Claudette Hauiti: On producing in Front of the Box...

Interview – 2010

TV producer Claudette Hauiti (Ngāti Porou, Ngāpuhi) began as a sports journalist on radio before moving to television news. Her production company Front of the Box has made ground-breaking Māori series such as Eye to Eye with Willie Jackson and Takatāpui, as well as award-winning documentaries Gang Girls and Children of the Revolution.

In this ScreenTalk interview, Hauiti talks about:

How some gang connections led to the documentary Gang Girls and how it validated the lives of the women interviewed
How strong support from Maori TV for Takatāpui helped get the series on air despite some misgivings from the Māori community
The cancellation of Eye to Eye
How she likes shows to challenge audiences
How Maori Television has created a huge mind shift in attitudes to Māori and assisted in making New Zealand more multi-cultural
The challenges of being an independent television producer in New Zealand

This video was first uploaded on 3 August 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

......they didn’t hold back at all. They were so honest and so open with their korero . . . they didn’t hide anything . . . for the first time in their lives somebody had asked them what their lives were like, and for the first time in their lives they were being validated, and they were taken seriously.

– Claudette Hauiti on the women interviewed for 2003 documentary Gang Girls

Claudette's Full Profile