Stephen Stehlin: Providing a voice for Pasifika people…

Stephen Stehlin is the longtime producer of TVNZ's weekly magazine show Tagata Pasifika, which targets Pacific communities in New Zealand. He has also worked on a number of other factual TV shows like Koha, Māori Battalion - March to Victory and When the Haka Became Boogie. Stehlin was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2008 for services to Pacific Island television and the arts.

In this ScreenTalk, Stehlin talks about:

• Having to learn to type for his first job in television
• Working on show Koha when it was in prime time
• Getting the crew out of trouble while filming Māori Battalion - March to Victory in France
• Having an amazing time learning about popular music on series When the Haka Became Boogie
• A traumatic camera failure on his first directing job, for Countdown to Telethon 1990
• Being told he was the ‘wrong’ race when he asked to work on Tagata Pasifika
• Overcoming a lack of resources to make the show
• Bringing drag queens onto Tagata Pasifika to inject entertainment value into the programme
• Why the show matters to its diverse audience
• Being proud to have worked with comedians The Laughing Samoans

This video was first uploaded on 23 September 2013, 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