Finola Dwyer: An education in production...

Interview – 2012

Oscar-nominated producer Finola Dwyer, ONZM, began her career as an editor at the National Film Unit, then went to TVNZ. Dwyer soon added producing to her skill set. Among the memorable Kiwi features she worked on are Came a Hot Friday, Starlight Hotel, and The Quiet Earth. In the 1990s, Dwyer moved to the United Kingdom where she has made a name for herself producing films like Brooklyn, An Education and Dean Spanley.

In this ScreenTalk, Dwyer talks about:

Learning to edit film at the National Film Unit
Editing the classic short film Score with director Arthur Everard
How editing Country Calendar for TV was more stressful than cutting for the NFU
How an unplanned visit to the beach led to Raglan by the Sea
Creating the quirky chat show McCormick Country
Having to re-record the dialogue and soundtrack for The Quiet Earth
How her first producing job on Queen City Rocker was a baptism by fire
Overcoming fear by producing Beatles biopic Backbeat
Being proud of Peter O'Toole film Dean Spanley, and its cast and crew
Sharing teen dating stories, while producing Oscar-nominated movie An Education
How the film struck controversy due to its subject matter
Feeling blessed to be working and continuing to learn in the film industry

This video was first uploaded on 31 January 2012, 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

I think from memory, it was like six weeks of night shoots with you know a cast, for the most part, [that] hadn’t acted before, and they often had to be sort of kept awake with lots of coffee for various reasons. So it was pretty challenging.
– Finola Dwyer recalls working on 1986 movie Queen City Rocker

Finola's Full Profile