as a photographer. After a short stint directing for TV3 and Communicado, he began a busy decade making commercials with Republic Films partner Simon Mark Brown. His partnership with director Luke Nola resulted in a run of kids shows, including Let’s Get Inventin’, whose escapades spawned multiple seasons and overseas sales. Stichbury is now developing further screen projects.
Bill McCarthy
Bill McCarthy’s wide-ranging television career spans 50 years and counting. McCarthy won a keen following when he anchored coverage of the 1974 Commonwealth Games. After five years presenting Television One’s network news (alternating with Dougal Stevenson), he became a producer and director, and did time as TVNZ’s head of sports. McCarthy set up his own company in 1990, and continues to make shows for cable television.
Steve Locker-Lampson
After stints in the merchant navy and the British film industry, Steve Locker-Lampson began a new life in New Zealand in the 60s, heading the camera department at indie production house Pacific Films. The following decade he forged a reputation as one of the country's pioneer aerial cameramen, and worked behind the scenes on movies Solo and Smash Palace. Locker-Lampson passed away in October 2012.
Lindsay Perigo
During the late 80s and early 90s Lindsay Perigo anchored on a run of high profile TVNZ news and current affairs shows, where he gained a reputation as the “doyen of political interviewers” (Metro magazine). The opera-loving broadcaster abandoned television in 1993 — famously calling the medium "braindead" — and reinvented himself as an apostle of libertarian philosophical doctrines (on radio, in print and online).
Denis Harvey
Denis Harvey's career encompasses a range of leadership positions – but he is best known for his contributions to sports coverage, especially his work across multiple years of America's Cup and Olympic sailing. Harvey spent three decades working for state TV, including seven years commanding sport, and four as TVNZ's overall head of production. These days he balances work in broadcasting and production.