Maori broadcasting pioneer Ray Waru has had a long and distinguished career as a producer and director in both television and radio.

In 1980 he established the Maori television production unit at TVNZ, and launched the first regular Maori primetime show Koha.

He began his TV career working on factual series such as Country Calendar, Fair Go, People Like Us and Tomorrow’s World.

Waru went on to work on major documentary series Our People Our Century and Frontier of Dreams.

In this ScreenTalk, Waru talks about:

• Discovering an infamous wine while directing Country Calendar
• Having the freedom to be creative on People Like Us
• Introducing Sharon Crosbie to the world on Tomorrow’s World
• The ideological problems of the first regular Maori primetime programme Koha
• Making New Zealand history popular on Our People Our Century
• How Frontier of Dreams tried to make history fun and exciting
• Making deals to get the international footage for the series

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via a Creative Commons licence.

NZ On Screen: Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside