John Harris

As a schoolboy in Auckland, John Harris wrote short stories for the children's page of the newspaper, and acted in school plays. Although he was a keen movie fan, "back then there was no film or TV industry". Harris became a journalist instead, working at The Auckland Star and other newspapers. He also did time in rock 'n' roll band The Bluestars.

In 1974 he joined the NZ Broadcasting Corporation, as a reporter for both television and radio. Soon after, local television was reinvented as two channels; Harris became Chief Reporter in the Auckland newsroom of new channel South Pacific Television.

Six years later he was part of the team that launched regional news show Top Half; he was longtime programme editor on the show. He also spent time training new journalism arrivals at TVNZ.

In the late 1980s, fresh from a work meeting where the tone ran towards the negative, he ran into Neil Roberts, a former TVNZ reporter whose new production company Communicado was on the rise. When Roberts asked "when are you going to come and work for me?", Harris' reply was "next week!". Roberts would teach him "the power of direct and simple storytelling", and fellow Communicado boss Robin Scholes, "the value of strategising".

Harris joined his former Top Half colleague Colin McRae to direct Communicado magazine show That's Fairly Interesting, which Harris would produce for three seasons. A personal highlight was launching and producing rescue and survival series Heroes, whose re-enactments allowed him to rediscover his passion for drama.

In 1994, realising "it was time to follow my dreams", Harris set up his own company Greenstone Pictures (much later, it was renamed Greenstone TV). He chose the word Greenstone because it "spoke of quality and essential Kiwiness". Harris spent almost two decades as Managing Director and Head of Development.

The original dream involved having some TV programmes commissioned, to help fund the movie he was writing in his spare time. The movie has not yet happened; but a great many programmes have. In the process, Greenstone has won a reputation for its strong factual programming. There have also been occasional excursions into children's dramas (Secret Agent Men) and even entertainment (The Tem Show).

Greenstone grew quickly from its beginnings at a dining room table. Soon it found a home in a small Mount Eden office space that was shared with filmmaker Shirley Horrocks. As Harris explains in this interview, successful pitches meant Greenstone grew much faster than expected, and he found himself handing over directing and producing duties to others. "I enjoy the creative process," he says. "I'm more of a storyteller than a businessman, so the most sensible thing I ever did was build a good team around me".

"The aim is to have fun, make programmes you're proud of, and make a profit." Despite the inevitable challenge of managing fluctuating levels of work, for Harris it has "been a ball".

Harris rates two observational shows as key in Greenstone's evolution: long-running success The Zoo, which spawned multiple spin-offs and lasted more than a decade, and perennial Motorway Patrol (one of New Zealand's longest-running shows), which follows police working on Auckland's highways. Although not the first local programmes of their kind, the success of the two shows spearheaded a run of observational series from Greenstone, and others. Another key title was the award-winning Epitaph, which told historical stories using documentary and reenactments, and saw two spin-off books.

Harris recalls the early days of Greenstone as "very much a family affair." His family helped set up the first office. Two of his daughters joined the team, and relatives stepped in as actors for reenactments on Epitaph. "I remember watching the rushes and seeing my dear little grandchildren being 'murdered' in their beds, and my brother Peter being wrapped up in a carpet before being 'buried.'".

Other Greenstone award-winners include a number of dramatic documentaries with impressively long titles, including Back from the Dead - The Saga of the Rose Noelle, the feature-length Cave Creek - The Full Story of a National Tragedy, and To Hell and Back - Tanjas's Story (which sold to England's Channel Five).

Greenstone has made more than 100 docos, but Harris soon realised that ongoing shows were the key to the company's survival. "You're never going to have a sustainable company just making one-off documentaries." In 1999 Motorway Patrol became the series that fit the bill; it has run for more than 23 years. On the show's twentieth anniversary, Harris told the The NZ Herald how gratified he'd been when it went into its third season. "I never dared to hope it would last this long."

In the late 90s, Harris began attending international television markets. Such visits allowed him to keep up with international trends and opportunities, and also "avoid being totally reliant on the New Zealand market". With the support of Australian distributors Beyond International, Greenstone’s shows sold in numerous countries. Greenstone also opened offices in Sydney and Melbourne, where it created two road-based reality shows for Australian networks.

In 2003, Greenstone made its first foray into drama, with Stephen J Campbell's kidult tale Secret Agent Men. Campbell's superhero show The Amazing Extraordinary Friends followed, which ran for three seasons. "They were enormous fun, and expanded our creative horizons," says Harris.

In late 2010 the company acquired Cream Media from Nigel Snowden; taking over popular factual shows like Coastwatch, Dog Squad and Border Patrol doubled Greenstone's output. It was also sound strategy, at a time when local channels were commissioning less local content.

In November 2013 it was announced that Harris had sold Greenstone to Australian indie Cordell Jigsaw Zapruda (now CJZ). Kiwi Richard Driver took over as Greenstone's new managing director in August 2014, and then in 2017, Rachel Antony. Although Harris stayed on for a short time as a consultant, he was devoting most of his time to his own drama projects. After frustrations about finding funding for The Physician, a movie script inspired by the 1866 Maungatapu Murders, Harris turned it into a book, followed by two more. "I've gone right back to square one, writing children's stories as I did when I was a kid myself." 

Harris would love to see New Zealand broadcasters and funding organisations setting targets to spend more on drama, both on TV and the movie screen: "It's the only way we'll get better at drama, build a sustainable industry, and ensure there are more New Zealand stories told". He argues that children are especially underserved — local stories allowsthem to "see themselves and their neighbourhoods on our screens, and follow Kiwi actors and heroes". Harris was a founding trustee of the New Zealand Children's Screen Trust, which campaigned for quality screen content for younger viewers.

In 2024 NZ On Screen launched this collection celebrating Greenstone's 30 years in the business. Harris reflects on his journey with the company In this backgrounder  — from the early days of setting up Greenstone, to producing meaningful and distinctly New Zealand television. "Greenstone represents a wonderful period of my life – close on 20 years of making memorable TV programmes with friendly and creative people." His ethos was to create a supportive environment where people would enjoy working. Looking back, he says, "the thing I’m most proud of is the culture that I set up”.

Profile updated on 28 September 2024

Sources include
John Harris 
'ScreenTalk - John Harris' (Video Interview) NZ On Screen website. Loaded 26 April 2011. Accessed 28 September 2024
Greenstone website. Accessed 28 September 2024
New Zealand Children's Screen Trust website. Accessed 28 September 2024
'John Harris - Interview' - Onfilm, May 2004
David Skipwith, 'The untold history of how Motorway Patrol became an iconic Kiwi TV show' (Interview) The NZ Herald , 12 December 2019