Richard Driver: On his serendipitous TV career...

Richard Driver began his showbiz career in a punk band, and calling himself Johnny Abort. He then moved on to the popular Kiwi rock bands Pop Mechanix and Hip Singles. Driver made his TV presenting debut replacing Karyn Hay on Radio with Pictures and hosted the show for three years. He later collaborated with Hay making music television for several years, ran the New Zealand arm of Screentime, and then formed his own company called Visionary Productions. Driver has made several influential documentaries such as Hokonui Todd, about the life of Garfield Todd, and Love, Speed and Loss, the story of bike racing star Kim Newcombe and his widow Janeen.

In this ScreenTalk, Driver talks about:

• The hard task of replacing Karyn Hay on Radio with Pictures
• How TV presenting didn’t come naturally to him
• Why a major fight between RIANZ and TVNZ took Radio with Pictures off air
• The challenge of directing his first documentary Hokonui Todd
• An emotional journey through the life of bike racing legend Kim Newcombe in Love, Speed and Loss
• Why chefs, sharks and Nazis led him to create The Documentary Channel
• Being happy with having an 'accidental' career in television

This video was first uploaded on 21 June 2010, and is available under this Creative Commons licence. This licence is limited to use of ScreenTalk interview footage only and does not apply to any video content and photographs from films, television, music videos, web series and commercials used in the interview.

Interview, Camera and Editing - Andrew Whiteside