Chris Bailey: Producing TV drama classics...

With more than 30 years in the television industry under his belt, veteran drama producer and director Chris Bailey has made a significant contribution to New Zealand’s screen heritage. His many TV credits include Gloss, Mortimer’s Patch, Under the Mountain, Burying Brian, Marlin Bay, City Life, and Greenstone. He was also the first executive producer on Shortland Street. Bailey was a co-founder of production company ScreenWorks which made the popular legal drama Street Legal.

In this ScreenTalk, Bailey talks about:

• The fun and challenges of making the kidult TV series Under the Mountain
• Creating a mechanical means of teleportation before the use of CGI technology
• Directing the ‘bitchy’ women on uber-soap Gloss
• Having to be careful casting characters in the historical mini-series Fallout
• Getting the soap Shortland Street up and running
• Casting Jay Laga’aia in the gritty legal drama Street Legal
• The challenge of making sure Go Girls stood up against overseas shows on TV2
• Feeling lucky to have had a challenging yet rewarding and fun career

This video was first uploaded on 6 April 2011, 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