More on "that soap"
From Russell Brown at Public Address yesterday:
The Rasputin of Hobson Street, TVNZ commissioning chief Tony Holden, has brought in Jason Daniels - the Grundy soap specialist who helped develop Shortland Street - to work on a new, in-house soap at state TV. Some other people have been recruited, but anyone deemed to have been too well-connected to Shortland Street's producer, South Pacific Pictures, has not, it appears, been welcome.
So why is TVNZ trying to work up a new soap when it has previously said it wouldn't be producing drama in-house, and when it already has a well-established and popular nightly soap?
Because Holden (who had a very bitter separation with SPP) wants to "break up the big production companies", and SPP in particular, as he seems to have been happy to say to a few people? Why would that be a good idea? Where does strategy stop and personal agenda begin?
There is a long and undistinguished history at TVNZ of successive generations of management having to climb out from underneath the agendas of their predecessors. It would seem to be going strong.
posted by Anonymous at 11:16 AM
6 Comments:
Not only has Holden talked about breaking up large production companies - he has also stated that "X (X being a producer or other creative working in the industry) will never get a project up while I'm here." He has also further been heard to remark "New Zealanders can't write/produce drama." hence his fondness for hiring Australians.
This might all be fine if he was responsible for a private company, but TVNZ is our national broadcaster. Why is this behaviour being tolerated by TVNZ management and who is going to do something about it?
Didn't Mr. Holden used to produce Shortland Street? Is he miffed that he got thrown out of that particluar sand-pit and wants to create a newer, bigger sandpit where all the toys belong to him? Intriguing.
You are correct, Holden was a Producer, and later Exec Producer, of Shortland Street for some years.
My informant tells me Holden was chucked out of the SPP sandpit simply because he was happily stealing time - lots of it - while establishing the series “Spin Doctors”. Apparently, his employer understood the series was being developed for SPP to make, yet all the time Holden was setting up the contracts in the name of his own company, (Comedia?).
It's ironic he is so anti SPP for getting the biff when he was busted. Holden himself demands unbending loyalty from his staff, even to the point of using public humiliation as a “discipline” tool. Anyway, resisting the urge to really go on…
Let’s just say, there are many, many folks out here who are waiting to see this man fall. We all hope the fall, when it finally comes, is hard, painful, and very, very public.
'Spin Doctors' was pretty good - whatever happened to it? How come they didn't make more of 'Spin Doctors' and less of that bloody awful 'Facelift'?
The queston was asked - why was Facelift so 'bloody awful'?
Could it be because it was produced by an individual at the Gibson Group with a long history of second-rate TV comedy projects (make that 'flops').
It seems that for a small group of 'elite' in the industry, mud just doesn't stick, and the amount of funding and screentime dished out to them is in direct proportion to their proven incompetence.
And, yes, the second series of Facelift is due back on screen next year.
Go figure!!
Facelift was great! Bring on the second series.
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