Vincent Burke

Vincent Burke launched company Top Shelf Productions in 1988 (fellow Top Shelf company director Laurie Clarke began contributing to the operation in 2002). Burke's resume as a producer included more than 600 hours of non-fiction programming: from long-running consumer shows Target and What's Really in Our Food?, to media analysis show Media Take, (formerly Media7), and many one-off documentaries.

Burke was born in the South Island town of Waimate, but grew up largely in Hamilton and nearby Tokoroa. At Victoria University he studied music (Burke played percussion in many Irish groups), and discovered a passion for research and arts management. After arranging tours of theatre groups and bands for universities, and working as an arts administrator, he joined the NZ Film Commission as a policy advisor.

The job ignited a desire to work in film. As he told Capital Times, "it seemed to me that of all the areas of artistic endeavour, film was the one that involved the most elements. It seemed to be the most challenging."

In 1988 Burke set up his company Top Shelf Productions, learning on the job on his first film by raising the finance, taking photos and helping carry the lights. That debut was comical short Gordon Bennett, a shaggy dog tale featuring a priceless performance by Andy Anderson as an inept handyman. But Top Shelf's next production provided a better indicator of where the company would head.

I Want to Die at Home (1990) was the first of many Top Shelf documentaries directed by Burke's then-partner Monique Oomen. It tells the story of a group who joined together to care for Elizabeth Sewell, as she battled liver cancer — and her decision to spend her final days at home. I Want to Die at Home won a Jury Award at the 1991 Montreal Women's Festival. Also "tough emotionally" was award-winning documentary All About Eve, about HIV-infected child Eve van Grafhorst. In this video interview, Burke describes the project as "a wonderful journey to go on, with this inspirational kid".

Around the same period, the British Film Institute celebrated a century of cinema by commissioning a series of 18 documentaries around the globe, in which selected filmmakers took a personal look at their nation's cinema history. The Aotearoa leg of that journey went to Top Shelf, and directors Sam Neill and Judy Rymer. New York Times critic Janet Maslin praised Cinema of Unease as the highlight of the whole series. It was invited to the Cannes Film Festival, and won Best Documentary at the 1996 NZ Film Awards.

Although Burke's interest in social issues was clear, Top Shelf's documentaries cross the gamut — from programmes on theologian Lloyd Geering (The Last Western Heretic) and velvet painting (Sima Urale's Velvet Dreams), to rock band Th' Dudes, and social changes for Kiwi women (The Nineties), to early reality show Flatmates. On the later project, one of the flatmates captured much of the footage himself, including an epic party. "You couldn't have scripted that," said Burke of the show. "It was just wonderful — a  revelation of how young New Zealanders actually deal with stuff, and how they get on together."

Burke balanced more ambitious projects, such as 90s immigration series An Immigrant Nation, with popular staples like long-running consumer show Target and Danny Mulheron-hosted car series AA Torque Show. Burke argued in this interview that Target soon bought about changes in local electricity regulations. Top Shelf's list of award-winners was equally varied. Weight-loss show Downsize Me won three international awards, while 1993 documentary Wahine - The Untold Story, presented by Brian Edwards, scored a Silver Medal at the 1993 New York Festivals Film and Television Awards.

In 2004 saw the arrival of the ambitious Frontier of Dreams. The show was initiated by producer Ray Waru of Te Reo Television, who invited Burke onboard as co-producer (it was made under the combined banner of Whakapapa Productions). Ranking alongside Kenneth Cumberland's Landmarks as one of Aotearoa's largest scale documentary productions to date, the 13-part series used recreations of key events to examine the country's history, from its geological formation to the new millennium. Frontier of Dreams won awards at three American festivals. Top Shelf later made multiple seasons of archival show Making New Zealand.

Elsewhere the company made promotional, training and industrial films, and worked on projects with the Problem Gambling Foundation, Lifeline, and the Ministry of Education.

In 2012 the company was announced as the major shareholder in new free-to-air channel Choice TV, with Burke and Laurie Clarke among the directors. The channel launched on 28 April 2012 with entertainment, information and lifestyle content. It was sold to Blue Ant Media in 2014, then to Discovery in 2019. Top Shelf continued to make some productions for the channel for a time. 

Burke made occasional ventures into drama, and, from 2017, he also helped produce three big screen documentaries. Movie Flight of the Albatross (1995) charts the relationship between a troubled Māori teen and a visiting German. Scripted by Once Were Warriors scribe Riwia Brown from a book by American Deborah Savage, it was a co-production between Top Shelf and companies in Germany and the United Kingdom. Released unsuccessfully in Aotearoa as a feature, it screened as a TV series in many overseas territories. Reviews crossed the spectrum; it was judged Best Children's Feature Film at the 1997 Berlin Children's Film Festival. Burke also has a co-producing credit on Jason Stutter's black comedy Predicament (2010), and helped produce on this 1995 short film. 

In 2017 Burke produced Paul Oremland's big screen documentary 100 Men, which charted changing attitudes to gay experience through the prism of Oremland's own sex life. Burke was also an executive producer on For My Father's Kingdom, the first Tongan feature doco, and Robin Greenberg's passion project Team Tibet. 

Burke was elected to head both SPADA (the Screen Production and Development Association of New Zealand) and the NZ Film and Video Training Board. SPADA named him Industry Champion for 2012.

Vincent Burke passed away on 17 February 2022. SPADA Presidents Sharon Menzies and Richard Fletcher paid tribute, describing Burke "an astute and generous champion of people and stories", while NZ Film Commission veteran Mladen Ivancic called him "a great raconteur with a larger-than-life personality".  

Profile updated on 18 February 2022

Sources include
'Vincent Burke: The power of local stories in film and television…' (Video Interview) NZ On Screen website. Director Andrew Whiteside Loaded 22 November 2017. Accessed 22 November 2017
Top Shelf Productions website (broken link) Accessed 22 November 2017
Amanda Louise Foot, 'A Portrait of Vincent' (Interview) - Capital Times, 13 September 1995
William Mace, 'Freeview adds new channel' Stuff website. Loaded 10 February 2012. Accessed 22 November 2017
Unknown writer, 'Farewell Vincent Burke' (Press release) NZ Film Commission website. Loaded 18 February 2022. Accessed 18 February 2022