NHNZ draws from international series to make TVNZ blue chip

12 January 2012

NHNZ draws from international series to produce TVNZ blue chip

NHNZ’s latest documentary Primeval New Zealand, which airs on TV1 January 17th at 7.30pm, was triggered by its international award-winning series Life Force.

Primeval New Zealand, fronted by Peter Elliot, is a quintessential story of New Zealand wildlife, but with new and controversial science that questions the very origins of our iconic species.

The concept came out of the much broader story found in Life Force: New Zealand, one episode of a massive blue chip series produced for Discovery Science in the USA, NHK in Japan and France5.

NHNZ Vice President of Marketing and Development Neil Harraway and Executive Producer Judith Curran could see that within this episode, there was a new and controversial story about the origins of our key species - a story that could shock New Zealanders to the core.

They approached TVNZ and NZ on Air in May last year, and within a month it was greenlit.

“In many ways we are returning to our roots producing a story about New Zealand wildlife for a New Zealand audience. But it’s rare that a series we did for the international market, which is our primary clientele, enables us to bring one of our own stories to New Zealanders,” says Mr Harraway.

Primeval New Zealand traces the ancestry of a star line up of New Zealand creatures including kiwi, kakapo, kea and tuatara, and also sheds new light on some lesser known stars of our unique environment; the kaka, the New Zealand falcon, giant meat-eating snails, prehistoric giant weta, the rarely seen takahe and unique penguins from our sub-Antarctic Snares Islands.

For executive producer and writer, Judith Curran, who for the past decade has produced international series like Orangutan Island for Animal Planet US, I Survived…Beyond and Back – a hit series for A& E channel in the US, and produced the Life Force series which has won awards around the world, this is her first New Zealand broadcast show.

“It’s especially exciting to be able to tell this fascinating story to the audience that it directly relates to. I think there are many twists and turns in New Zealand’s ancient past that not many Kiwis are aware of, and the revelation at the documentary’s core is guaranteed to be provocative.”

NHNZ

NHNZ is a major global producer of factual television creating over 100 hours each year of original content for National Geographic Channels, Discovery Channels, Smithsonian Channel, A&E Television Networks, 3net and NHK (Japan). Highly regarded for its 30-year plus natural history heritage, more recently NHNZ has branched out to other factual genres with hit shows like I Survived for A&E’s Bio Channel. The company’s storytelling prowess has been recognized with more than 250 international awards including Emmy awards and the prestigious Wildscreen Panda. In addition to its base in Dunedin, New Zealand, NHNZ has offices in Beijing and Washington DC, and controlling stakes in Singapore production company Beach House Pictures and South African-based Aquavision.
www.nhnz.tv

ENDS

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