00:00:00
A guy was a crane firing at people on the street. That's gunfire. That's
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gunfire. He actually shot people. You don't know you've got them until you're
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I was in surgery within days. Who is Phil Smith? >> I'm a bit of a dreamer. Smith, if you
00:00:11
think you can write, you're dreaming. You cannot write. It really scarred me
00:00:15
for a long time. My dad leaning in the kitchen reading the Herald and going, "You wrote that?"
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>> Did you ever feel like your life was in danger over there? >> We just got ourselves right in the
00:00:23
center of a firefight. That 50 m run, I probably did it faster than a sprinter by shaking so much. ANC had their main
00:00:30
training camps in Tanzania. They could get rid of you in a nanocond. They'd hose you down once a day to start to
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rot. My father had sadly died. My mom died last year. I was lucky. >> Oh god, you're here. Come on. This is
00:00:44
the center of performance. Whenever there's a top performance in New Zealand, it all comes from here. That's
00:00:49
Lisa Carrington. She's been doing that for days. That's the boys who got the
00:00:53
holl in more. He did it again. Hey Finn, how's the performance going? >> Top tier.
00:01:00
>> Nice. This is our generate room. In here, you'll find our top performers
00:01:04
helping Kiwis maximize their Kiwi Saver investments. Get in here Finn. >> Maximize. Generate.
00:01:10
>> Putting performance first. >> Phil Smith. Welcome to my podcast. >> Brilliant. Great to be here. Very
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special day, isn't it? >> Oh, my birthday. >> Yeah, it's your birthday. February the
00:01:20
3rd. What a day. What does it feel like to be um almost 50? >> I'm 53. Oh, that was a that was a that
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was a sweet intro. That was a sweet joke. I feel I feel good. How old are you? What are you
00:01:32
>> I'm 61. >> Right. How do you feel? You you feel exactly the same?
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>> Really good. Really? After the triple heart bypass. Um Yeah. Great. >> Actually.
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>> Yeah. Yeah. >> When? >> Uh 7 years ago. Yeah. I just um didn't
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feel great and had a test and I had a thing called widow makers which is you don't know you've got them until you're
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dead. And uh I was in surgery within days. triple heart bypass and I was back at work uh within two weeks and now I
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can walk up hills and I pump oxygen through my heart. So basically I've had the spouting done and feel great.
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>> Do you need annual checkups or anything now or >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You you do you do but
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you know effectively your heart's now getting heaps of oxygen, heaps of blood
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and so you know it gives you another 20 years of life. So I was I was really fortunate that you know I think a lot of
00:02:20
people both male and female testing you know testing testing. I've seen evidence
00:02:25
of people not tested and then they get bad news and the thing is is yeah it's
00:02:29
all available to us now. So I was really lucky. >> Are you are you quite good with your
00:02:34
health now? Like you watch what you eat, watch what you drink. >> Yeah, I sort of got into keto um a long
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time ago and that that proved to me that you know I could knock about 7 kilos off. And so instead of rocking at you
00:02:45
know 88 kilos, I'm sort of 82. Um watch my diet, don't drink too much. um
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exercise, you know, 10,000 steps a day, something like that, when when I can do it, uh keeps me really fit and healthy.
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>> What an interesting start to the podcast. I I I never knew I never knew
00:03:03
that about you and but and then I've I've done all this research and there's
00:03:06
so much stuff that I never I never knew about you because you you and I um uh met through a mutual friend, Matt Heath,
00:03:13
who does the afternoon show on ZB. Um you came around to my house for New Year, I think a few years ago. We caught
00:03:19
each other caught up with each other on the the New Year's Eve just gone and I I
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just thought, "Oh, Phil's a nice guy. Does some TV stuff, but I didn't really
00:03:25
know much about you." But holy [ __ ] you're a legend. >> Well, yes. And I must say about that
00:03:31
that visit to your your home. I do still have your airline pajamas that you gave
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me at the end after I got out of the spa uh where we celebrated New Year. It was
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a wonderful night. And Matt obviously is a dear friend of yours and mine. So, yeah, he brings people together. Well,
00:03:46
by the way, I need to I don't know if I'm talking out of term here, but I need
00:03:49
to tell you something about Matt Heath. Um, so he ran his first marathon last year. He did the Queenstown Marathon. I
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was um I was ing anding about coming down and sort of, you know, running with him like a sherper.
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>> And uh I said, "I think I've left it too late. I've got nowhere to stay." And he
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he he told me I was welcome to stay at your house. >> Yeah. >> So, I'm just I'm just letting you know
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that he's um Yeah. >> He's basically got a got a key to your house.
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>> He virtually has. Yeah. Well, we don't I shouldn't say this. We don't really have
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keys, but um you know, we're we're 25 years down there and Le and I pretty
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much would know how to lock the house, and that's the truth. Uh and our house
00:04:23
is halfway through the marathon, so if Matt wanted to drop out or you wanted to drop out, you can just swing into our
00:04:28
place and jump in the spa. Oh, >> which is what he did at the end of the marathon. So, yeah.
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>> So, okay. Who is Phil Smith? >> Me? >> Yeah. Um, oh, I guess, uh,
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>> apart from bass player of the the nation's dreaming, nation's dreaming,
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>> a band that made $55 all up, I believe. >> Yeah. Yeah, we did. Um, yeah, we had a
00:04:46
we had a short but spectacular career. So, um, I can talk about that later. But, uh, who am I? Uh, I guess I'm
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someone who loves, uh, creativity and ideas. I guess I'm a bit of a dreamer.
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I'm always sort of drifting off a bit. And you know the question where's Phil
00:05:02
is famous within the company because I just tend to go to the next thing that I'm thinking about and in my head I'm
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often thinking of things and opportunities and ideas and so I love the fact that I can take that and
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convert that into employment and something physical for New Zealanders and you know it opens up so many
00:05:22
exciting things. So work-wise, that's what I am. And then, you know, I'm a dad
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and I've got my beautiful son, beautiful wife, and we've got a really great
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little family, and we have a lot of fun. So, you know, those are my my two big things in life.
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>> That's a great answer. Um yeah, it's it's always interesting when you ask
00:05:39
someone who who they are and how they answer because um the the internet answer is um sort of like career
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highlights, I guess, which includes 30 film and TV awards and 60 odd TV shows that you're responsible of making. with
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with those um 30 odd film and TV awards, is there one that means the most? >> Um yeah, and definitely uh drama writer
00:06:00
of the year uh for me was kind of affirmation like when I was in the sixth form, I wrote something and my teacher
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um he he basically read it out to the class and said, "Smith, if you think you
00:06:11
can write, you're dreaming. You cannot write." And like it really scarred me
00:06:15
for a long time and I thought, "Wow, okay, I can't write." And so I sort of
00:06:20
took that into journalism and I I learned through some really great friends to Murphy and Paul Hlet at the
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Herald. We're all little cadetses. They sort of taught me how to write. And um
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from there on in I've kind of been able to tell myself, "Yes, I can ride." And
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then getting that award kind of I went, "Wow, yeah, yeah, I can definitely write." And so, you know, it was it it
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only took 40 years for me to get over uh John Kelllet and you know, at Westlake Boys, but um but yeah, that was that's
00:06:50
the thing. >> So, you you wanted to be at Westlake Boys, you wanted to be a writer, you'd
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indicated your interest in being a writer when that's >> that is so damaging. Like, did you did
00:06:58
you use it as um you did it sort of like um crush you temporarily at least or did
00:07:02
you sort of use it as fuel? >> Um I still was had a passion for like the world, you know, as a kid. I was
00:07:09
always like fascinated by Africa. I was fascinated by sport and the All Blacks and I kept scrapbooks and I followed the
00:07:16
news and I was into the media. And so it was at Westlake where following year teacher just put me in touch with a guy
00:07:22
called Richard Beck who now sort of runs the Warriors media and he got me onto a
00:07:26
journalism course. And so I got a lot of opportunity out of that school in the end. They got me onto a journalism
00:07:32
course. And then, you know, we were incredibly young. Like, I I think I was um 17 when I went to ATI journalism
00:07:39
school. And then by 18, I was on the Herald. And um I still remember writing my first front page lead, which was it
00:07:47
was about a David Bowie concert and everyone breaking in at Western Springs, getting through a fence, you know, of
00:07:52
course that was a riot in those days. And I remember my dad like leaning in the kitchen reading the Herald and
00:07:58
going, "You wrote that?" and it like destroyed all of his faith in journalism. He's like looking at me
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going, "How could they publish that?" Like, you know, it wasn't it wasn't uh
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he was super proud, but at the same time, he was gobsmacked that someone so young who had just gone through puberty
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is now published on the front page of the Herald. So, yeah, it was a young we were young. Yeah.
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>> What percentage of you do you think is um now like a a TV guy or a media guy
00:08:27
and what percentage of you is entrepreneur? Oh, that's a wow, it's a really good question. But I think um
00:08:34
having the skill of left and right brain is is quite uh that's what has got me to
00:08:39
where I'm at. And I can see some of my contemporaries, the likes of like a Julie Christie, I think we both have
00:08:45
left and right brain. So we're thinking business, business and ideas, concepts.
00:08:50
And so a lot of people, you know, will be leftrain or rightrain, but when you can balance the two and you know,
00:08:55
through my family, like my dad was an entrepreneur, he had his own company. Um, I sort of learned about business and
00:09:01
it was sort of in my DNA. A lot of my friends had their own businesses. So, you know, I'm sort of 50%, you know,
00:09:07
half the time thinking about the business, but then I've got the ability to be able to just click over and then
00:09:13
use creativity. But by being creative and also being business, you can create for the business and that gives you an
00:09:20
advantage. So when I'm writing and all of that, I know we can't shoot that
00:09:25
scene or I know that this is what the client wants or I know these networks internationally want this kind of idea.
00:09:32
So as a writer, I can use the creative side to achieve the business goals. >> [ __ ] this is going to be such a great
00:09:39
chat. There's um Oh, there is uh Yeah, there's so much so much to get into.
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>> It's such an honor to have you here today and get get to know you on a
00:09:47
different level to to um just sharing a sparkle with you. >> Yeah. >> So, born and raised in Southland before
00:09:54
moving to Aland. Um I've heard you describe Southlanders as the border collies of the world, meaning the uh
00:09:59
sort of friendly, curious, um and always wanting to help. What What sort of a dog
00:10:04
breed would you be now? >> Um yeah. Okay. Uh, you know, I'd probably want to be what was what was
00:10:12
that red dog? Uh, you know, the one in Australia in the movie, but um, probably more I think I've learned to be sort of
00:10:21
less compliant and less worried about what other people think. So, I think a border collie is very, you know, very
00:10:27
much a people pleaser. And at some point, you have to learn that people pleasing is a great endeavor. And I I
00:10:33
probably have been that for most of my career, but sometimes I've learned the
00:10:37
hard way that that's not the way to the top. That sometimes there has to be a
00:10:41
bit of collateral damage. So you do have to have a bit of mongrel in you. So I'm
00:10:45
going to be choosing a dog with I'm not a Rottweiler, but something with a little bit a little bit more spark than
00:10:50
than that that people might back off from occasionally and realize that there is a sting in the tail. like, you know,
00:10:57
it's not about retribution, but it's just um basically if people think you're
00:11:01
weak and they sense weakness, then you're possibly not going to succeed. And so, you do have to have a tough
00:11:07
spine. And um the border collie, whilst it's a lovely dog, it's it's the gravy
00:11:14
really. It's the it's it's really beautiful, but you do need that you do
00:11:17
need that spine. >> Maybe a German Shepherd then. It's a nice dog, very compliant, but you don't
00:11:23
[ __ ] with one. >> Yeah. Yeah. you want to be like that. Yeah. >> It's that's disappointing to hear that.
00:11:28
Um cuz I I I think you like from my dealings with you and these aren't business related dealings. They're just
00:11:33
social dealings like you are just a really nice guy. Um it's a shame that you need to um develop that sort of
00:11:39
streak, I guess, to succeed in business. >> Well, you do because you're really in
00:11:43
business for your family. Like that's why I do it. I do it so that I have a nice family life and I do it because I
00:11:49
find it really fun. So you do have to be on the game and very aware otherwise people you know will ride over you. It's
00:11:56
a tough commercial industry now um our industry in particular. So you know that the the week will be flushed out and so
00:12:05
you have to be very sharp especially in this day and age. >> So you mentioned before um your first
00:12:12
journalism job um and the Bowie piece on the front cover of the New Zealand Herald. Um, yeah. What did journalism
00:12:18
give you, if anything, that you still use in life now? >> Uh, well, it taught me uh that I'm
00:12:25
lucky, you know, like I I I just can't believe how lucky New Zealanders are.
00:12:30
And, you know, you see the world and you talk to people and you're you're
00:12:34
inquisitive. And I've never been so happy to get on a plane and fly back to New Zealand at the end of last year from
00:12:39
the UK, um, having spent like a month there and and working. And I was like, man, you know, we think, you know, you
00:12:46
get back home and sometimes, you know, the Herald, we know their algorithms are pumping out, you know, boy dies, man
00:12:51
dies, shooting, death, stabbing, and all this. Man, you know, cost of living is a
00:12:56
big thing, but the cost of living is the same everywhere. And one thing I've
00:13:00
realized is just how blessed we are to actually be a little bit removed from the world. You know, there's thousands
00:13:06
of Americans trying to get visas to come to this country now. And so, it's made
00:13:10
me kind of look at the world. journalism taught me to look and talk and what it's
00:13:14
done is made me appreciate like where I am and what we've got as a nation. >> I I think that relent relentless
00:13:21
optimism that's something that all entrepreneurs have in common. I've been
00:13:24
lucky enough to have um like three of New Zealand's um like big dogs on the podcast like yeah Rod from Zero Sir
00:13:31
Peter Be from Rocket Lab and from Zuru and Zealand now you and there's there I
00:13:36
mean you're different different levels to the game. you're not in the private
00:13:39
jet level, but you've done all right for yourself. But but one thing I've noticed
00:13:42
all entrepreneurs, regardless of the size of them, have in common, it's just
00:13:45
this um this this this I don't know, this optimism and this glass half full attitude.
00:13:50
>> Absolutely. Like you just have to believe that you're going to convert
00:13:53
something, which is a crazy observation and convert it into an idea that could be worth 10 or 15 million. And so you
00:14:00
have to have complete optimism because you have to convince other people to risk their careers to give you money and
00:14:06
trust you. So yeah, you have to be constantly optimistic and and and that's what I do. So you know, I take small
00:14:12
ideas and then just uh convince people that you know this is going to be brilliant. But it's based on my my gut
00:14:19
belief, you know, what my gut believes. But the thing is is that you know the people that you've you've listed
00:14:25
effectively have a missing chip and and and that is like you would be worried to
00:14:30
death if you went to bed every night and went through everything that can potentially go wrong and how many mouths
00:14:37
you're feeding and how many people you've got within your company and what
00:14:40
if this goes wrong. You just worry yourself to death. And so most people choose not to do that. You know,
00:14:45
probably 90 95% of people go, I'm happy to just go to work, do a job, go home,
00:14:51
get paid, have a brilliant life, and I'm fully support that. I wish I'd done that
00:14:55
sometimes. I don't actually. I don't. I don't. I've been very lucky to be free,
00:15:00
you know, cuz you know, it's freedom. And that's one of the great things in
00:15:03
life that you need. But they it's a missing chip where you just, >> you know, there's risk, but you still
00:15:09
push forward because you have an inner belief. You absolutely believe you're
00:15:13
going to succeed. Yeah. Why didn't you just stick with journalism? >> Uh, well, I kind of merged out of it
00:15:21
because I went from print journalism in Africa and then I saw a lot of television journalists working there and
00:15:27
met them and I sort of became their runner basically. I was so young and they were so old and I and I was seeing
00:15:34
so much in Africa visually that and trying to write about it. And then when I saw TV people come and film it, I
00:15:40
thought that's the way to go. I love that. And so I kind of said to them, I want to get into television. And they
00:15:45
said, what you should do is go back to New Zealand. You're lucky. Take your journalism back, get into television
00:15:51
journalism, and then see how it goes. And I did that. And I became a TV journalist and TV producer. And then the
00:15:57
entrepreneur kicked in, which is my dad like, you know, always, you know, work for yourself, work for your own
00:16:03
business. And, you know, I, you know, again, I saw Julie Christie running her company, Touchdown. Looked at that and
00:16:08
thought I could do that. And so I just converted the business side and the journalism side together. And we're
00:16:15
still journalists like we still produce um you know 30 40 episodes of the Hoie every year which is current affairs
00:16:22
which I executive produce. So we've got a lot of journalism coming out of the
00:16:26
company and journalism feeds into everything that I do. So, back to your earlier question, like when you're
00:16:32
writing drama, um, because when I was a young journalist, I started out by going
00:16:36
to the port and seeing doing the shipping news, then you do the council news, then you do the police news, and
00:16:42
you start to see how every system works. So by the time you're 20, you kind of
00:16:46
know how the system works, how society works, and you've met people who are underdogs, you met wealthy. And so now
00:16:53
when I go to write drama, I've got this absolute bank of knowledge. Like I know
00:16:58
how the shipping works in the world. I know how a council works and and and how they fight and bicker and all of this
00:17:04
and how the police work and and what detectives are like. And so for me that journalism has given me this huge bank
00:17:11
of information of how all of these systems work within society. So it's been useful.
00:17:17
>> Yeah. So you you were sharpening the ax. You didn't know what you were sharpening
00:17:20
the ax for, but here we are. You mentioned Africa just before. Yeah. By by the age of 21, which is painfully
00:17:26
young. Uh you were the only Western journalist in Tunisia. >> Tanzania. >> Tanzania. Yeah. Any any PTSD or the
00:17:33
things that you saw that still haunt you to this day? >> Yeah. Yeah. Um yeah, definitely you know
00:17:38
like um I think I think in our days when we were doing war and war correspondence
00:17:45
pretty much the solution at the end was to go back to London or go back to base and then go out and drink some booulet
00:17:51
with the guys there and tell a few stories then go home and so nowadays you know you're going into you know
00:17:58
psychologists and counseling and talking about what you've seen and seeing a lot
00:18:02
of death and destruction and all of that. And so I I did see that um pretty rampantly when I when I visited Bundi uh
00:18:10
and that was unintentional, but by going there and seeing just how brutal the world was um was really shocking. But
00:18:18
you know, I didn't do anything about it. I just decided to live with it. And
00:18:22
everything else like you know, Romania and other places like seeing people die a lot a lot, you know, I just we just
00:18:30
had to live with it basically. So, I've just kind of kind of put it away in a
00:18:35
corner. >> Comes out. It comes out after a few drinks at dinner parties sometimes. And
00:18:39
I think Leanne, my my wife, would prefer me not to. She's, "Oh god, Phil's going
00:18:43
to start telling more stories now." >> Your partners had them for she's like
00:18:49
booking an Uber at that point. Yeah. And everyone else is like, you know, it it is difficult sometimes.
00:18:56
>> Uh, what's the most frightening you've ever been? Like, did you ever feel like
00:18:58
your life was in danger over there? >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I've I've
00:19:02
had multiple times. Uh Romania um we just got ourselves right in the center of a firefight. Um and uh my son still
00:19:11
watches the footage of it where we're driving into a town Timwara and you know
00:19:16
it's absolutely rampant. You know, security ters still firing at at the public and a guy was up a crane firing
00:19:22
at um people on the street and we were driving and the cameraman said, "Oh,
00:19:25
that's um there's a train going past or something like can you hear that?" And
00:19:30
then it was like then someone said, "No, [ __ ] That's that's gunfire. That's
00:19:34
gunfire." And like we stopped the car and we looked up and there's a guy
00:19:37
basically in a crane just firing firing at everyone around him from a crane. Completely crazy. So we got out
00:19:46
of the car and all I thought like I could see him turning and sort of looking to us to fire and I just got my
00:19:52
head behind the wheel hub. You know, it was only two wheel hubs you could hide behind. And we all naturally put our
00:19:58
heads there because we'd seen what full metal jacket bullets do through they
00:20:02
straight through cars, you know, so cars no protection. And then we had to run from the car to a bus. And that that 50
00:20:11
m run, I probably did it faster than a sprinter, but each one of us, we just watched and looked at the guy and he was
00:20:18
sort of firing around and looking. And then you just had to time. And as he turned, I was like, I just sprinted and
00:20:23
sort of looked at him and he sort of was like, "Oh shit." And you know, by the
00:20:26
time he turned around and sort of took aim, I just sprinted my 50 m behind this bus where all these people were. And I
00:20:33
always remember they had they had a milk bottle full of coffee and like this guy
00:20:37
said, "Here, have some of this." And I took it and I shaking so much I dropped
00:20:42
the milk bottle and became really unpopular behind the bus because I was the guy that had broken the the milk
00:20:47
bottle full of coffee. And um but like to finish that story, this guy was just gladly, you know, he hit people. We saw
00:20:53
him hit people. He actually shot people. a tank pulled up and this guy sort of popped his head out and then a couple of
00:21:00
soldiers ran around and um one of them just climbed up the crane quietly and we've still got footage of it and he got
00:21:07
to the top and he just got his machine gun and then he just popped the lid and just went and just fired into the thing
00:21:14
and this guy is standing there like happy and next minute he just got lead right up him and then everyone just that
00:21:21
was it. The guy got down, had a smoke, got back in the tank, the tank just drove off. It was just you just witness
00:21:27
these things like >> you're looking looking back looking back now from the perspective of a of you
00:21:32
know 60-year-old man like do you think you truly understood the risks you were taking at that time?
00:21:37
>> No. No. I no I there's a lot of things I didn't realize like even in in Tanzania.
00:21:43
Um I um thought that you know hey I'm a journalist and I'm the only western
00:21:48
journalist in Tanzania and Tanzania is safe. But I didn't realize it's a
00:21:52
socialist country uh supported by North Korea, supported by China, Russia, and um I naively turned up and they very
00:22:00
quickly thought I was actually a South African. They thought he's just a South
00:22:05
African. What we didn't know is that ANC had their main training camps in Tanzania. And I actually eventually got
00:22:11
to them and went to the ANC conference and met amazing people. But um you know within about 2 months I was I was being
00:22:19
followed. But the guy, it was such a poor country, he would wait outside and I'd basically uh let him in my car and
00:22:26
he'd just drive around with me for the day watching what I did. And so his job
00:22:30
was just to follow me around. And I look back now and think, yeah, you know, if they wanted to get they could off you,
00:22:36
they could get rid of you in in a nano second. But I was kind of lucky the Financial Times said Tanzania first.
00:22:42
They said, "We'll give you a soft little safe country before we send you to
00:22:46
Nicaragua," which was the next one, or or Ghana or Nigeria. That was that was
00:22:50
the plan. And uh so I was kind of lucky even though I got arrested and you know,
00:22:54
time in jail there and expelled from Tanzania. Um it was uh it was a soft kind little country cuz I got out of
00:23:02
life and I look back now and go, I was lucky. >> Yeah. Let's talk about the the expulsion
00:23:07
and the the incarceration. How long were you incarcerated for? >> A week. Oh, a week.
00:23:12
>> Yeah. >> Oh, I sort of imagined like half a day or a few hours while they a week.
00:23:16
>> Yeah. >> How was that terrifying? >> Uh, yeah. No, it was um a lot of
00:23:19
negotiation um from who? >> Uh well, fortunately the British High Commission kind of adopted me is one of
00:23:28
their own like because I was Financial Times and because I knew the British High Commission really well um they came
00:23:34
in to bat for me because there's no New Zealand high commission there. It was
00:23:38
the British Embassy. But it was just a misunderstanding. Of course, it's always a misunderstanding. But um
00:23:47
I, you know, I just thought I was I I was operating uh in incorrectly in a country when you're based and resident
00:23:54
there. Like I I had reported a couple of things that you kind of have to leave to
00:23:59
journalists that are visiting and I actually I actually reported them and so they got on to me and decided I had to I
00:24:04
had to leave the country. But in terms of that process of expelling me, they they bang me up in Arouchia, which is
00:24:10
right beside Mount Kilimanjaro. So, um, I got picked up, uh, I was doing a story
00:24:16
on Prince Charles. They picked me up slow. It was a slow arrest. I didn't realize what was happening. Back to the
00:24:21
back to the police station into a cell and then now we're going to, you know,
00:24:25
we're going to work through this process. So, they were pretty nice to me and in the end they but then they just
00:24:30
dumped me on the border and and left me there. Um, and uh, you know, it was very
00:24:35
difficult. Kenya didn't want to take me in. So I spend a day on the border trying to get into Kenya. But I was a
00:24:39
PI, a prohibited immigrant from Tanzania. And they made me sit and wait the whole day. And at the end of the
00:24:45
day, I was thinking I'm going to be left in this gap of, you know, 100 meters.
00:24:50
And this guy said, "Okay, we'll let you um we'll let you come into Kenya for 24
00:24:54
hours." And then I went back to London and they just laughed and said, "Oh,
00:24:57
we've all been chucked out of, you know, one guy been pied about 30 times." Like
00:25:01
it was not it was nothing. >> But they in your employers the >> Yeah. Yeah. They're just like, "Oh yeah,
00:25:06
you got chucked out, so uh like move on." It wasn't interesting. It barely
00:25:10
wasn't interesting to these guys. >> There wasn't a lot of duty care in the
00:25:14
mid '80s, was there? >> No. No. No. I mean, no, there wasn't. But it was it was terrifying cuz Kenya,
00:25:20
they they don't like journalists, you know, they the the local Reuters journalists have been tortured when I
00:25:26
was there. And um I met him and I worked with him and they had a they had a process in um in Kenya called the
00:25:34
swimming pool at the police station which is they put you in a room like this and they just put water in about a
00:25:40
foot of water and you just stand in it and then your feet rot then you sit on your bottom and your bottom rots and you
00:25:46
stand on your feet and they hose you down once a day and they leave you in there for like days and you just start
00:25:51
to rot. They just it was cruel. And I met this guy. He spent he'd spent days
00:25:55
in the swimming pool. So you you got to be careful in those countries. And yeah,
00:26:00
so and long answer to short question. Yeah, I was lucky. >> And have you got possessions over there?
00:26:08
I believe you left behind like a a bag of wheat. >> I was chucked out. Yeah. I mean like
00:26:12
bangi was it was just absolutely they just wrapped it up into fish and chip paper. It was probably 20 cents and you
00:26:20
just got got masses in those days. Look, I was in my early 20s and smoked a bit of dope. I wasn't crazy on it, but um
00:26:27
but we learned I could just you could just buy anything virtually for free. You had so much money and you could
00:26:33
exchange on the black market. Like I just had stacks and stacks of money and I carried it around every day and give
00:26:38
it to lepers and stuff like that in Tanzania. Um, so yeah, there was I have got uh everything I had there I left
00:26:46
there cuz from Arouchia I was out over the border into Kenya. And so I still get messages from this guy years later
00:26:52
saying, "Your crap's still on the corner of the Reuters's office in Darus Salam."
00:26:57
And I'm like, "Shit, I hope they don't open the top drawer because there's like
00:27:00
there's half an ounce of of weed in there." But um >> might want a disciplinary disciplinary
00:27:06
hearing with you. >> Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But um yeah, it it it'll be wonderful to go back, but I
00:27:13
think that you know, even Tanzania's changed, you know, it's not as it's a
00:27:16
different country now. So >> yeah, for sure. >> Um yeah, so this this is pre- internet
00:27:21
and everything. So your poor parents back back in New Zealand, they would have been blissfully unaware of what was
00:27:25
going on in your life. >> Yeah. No, there's a story in the Oakland Star about, you know, journalist in
00:27:30
prison in Tanzania. My mom worked as stock broker in a stock broking agency. Um and uh she was really proud of me and
00:27:39
like she she always pushed us away like get out there see the world don't worry
00:27:44
about me you know my father had sadly died and so but he too was was quite a risk taker so my mom uh she enjoyed the
00:27:52
stories you know of oh you know my son's doing this and that you know like all
00:27:56
parents and so um but yeah she was worried of course she was worried but uh she didn't really know what had happened
00:28:01
in Tanzaner until I was out and back in London so so That's when she found out
00:28:06
so she didn't have to worry. >> Was was it around this period of your life that you connected with Jane
00:28:11
Goodall? >> Yeah, that was Yeah, just um you know I basically I met the Brits you know you
00:28:17
go into a town I sort of had the Hunter S Thompson approach which is you know you get a cheap motel a typewriter and a
00:28:22
rental car and you can do anything and I sort of followed that. So I was I was obsessed with Hunter S. Thompson and
00:28:29
every everything about him was a journalist. And so yeah, I um got into Tanzania and the first thing I rang the
00:28:36
British High Commission and the embassy and there's always a woman there called
00:28:39
Katherine there. I don't know why all the women in Africa are called Katherine, but she invited me out to the
00:28:44
yacht club and I went out to the yacht club cuz there were very few um Europeans in in Tanzania at the time.
00:28:51
And um it was a little refuge away from you know the craziness of living there. And a woman uh one day said, "Oh, you
00:28:58
should meet Jane Goodle. She's a great friend of mine." And I I went and met
00:29:02
Jane. And uh Jane was absolutely lovely. I just went to her house and drank tea.
00:29:07
And you know, she had a cunning plan. You know, there was a little bit of black hatter about it. She had a plan.
00:29:12
And um she wanted me to go up to GMI. And so she facilitated that and just said, "Just cruise up. I'm there for a
00:29:18
month. Come and stay with me. Um you know, I've got a I've got a story for
00:29:22
you." which was um basically chimpanzees being smuggled out of Bundi for AIDS
00:29:27
experiments which was true and it was happening. So they were they were needed for AIDS experiments and it was
00:29:34
devastating to Jane that they were kind of trying to get chimpanzees from her region which is GMI. And so she kind of
00:29:40
wanted to know what was going on but boy you know that was a dangerous assignment. You know I I went to GMI. I
00:29:46
hung out with Jane >> for a couple of weeks to start with. Then she's like all right on your bus
00:29:50
you know up to Bjan Bora which is pretty much like catching a bus the you know these little boats to pull in and then
00:29:57
just up to Bjan Bora. And then I investigated the story about chimps and yeah that was pretty pretty crazy. But
00:30:03
staying with Jane I went back and um it just established a it's not a friendship. It was more like she was
00:30:10
sort of like my mom home away from home because her son Grub was exactly the same age as me and he was in London and
00:30:17
so she had this like kid turn up. So she was sort of able to, you know, sort of mother me a bit and, you know, fuss and
00:30:24
ask me about whether I had a girlfriend and all of this and and she loved examining people. So at night, you know,
00:30:31
she would famously and, you know, she liked scotch and so she would do a day up the hill. She was absolutely I went
00:30:38
up the hill with her a few times and she would just race through the jungle and follow her chimpanzees and you were just
00:30:44
like, where where's she gone? She could move like incredibly and then she'd just
00:30:48
sit and wait. So I went up and saw all the chimpanzees a lot. The end of the day, you know, she'd sit down and and
00:30:53
talk to me about what she'd observed and what she was thinking of doing and and
00:30:59
um asking me about my life and drinking scotch and you look over Lake Tangana to
00:31:04
Zire in the Congo and yeah, it was it was spectacular. Amazing. Amazing. >> Uh I actually had that on my card here.
00:31:10
I was going to ask you if you smoke if you if you drunk scotch with her. I I I this caught me by surprise, but I don't
00:31:15
know if you saw this, but there was this fabulous interview on Netflix which was
00:31:18
like um it was recorded I think in the last year of her life. Then they vaulted it until she died.
00:31:23
>> So anything Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And she was like she was sipping scotch or
00:31:27
whiskey through that uh interview. Loves it. >> Yeah. She Yeah. I think in that
00:31:32
interview she said, "Oh, my voice, you know, I was like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:31:35
She just really likes a little tipple just to get her thinking. Like a lot of her writing she Yeah. She wouldn't drink
00:31:41
a lot. She she's very measured, but she would just light a fire on the beach,
00:31:46
have a short shot or two, and then start telling stories. And her stories, you know, I still draw upon her stories
00:31:53
today. Um, and you know, >> like what >> uh uh there's the ghosts, that was her
00:32:00
big story. Uh there's two stories there. One one is that she said at night you
00:32:04
might hear chains like dragging and I was like, "Yeah." And she said, "We've
00:32:08
all heard chains dragging." And that is absolutely the caravan, the path that
00:32:12
the slave trade took right through GMI. That was that was the path back to um the ocean and that's where the slave
00:32:20
trade went. And she said, "You're hearing the ghosts of the souls of the
00:32:23
people who died around this region." So that freaked me out cuz then you go to a
00:32:27
you know, you didn't have electricity at GMA. You go back to your room and this
00:32:31
there was that. And also um you know I did work up an idea where Jane told a story where um she said uh one night uh
00:32:40
we woke up and it was light uh in the middle of the night. The whole region was was light. It it just night became
00:32:47
day and she said we've never understood what happened what it was. And I asked
00:32:52
some other people then and everyone talks about it as a phenomena. there was just this sort of glitch and like no one
00:32:58
can explain how it was completely daylight and so that's always fascinated me and I I have actually used that as a
00:33:05
concept >> uh in a drama but you know pluribus has kind of used a bit of that now we wrote
00:33:11
something called the sighting so I did write something based on that >> um she told you not to follow your
00:33:16
passion but to follow what you're good at >> um did you listen >> yeah yeah I think she kind of also
00:33:24
taught me uh not to be not to have an employer. Like that's really why I left
00:33:30
um TVNZ to set up my own company. She just said, you know, like happiness is, you know, freedom is is one of the great
00:33:36
things in terms of being happy. Um and so I just uh I I did listen to her a lot and so um yeah, her advice in terms in
00:33:46
terms of that was was really key in a lot of decisions I made. M is the is the dream for most people listening to this
00:33:53
or watching this to try and find an access somewhere. So your passion is what you're good at.
00:33:59
>> Well, the thing is if you're good at something and it doesn't actually put,
00:34:02
you know, food on the table, then you're pretty stupid to follow that passion.
00:34:06
You know, like your passion might be that you want to be um something where there's there's not a chance for you to
00:34:12
flourish. And sometimes if you're good at something, it's pretty wise to go,
00:34:16
okay, I'm good at that and then I can earn enough money to pursue my passion.
00:34:21
And so, and I'll have a comfortable life. And uh so sometimes uh that advice
00:34:27
is not necessarily correct. And so I I subscribed to do what you're good at.
00:34:32
And yeah, despite what I got told at school, I I was okay at writing. >> See, I still say I was okay. Um, and so
00:34:40
I thought, you know, that was what I was good at. And so it wasn't necessarily a
00:34:44
passion. >> So it was writing that I was good at that I was able to use. Like um, you
00:34:49
know, we had writing in our family. Like my grandmother was the first woman to get uh, an English degree at Otago
00:34:56
University. First woman to go to Otaga University and get a degree. So writing was in me. I followed what I was good
00:35:02
at. And then off that I was able to pursue my passions. Like I was in a band. That was a passion. But it wasn't
00:35:08
going to make me a million dollars. >> Made you 55 bucks, I believe. >> 55. Yeah.
00:35:12
>> Um, someone else that you went on to work with when you came back to New
00:35:16
Zealand that I suppose had a similar piece of advice to Jane Goodall about um, you know, being your own boss. Um,
00:35:21
Sir Paul Holmes, >> didn't he say to you something like, um, you don't want the gun pointed at you,
00:35:25
you want to be the one holding the gun. >> Yeah, >> he did. Yeah, that was a piece of advice
00:35:30
he gave me when when I was a young reporter at TVN Zed. and Paul and I um I came back and I was a little bit you
00:35:37
know liberal left unionized at the time and my first meeting with Paul was um wasn't so good because I was
00:35:43
representing the journalist. I became the journalist spokesman in the newsroom and something happened and it sort of
00:35:49
opposed Paul and Paul kind of like um went upstairs and came down and found me in the newsroom didn't even know who I
00:35:56
was and said you're finished you're finished down here and up there and you
00:36:00
know he was you know brutal threat and I just laughed at him and I said you know
00:36:05
that's really amazing threat Paul and he went yeah and I said but there's one
00:36:09
problem he said what's he said I don't care I don't care because I don't even
00:36:13
want to be here So, I just don't care. And he sort of looked at me and he kind
00:36:16
of started laughing and then he went away and kind of went, "Who is that little shit?" Like, you know, pretty
00:36:22
much, you know, that's when he got an interest. And then, you know, I went on,
00:36:26
I worked as one of the producers on Homes and a reporter, but I mean, there's greatness in homes. I wasn't one
00:36:31
of those great Mike Valentine's and Cameron Bennett and all those wonderful reporters who were on there but I got to
00:36:37
live in their world and and um you know I got to produce the show for a while and uh it was it was incredible. Yeah.
00:36:45
And Paul did give a lot of advice and the one about you know he definitely said at one point he said look you're
00:36:50
kind of he could see you are kind of an entrepreneur you you don't really want
00:36:54
all these bosses like doing the home show like if you put a show out you would you had like you know the head of
00:37:01
news and current affairs you had the CEO of TVNZ you had the minister of broadcasting you had the prime minister
00:37:07
they would all ring you pretty much after the show and you're sitting there really young they r say that was good
00:37:12
that was bad that was good that was bad you had a lot of masters is in those days. Of course, I don't think Chris
00:37:17
Luxon rings up Jeremy Wells now, but uh in those days it was a much more political show. You know, we'd have
00:37:24
Bulger on and you know, I I loved that form of journalism. You know, we'd be
00:37:27
going, "Why'd you do that today?" You know, how does that affect the people?
00:37:30
And Paul was always for the people, you know, and even in and giving me some career advice. He was he was for the
00:37:36
people. Yeah. >> Oh, look, for anyone um under a certain age, it's probably hard to imagine or
00:37:41
fathom just how how big this show was. like homes 7:00 p.m. on TV1. Uh yeah, how many how many viewers? Like 800,000
00:37:49
a night, a million a night. It's like it was massive. And if anything happened in
00:37:52
the news, you were sort of summoned onto the home show. Like I've had um Justin
00:37:56
Marshall on the podcast and he had an incident where John Hart took him off the field and he got caught on Mike
00:38:01
swearing saying this is [ __ ] [ __ ] And it was became such a media thing he was sort of summoned to homes
00:38:06
the next day to to make a public apology. >> Yeah, it was the court. Yeah, it was.
00:38:10
Paul was the was the judge, you know, and he gave people, you know, Jonah had, you know, a huge moment on the show
00:38:17
where um, you know, over one of his marriages and his personal relationship situation, cried on the show, hugely
00:38:24
emotional. That rated, you know, obviously off the charts, but Paul had an ability to to have empathy with
00:38:30
people. You know, that's the one thing, you know, he definitely had a soul and
00:38:34
so greatly missed. >> When were you there? What years were you on the home show? I can't remember, but
00:38:39
it' be uh I I've I'm such a dreamer. I have problems. But it' be like late 80s. Oh,
00:38:46
no. No. See, I can't even remember if it was 90s. I I honestly can't recall my
00:38:52
timeline, but um yeah, it was Yeah. No, it was been 90 95 97. Yeah. 90 around 97 98.
00:39:03
>> What was um that ballering you got before you worked for him down? Was that
00:39:06
the best bowler king from Paul Holmes or was there better ballikings? >> Uh, no. Subsequently, Paul Paul once
00:39:12
you're in the team, you're in the team, you know, and there's a lot of good
00:39:15
people like that in New Zealand journalism once you're on the team. So once you're on the inside and he trusts
00:39:19
you, cuz trust is a big issue with Paul. Like he was a little bit paranoid. >> Um, he shared all sorts of inappropriate
00:39:26
things with you. Like he was an open book from there on in. And he he was very open about his life, you know. Um,
00:39:31
he shared a lot and had had his own struggles with things. um uh deserved a much longer life. So, uh yeah, in terms
00:39:41
of in terms of bollockings, uh no, from there he he was always pretty good. It's
00:39:45
like if if something went wrong, the team, you know, it was it was pretty much a team thing. What you know, what
00:39:50
did we do wrong? But man, he worked like, you know, and you know, >> he was up, you know, radio and then he'd
00:39:56
come into the morning meetings. He was better briefed than everyone. He knew what was going on in New Zealand, in the
00:40:01
world at, you know, 9:30 in the morning for the first meeting. Paul knew the agenda before anyone because everyone
00:40:06
else is just waking up and got their first coffee and he's like been on air for hours and so he's like I need to get
00:40:12
to Tapo. I need to talk to the grieving wife. Get me a helicopter. I'll be there
00:40:15
at 11:00. I'll be back at 1:00. I'll pre-record this. I'll do that. Man, what
00:40:19
a day and then and then knock it out live and do it again the next day. Unbelievable.
00:40:25
>> Oh, he he's he's phenomenal. And his his flaws made almost made him um yeah, the
00:40:30
the broadcaster that he was. I I had um Sir John King on the podcast a couple of
00:40:34
years ago. He told a story about uh when he was um I think in the early days of his prime ministership going out for
00:40:39
dinner at Parnell somewhere and Paul was there and Paul said, "Come and join us
00:40:43
for a wine." So she had a bottle of wine and then he he was like, "We'll get
00:40:46
another one." And John was like, "No, Paul, you I'm I'm being interviewed by
00:40:49
you on Q&A tomorrow morning." Um so John went home and then the next day went
00:40:53
there and Paul was like, "Oh, I'm hung over." And then as soon as the the
00:40:56
cameras were on and the mics were on, bang, >> bang, on fire. >> Yeah. sharp, super sharp and just funny.
00:41:03
I mean, Paul was just funny, you know. He's he was so clever, like musically
00:41:08
talented, funny, um, literate, uh, unbelievable understanding the arts, you know, like John Clark is where he
00:41:15
started in comedy, you know, and with his famous, um, I think it was a it was a flea race or something that he did
00:41:22
down at the shadow, which was the turning point in his life. was John Clark really created the Paul Holmes
00:41:27
character and that I don't think that story's ever been told but but Paul
00:41:30
Holmes >> How do you mean John Clark as in Fred Dag? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. He created Paul Holmes basically
00:41:36
and it is a story that hasn't been told but John Clark Fred Dag. They did a show
00:41:40
and Paul was doing a race. I think it was like it was a flea race and he was doing a comedy sketch and basically he
00:41:48
did it as um he he did Paul Holmes comedy just hi I'm Paul Holmes and all this then he did this good good
00:41:56
afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the race it's the race of the fleas and they're going to race and and
00:42:01
and they did it and all the mata farmers they all laughed like [ __ ] and when they
00:42:06
left John Clark in the van turned to Paul and he said that is the Paul Holmes you talk like that and Paul went good
00:42:14
afternoon and I'm Paul Holmes and welcome to me and and that's when he was
00:42:18
discovered and so Paul used that form of addiction from that moment where John Clark said that's how you perform
00:42:24
everyone loves that. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> Well, I've heard him referred to as um
00:42:30
like an Uncle Arthur sort of character which was um a character on some Australian comedy show. Interesting.
00:42:35
Came from John Clark. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's courtesy of Tom Scott, that story.
00:42:42
>> So, is it after the home show that the entrepreneurial chapter of your story
00:42:46
began? >> Yeah, I kind of I'd read a book called Primary Colors, which was it was a ghost
00:42:51
book about Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton had a thing called uh FaceTime before, forget the word FaceTime. Unfortunate
00:42:58
phrase now, but he if he ever had a problem, he would wouldn't fax people or
00:43:04
ring them. he would demand facetime with them, get them in to use his charisma to
00:43:08
convince them as to what he wanted. And and this book was all about you got to, you know, do facetime to get to the big
00:43:14
time. So I was at TVZ producing away and I thought I'll meet all of the bosses at
00:43:18
TV and Z. I'll go and meet them because we weren't allowed to go up to the fifth
00:43:21
floor. So I made appointments to meet all the bosses and went and met one and was Mike Latton and I said look I want
00:43:27
to go out and be an entrepreneur in this industry and I was doing FaceTime. He was like initially he's like what are
00:43:34
you doing here? you're you're a producer down on that floor. We don't talk to
00:43:36
people down there. And in the end, he said, "Oh, look, I've got uh I own the
00:43:40
rights to the golf show." Um, and you're into you're into golf and sport. I I'll
00:43:45
give you them for a dollar. And so I went, "Okay." And I walked out of the
00:43:49
meeting. I rang Sky that virtually rang them straight away and said, "Hi, I own
00:43:53
the rights to the golf show in New Zealand. It's really big in Australia."
00:43:56
And they went, "Great. Come and talk to us." And like within a few weeks, I had
00:44:00
the Golf Show and Philip Leechman and Air New Zealand and Golf Harbor all on board. and I just left. And that suited
00:44:06
me as a producer like you know it's people wonder why you do producing because there's a horrible saying but
00:44:12
you spend your life pissing on bush fires which is what you do. It's you know you're constantly solving problems
00:44:17
but you know I love it because um it's kind of just part of that creative process of getting things made and yeah
00:44:25
>> why why did he sell you the rights to the golf show for a dollar? That that
00:44:28
usually when when a dollar transaction usually happens that usually means you're buying a whole lot of debt as
00:44:32
well. He he just wanted to help me because I had the audacity to go up there. Incredible. And he wasn't going
00:44:37
to use it at TV and Zed. So, he just went, "You can have it." And uh he he
00:44:43
just because I'd put myself forward and taken this advice, which is get in front
00:44:48
of people, talk to people, you know, FaceTime, which is really important in this day and age when people are now
00:44:54
sitting behind, you know, monitors and terminals and and not communicating directly, but direct engagement, you
00:45:00
know, is is so important. That's why, you know, we hear people today like Scott Galloway, Professor Scott
00:45:05
Galloway, saying that young people should be um drinking more um and going out and meeting people and yeah, making
00:45:13
a few mistakes because they're at least engaging with people and instead they're
00:45:18
sitting in bedrooms and the damage that it's doing to their mental health is way
00:45:22
worse than a slightly bad hangover from going out and meeting real people and engaging in life itself.
00:45:29
>> Yeah. Yeah. that um that FaceTime theory that you talk about, it's probably never
00:45:32
been more applicable than what it is now. I don't think that's really powerful.
00:45:35
>> Eh, yeah. A lot of people write about it now and like it's all memes like you
00:45:39
know 100 nos, you know, going out and seeking 100 rejections. You know there's
00:45:43
a lot of stuff you know that's the good side of social media that encourages
00:45:46
people to do some positive stuff which is authentic. Um you know uh the you know let them let them say what they
00:45:54
want. Mel Robbins and all of her stuff, the 5-second rule, you know, but it's
00:45:58
all it's all old old stuff. Like to me, in some ways, I've applied quite a few
00:46:02
of those rules, but that FaceTime one, >> it you're always going to be much closer
00:46:06
to getting what you want if you meet the person and and they can physically engage with you.
00:46:12
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. It it is all regurgitated. Like some of the some of the best books I've
00:46:15
ever read are like the really old ones like Napoleon Hill or Dale Cariegi >> like um and it's all just the same stuff
00:46:21
regurgitated, but it's all powerful. >> Yeah. The E-Myth is, you know, that's
00:46:25
what started me. The E-Myth is is um, you know, you either work in your business or on your business. And that's
00:46:31
the E-Myth. >> And, you know, I've helped a lot of people, but that's a very old um, uh,
00:46:38
form of advice, but um, >> you see it regurgitated today in social media, but it's the fundamental
00:46:44
principles there. So that golf show that you're talking about with um the late great Philip
00:46:49
Leechman um so you guys built that up and then sold it to a company called UpLink.
00:46:54
>> So Upink was our company. >> Upink was the company. >> Yeah. And then we we built it up. Yeah.
00:46:58
And um you know that was again that was probably one of the best examples of um of the way the way I think uh and the
00:47:08
way I think everyone should think was and it was one key thing that we did and that was we needed someone to do the
00:47:13
golf tips and we're sitting around the table. Our office was the Gypsy T-Rooms
00:47:18
in Greylin. We were there for 7 years before Gypsy T-room and Phil rightfully suggested Phil Tartarangi and you know
00:47:24
Grant Mohead and Ela and all these people and I said no we want some do golf tips it's massive you know like
00:47:31
let's start with you know Tiger Woods and work down from there and so we had a
00:47:35
list of and Phil just sat there like you're crazy you're crazy so I got on
00:47:39
the phone I rang around and somehow I found Gary Player and he was launching golf courses in Malaysia and so I got
00:47:47
his son in South Africa and he Dad's up in Malaysia launching golf courses. If
00:47:52
you fly up, he'll give you like a day or two days or whatever to do golf tips as
00:47:56
long as you show the golf courses he's designing. So, I flew up there, met Gary
00:48:01
Player, who was absolutely incredible. And Gary is just an absolute natural with the TV. He just said, "Whatever you
00:48:08
want, whatever you want, I'll do." So, I just filmed him non-stop for two days.
00:48:12
Golf tips, golf tips, golf tips. So, we had Gary Player doing our golf tips. Then what happened was this Australian
00:48:18
company, you know, we went to um ESPN and said, "Do you want our golf show?"
00:48:22
And they said, "What a New Zealand golf show. Who hosts it?" And I went, "Gary
00:48:26
player." And they went, "Ah, I didn't say Phil Le, sorry, Phil." But um Gary
00:48:32
Player, they bought the golf show and as a result of that, and a big international company came in and said
00:48:38
to us, "Oh, you make a golf show. What's it on?" "Oh, it's on ESPN. Uh are you
00:48:42
interested in it?" And they said, "No, we won't buy the show. We'll buy your
00:48:45
company." because we had that show on ESPN. So, it was thinking big got us all
00:48:50
the way through to a massive buyout of our company by a British company. >> So, it seemed like you hustled hard like
00:48:56
and you were thinking big, you know, in order to get like a Gary Player on. But,
00:48:59
um, was it like creative? You weren't lying, but creative with your phrasing.
00:49:04
>> Oh, you mean with Gary Player? >> Oh, no. With saying it's on ESPN and
00:49:08
saying Gary Player. >> Well, it was on ESPN. Yeah. It genuinely was on ESPN and Gary. No, we pushed Gary
00:49:14
to the front of our international version. So, it did feel like Gary was So, it was Phil and Gary. So, it was
00:49:21
there. It was It was for real. Yeah. And because I shot so much material in two days with him cuz he just talked
00:49:28
non-stop for two days. So, about everything. So, >> Amazing. So, by 31 um you'd made enough
00:49:35
money to be set up for life. >> Yeah. Well, well, yeah. Yeah, I had enough to be mortgage free and own own a
00:49:42
home and and all of that. Yeah. Yeah. And bought a place in Queenstown and >> Yeah.
00:49:48
>> Yeah. That ended up being a smart investment. You still got it to this day.
00:49:51
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Did Did you um Yeah. buy a cool car or
00:49:54
do anything foolish at the time? >> You're 31. >> Yeah, I know. No, I was I was pretty
00:50:00
pretty cautious really. Like that's the Southland coming out and you the Scottish heritage is like you don't want
00:50:07
to be showy and I've never been showy. Um the only showy thing we've ever done
00:50:11
probably le and I is I bought her Mustang for her 60th birthday and otherwise um yeah but we have got a
00:50:20
beautiful um sort of farm down in Queenstown and it's amazing. Yeah. So >> yeah, I I found a quote from you. Um, I
00:50:28
just need enough for a penino and a steak at the end of the day. Don't need anything more than that.
00:50:32
>> Yeah, I think yeah, finding your happiness is that I do see people with a
00:50:36
lot of clutter. Um, in particular in Queenstown, a lot of possessions. um it's just a lot of encumbrance and it's
00:50:44
it's so much to manage and uh it makes life really complicated and you know I
00:50:49
do think that um you find happiness in the simple things and decluttering and getting rid of all that it doesn't
00:50:56
always lead to a happy existence so um yeah >> material things they only bring you the
00:51:03
briefest amount of happiness e >> they do it's a car the first couple of
00:51:07
drives in it a watch first couple of times you wear it then it just becomes >> yeah background noise
00:51:12
>> but financial freedom is a great feeling and I was lucky to have Sir David Lavine
00:51:17
work with me and um you know David often said that you know he remembers the f the day where he became mortgage free
00:51:24
and how he felt >> and so yeah pretty pretty great great feeling to have that and anyone can
00:51:30
aspire to it. M so selling that company uplink at 31 and becoming um yeah mortgage free and yeah financially
00:51:37
secure did did that change your relationship with risk? No, I just wanted to keep creating and
00:51:43
growing the company and I always just felt a responsibility like I had uh you know I basically set up Great Southern
00:51:50
and Great Southern was just a new idea and I got on with Sir David Lavine as my partner and I just wanted to tell New
00:51:57
Zealand stories like I just felt like you know I wanted to get out of sport and get into drama and comedy and things
00:52:04
that I was really into and I had to learn about it and so I it was just a chance for me to be able to put money
00:52:10
into a and grow a new company which is Great Southern and just sort of grow that up
00:52:15
you know and it's gone through multiple iterations and you know it's been cool
00:52:20
it's been corporate it's been family it's been big it's been small it's you
00:52:25
know it's gone through so many iterations through through all the phases of the media so yeah
00:52:31
>> yes so David Lavine who who you've mentioned um your wealthy businessman
00:52:36
anyone over a certain age will remember the the chain of stores Lavine and Yeah.
00:52:41
>> What would you compare them to now? What's um what's the >> Brisco or Oh, no. He died.
00:52:46
>> Paint and decorating. It was massive. There was like 50 branches around the
00:52:49
country. It was a massive massive chain. >> So, how did you connect through your
00:52:52
involvement as a volunteer with Outwardbound? Is that how you >> Yeah. He um uh so we had the golf show
00:52:59
and um Leanne's auntie introduced me to Sir David uh Elaine Lunan. She introduced me and basically David wanted
00:53:07
to raise money for Outbound. So, we met and I said, "Why don't we do a charity
00:53:10
golf tournament at Golf Harour and we'll gift you one episode of the golf show
00:53:15
and the charity can sell all the advertising and all the sponsorship around it and we'll put it on air, you
00:53:21
know, on, you know, all around the world basically." And so, they were able to
00:53:25
sell that one show for about 100 grand and hold this tournament. And so, it raised and so David saw that and he kind
00:53:33
of was listening to all these people on the board and he go, "Oh, be quiet. What
00:53:36
are you saying, Phil?" like he listened to me because we'd got the money and and
00:53:40
he just was a real advocate of me because he David uh was a young person in an old man's body in a way. He just
00:53:47
didn't want to go cuz he loved it so much being an entrepreneur and he was so
00:53:51
clever and so good good with it. So he sort of said you know uh what you're going to do next. So, I owned Uplink at
00:53:58
the time, you know, I'll be in there. And so, when um when Uplink finished and
00:54:03
been sold, I I set up Great Southern and David became a partner. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. The the the story I heard, and I
00:54:09
don't know if this is um um you truth or not, he like gave you a million bucks
00:54:13
and said, "Here, set up a company and give me half of it." >> Yeah.
00:54:17
>> Is is that a lot of pressure? >> Um >> like taking taking that sum of money off
00:54:21
someone else? >> Really think about it cuz I put some of my own money in as well. So we had to
00:54:25
set up editing and in those days all the hard costs, hardwire costs were greater,
00:54:30
edit suites, you know, Avid's, you know, you can edit a show now on a laptop, but
00:54:34
in in our day it was hundreds of thousands. So it did it was capital investment. Um, but is it pressure? Uh,
00:54:42
>> yeah. Yeah. But he was such a kind person. He never really threw a wobbly
00:54:47
or anything, you know, because he just said he used to get frustrated because I'd say we got this show and this show
00:54:52
and this show and I go in and only one of them would be happening and he'd go
00:54:56
it's all just dreams and would get frustrated cuz he was used to produce paint, sell paint, you know, boom boom
00:55:03
it was a transaction whereas ours is all ethereal and you know someone at a network might just suddenly say I don't
00:55:09
want your show I don't like it for whatever reason you know they might not like you they might not like the idea.
00:55:14
So David struggled in a way to understand how how how weird our industry was, but but it was a good
00:55:22
relationship >> and and you built that company up into to being something amazing which you're
00:55:26
still at now. Uh 2017 you sold 70% of the company to Yeah. Australian outfit. >> Yeah. Like all our competitors in New
00:55:34
Zealand, our big competitors like SP, South Pacific Pictures, Screen Time, Baner, um Greenstone is owned by Cordell
00:55:41
Jigsaw. So the big competitors are all foreignowned. And so the thing is now we have to put a lot of money in to show.
00:55:47
So if I'm making a drama like say, you know, I'm not even sure, but Blue Murder
00:55:51
Motel is on air at the moment. Well, I have to guarantee about $4 million of that money uh to make the show. Um and
00:55:58
then we make it then we get it back at the end as a rebate. But you know, it's
00:56:02
at any given time I got, you know, 4 8 10 12 million out. And the thing is it does come back, but it's a lot of risk.
00:56:10
you know, it's a risky business. It's like the indie film industry. What if it
00:56:13
doesn't come back? Then you've got a problem. And so our competitors like SP
00:56:18
are foreignowned. They're owned by, you know, billion dollar company and and
00:56:21
good on them. There's no issue with that. But they've got the financial security behind them. We're just a
00:56:26
little Kiwi company. So for us, having a foreign channel like a channel 7 coming
00:56:31
and buy us is a great opportunity. So we got seven to invest in us and that gave
00:56:35
us the ability to borrow uh to to grow because I could only underwrite two three dramas a year personally out of my
00:56:44
own money. Otherwise uh we needed someone to back us. And so we did the deal. Seven bought us. Three years
00:56:52
later, seven studios, billion dollar studio making, you know, restaurant shows, making Home and Away, all these
00:56:58
incredible shows. They just shut it overnight. They just closed seven studios and so they owned 17 production
00:57:04
companies and in the end I got Great Southern back. Today I sit here looking all relaxed. Um because you know three
00:57:10
years ago I bought it back for you know you know I did a deal with seven and and
00:57:16
they they pretty much gave the companies back to the to the all the companies owned around the world. they kept New
00:57:22
Zealand because we were financially successful and very useful being connected to Australia and then in the
00:57:29
end they agreed that it was better that um that I took it back because uh they just couldn't leverage owning a New
00:57:36
Zealand company when they only had one and they had no one to run it basically. They didn't have a studio. Did did you
00:57:41
buy it back for a similar price to what you sold it for or >> I I think there's something in the
00:57:45
contract that says I can't disclose that. Wow. Some people have said it was an Allen Bond moment. Uh which is but it
00:57:52
was >> you sold high and bought low. >> Yeah. I think it'd be fair to say it
00:57:55
was, you know, I they very kindly invited me to pay less than what they paid for it. Um which was which was very
00:58:02
kind. They they were good when they closed. They they actually gave companies back to a lot of the Brits.
00:58:07
So, you know, they they were they were pretty good about it, >> mate. That's amazing. What a story. Um
00:58:12
there's a a quote which um has stuck with me my entire life from um someone that you name dropped earlier, Gary
00:58:17
Player. Um the harder I practice, the luckier I get. >> Yeah. Yeah. And that's that thing, you
00:58:23
know, to young people today, you know, the fear of rejection is such a a weird thing. Like you've just got to, you
00:58:29
know, the more nos, you're closer to a yes. And like even New Zealand on air
00:58:33
and network say when they ring me up and say look you know we don't want that
00:58:36
show. I think I've got a reputation for being the person that cares the least. I
00:58:41
just kind of go oh yeah anyway I've got this. I just switch. I just go decision
00:58:45
made. Move on. I don't even hold the rejection. >> I just go sweet. What are you looking
00:58:51
for? What was wrong in that proposal? Uh >> oh okay. We've got that. I just move on.
00:58:56
I don't dwell. I mean retribution you know revenge. You know, you got to dig
00:59:00
two graves if you're seeking revenge and you know, you got to remember that. So,
00:59:04
if you are vengeful, it's a wasted energy. Take that energy, put it into the next thing. So, the more rejection,
00:59:10
the better. You know what about if like you're you're a smart guy and you've
00:59:14
been in TV for a long time. What about if you know it's a great show? >> Oh, yeah. You can really feel
00:59:20
disappointed. Uh but you can come back you know if you really think this is a this rocks um you can convince people or
00:59:28
you can put it in a drawer like you know we had one lane bridge which I wrote originally is called blueb blood
00:59:33
>> um and you know a bit like Barney with whale rider you know he had that that's
00:59:39
John Barnett from SP he had whale rider and bottom drawer that script for years and he waited for the moment it had been
00:59:46
rejected and turned down then just when someone says we need dong dong dong Bang. It's It's live. And so One Lane
00:59:53
Bridge was an example of that. Like we had the idea and the concept. It was a drama we made down in Queenstown. And it
01:00:00
was just waiting for the moment. It had had some init initial rejection. Then boom, it was just live. So you know your
01:00:07
ideas, they can wait this time. >> Yeah. That's a great show that you referenced, One Lane Bridge with um Joel
01:00:12
Tobe. It's sold to like 20 countries around the world. >> Yeah, it's sold I think 42 actually.
01:00:18
>> Oh, 42. >> Yeah, 42 countries. Yeah, but All Three Media, which owns SP, uh we've had a
01:00:24
wonderful relationship with them. Uh right from the start, they um the first show I ever offered them was The Lion
01:00:31
Man. Uh we're making The Lion Man, which was up north, and they bought it and
01:00:36
sold it around the world. And they sold that to over a hundred countries. And so
01:00:39
I was this little like hero in New Zealand who'd made this crazy show. It just sold everywhere, The Lion Man. It
01:00:46
was phenomenal, you know, tragic end to the story, but um it was good at the time. So yeah. Yeah, we we use all three
01:00:53
and and One Lane Bridge um traveled really well during co and was highest rating show in New Zealand and a drama
01:01:00
in a decade or something. It was massive. >> All right, let's get into the sexy stuff
01:01:04
then. The the TV stuff. Oh, first of all, you I remember the line man with um what was his name? Craig Bush. Yeah. Was
01:01:10
that his? Yeah. And it was like a lion park up in Fungaday. What what's the tragic end of the story?
01:01:15
Oh, just everyone fell out and his partner died and he went to court and, you know, got prosecuted and stuff and
01:01:22
Craig, you know, Craig left New Zealand and the park fell into disrepute. The mother got into a battle with him and,
01:01:29
you know, that was all really unfortunate because it was, you know, fundamentally a fantastic idea and, you
01:01:35
know, with trusted partners, it could have flourished, but instead it died. >> It was a great show. You I think it was
01:01:41
like Sunday night 7:00 p.m. or something like that. >> Huge. Yeah, Paul Castley voiced it and
01:01:46
the opening song guy Peter Black wrote it. Not the Peter Black, but um like I wanted a song cuz uh but to say, you
01:01:54
know, it was from the depths of Southern Africa, the big cats they have and he's
01:01:58
the lion man doing all he can. And I took that off Gilligan's Island because
01:02:02
they have, you know, four men in a leaky boat and they tell the story before the
01:02:07
show starts. So I saw that and applied that to the lion man. So we told the story of the line man in the opening
01:02:13
titles and uh so you kind of got his vibe, you know, he's doing all he can to
01:02:18
make a sanctuary for big cats and all that. So the show just was warm and family and it just it just took off. Um
01:02:24
but you know, it was a little bit like Crusty the Clown, you know, behind the scenes, our lion man was was was a
01:02:31
different person, you know, and you know, um you know, I have I have empathy for him him and his family, but he's now
01:02:37
in Africa and doing well. So, you know, good luck to him. >> What are the best shows that you never
01:02:42
made? >> What's what's your whale rider? What have you got in the bottom drawer?
01:02:47
>> Uh, yeah. Well, um, yeah, I'd say the drama that I've written, uh, that I see
01:02:54
being replicated all the time, which we did have with anonymous content in the US, is the new America. Uh so I wrote
01:03:01
that about 10 years ago which is basically people fleeing America due to unrest and setting up a sanctuary in the
01:03:08
South Island of New Zealand and living behind um closed walls. And so the new America was a sort of utopian place but
01:03:17
also a dystopian place. So it was after an event and uh you know I had all the research and all the stories because you
01:03:24
know we kind of knew a lot about you know havenization way before other people went and did things in Queenstown
01:03:30
cuz these were sort of our neighbors doing it you know so our neighbors ended up being you know people that own the
01:03:36
Empire State Building or Levi Strauss or that guy's from the CIA and like we're
01:03:41
surrounded by that in Queenstown is real you know and um a lot of people Peter Teal you know they're building he's not
01:03:47
building a bunker But the bunkerization of Queenstown, so the new America, uh, I
01:03:53
think I could rewrite it and make it today. Everyone loved the title. They just wanted to know exactly what it was.
01:03:57
And I I'm probably more mature as a writer now. I could take it back to them, but it would feel almost like too
01:04:03
obvious now. >> I wish I had it today to put it on here tomorrow. >> Is that an insight into um where the
01:04:09
ideas and inspiration come from? Like you just said then, you know, your neighbors and Americans that you
01:04:14
>> Yeah. Or or where do the ideas come from? I think it's a mix. Like people
01:04:19
say write what you know about, but I think it's absolute nonsense. Like um you can you can write about anything if
01:04:25
you can research it. And but I do get I do get uh a lot of inspiration from living down south. You know, Queenstown
01:04:32
is obviously such a a a wealth of different characters. It's a really quirky place. Like it's almost on a lay
01:04:38
line. People are a bit crazy there. >> Parties are crazier. Uh the ambition's
01:04:43
crazier. Look at bungee jumping. There's an elevated energy in Queenstown when
01:04:46
people get there, they're just like suddenly a bit bumped and so it's um a
01:04:50
super cool place. So I I draw on that a lot. I've got a new show that I've been
01:04:54
in the UK writing for a month um called Hunter Valley which is based down there.
01:04:59
So that's in development at the moment. That's that's a show that I you know
01:05:03
really believe in. So um often drawing on that but then you know I'm also writing writing another show that's um
01:05:10
completely different. So, you know, normally got a couple of dramas on the go at once. Um, we've got we've probably
01:05:16
got one of the better drama teams in New Zealand. Um, in terms of woman called Kathleen Anderson who was from TVNZ and
01:05:23
she's just got a lot of talent in terms of packaging drama and so way we go.
01:05:29
>> When I had um Dame Julie Christie on the podcast, she I asked her this question.
01:05:33
I'm going to ask you the same one about which TV show do you wish you made? She
01:05:36
said um David Lomass's missing pieces and also something that was out on Netflix at the time um a documentary
01:05:43
about Martha Stewart because she just liked the way it was shot using your B-roll and not actual interviews.
01:05:48
>> What about you? What TV shows do you wish you made? >> I I always have the same answer. I mean
01:05:53
if you want to know what show wish I created, >> Mythbusters. >> Yeah. Have you heard of Mythbusters?
01:05:59
>> Of course. Yeah. With the two the two siders. >> That show has gone on forever. They are
01:06:05
brilliant. It is sold everywhere and it made a fortune. I'm not about making
01:06:10
money because it was also educational. Kids could watch with their parents. So, it was crossover. It was just
01:06:18
everything. It was science, technology, it was quirky. Everyone in the world wanted to watch it. And it it was just
01:06:26
brilliant. Like that show. I look at that and I go, that was perfect, >> you know, to be honest. uh you know and
01:06:32
in drama you know obviously we do factual and we do drama um you know uh there's so many good dramas but you know
01:06:40
obviously um I think you know for me succession is probably you know my favorite sort of show just for dialogue
01:06:47
and character and just just how bad people behave. So >> yeah. >> Um some of the shows that you have been
01:06:53
responsible for making um >> yeah you mentioned Paul Castley before the name as um the voiceover for the
01:06:59
Lion Man. Uh he was also involved with um Eating Media Lunch which is one of yours. That would never be made today. E
01:07:05
not in a million years. >> Funny you should say that. Um >> Oh really? Oh, well, you know, we've
01:07:10
it's often been thought about bringing it back, and I talked to Jeremy last week about it, and and I I haven't
01:07:17
talked to Paul yet, but we kind of agreed that the way it's the way it is and the way it behaves, uh, is that it
01:07:24
would be misinterpreted now because it was satire. And so, you know, it never kicked down. It always kicked up. And
01:07:30
that's what satire does. You know, it highlights, um, failings in society and
01:07:35
takes on people in control. And it's different to comedy. And so, but if people read it on paper and they saw us
01:07:42
doing some of our sketches, like the theme behind it was one of ignorance. You know, we're saying, why do people
01:07:48
hold these ignorant opinions? And we would replicate them to highlight them. But if you did a day in black and white,
01:07:54
it would be killed. It would be killed. Like it couldn't go to air. Incredibly
01:08:00
online, it is having a huge resurgence. You know, hundreds of thousands of viewers. Um, you know, for example,
01:08:06
Jeremy, um, he walked down K Road and ate kebabs and slowly became a Muslim and by the end he was reading the Quran,
01:08:15
which of course, as we know, doesn't actually have that much insightful text
01:08:18
in it, but reading the Quran and was um, planning to blow up the Sydney nuclear power plant. Um, and what we're saying
01:08:26
there, whilst that looks completely ethnosentric and dangerous, what we're saying there was how freaking ignorant
01:08:32
are we, that we think that every Muslim we meet is actually an aggressive person. And of course, we learned
01:08:38
through Bondi that they're not. >> You know, we learned that um that there
01:08:42
were people that were Muslims who were willing to take down Muslims uh in, you know, for the good of humanity. You
01:08:48
know, it was it was interesting. >> That show was iconic. I I don't think I
01:08:52
ever missed an episode of it. >> Yeah. Uh, it was incredible. Um, I've heard you say the name Eating
01:08:58
Media Lunch came from a a Ben Elton book. Yeah. >> What What like What does it even mean?
01:09:02
>> Um, so it's in a book called Inconceivable or Maybe Baby, I can't
01:09:06
remember which one, but it's two guys uh one guy's at the BBC. This is in the
01:09:11
book and it's fiction. And his best mate is his boss and he goes out to lunch
01:09:16
with his best mate and he slowly realizes that his best mate is making him redundant. And so there's this
01:09:23
moment and he said there I was sitting there having lunch with my best uh there I was you know with my best mate um
01:09:30
being made redundant dot dot dot eating media lunch and I just I I was in the [ __ ] down in Queens. And I said to
01:09:37
Leanne, "I love that phrase, eating media lunch. It's really good." And you
01:09:41
know, and I'd already wanted I'd already worked with Jeremy on a show and Paul,
01:09:45
we'd made a ski show called Shred, which was pretty much an excuse for us all to
01:09:49
go to Queenstown and um and to go down and do a show. Leanne hosted it as well, Jeremy. And we had a great time, but I'd
01:09:57
already worked with them. And then we made Shred. And that's when Paul and Jeremy started to get really
01:10:02
problematic. Like, you know, we had complaints about it. And it was a ski show. Like it was edgy. And I said, "Why
01:10:09
are we doing a ski show when we can do the world? Like let's forget skiing. Let's take this attitude out of shred
01:10:16
and put it into eating media lunch." That was my idea to grow their world out. And it was all out of BFM. So it's
01:10:22
a whole, you know, Great Southern really is is kind of a BFM iteration cuz we were all at BFM. You know, I was doing
01:10:29
the wire and Marcus was doing breakfast and Mikey was there, Jeremy was there, Paul was there, Graeme was there. So,
01:10:35
they all got involved in one way or another um you know into Great Southern. So, um and eating media lunch uh I had
01:10:44
the name and then uh you know, we all love shows like uh the dayto-day which is a British show, very funny. Alan
01:10:52
Partridge is on it and that was what inspired us into eating media lunch. M >> it was but it seems um like unfathomable
01:10:59
that you got over the line like the layers of management that you had to go through at TV and Zed to get like it was
01:11:05
one it was the most incredible pitch. It was incredible like I had a picture of Jeremy you know looking like you know
01:11:13
the young Jeremy or looking you know like a big Greek god. And then I wrote eating media lunch on the other side and
01:11:19
I held it up to the programmer at TV2 Julia Balis. I said, "We got this." And
01:11:24
she went, "I [ __ ] love it. I want that." And then she went, "What is it?"
01:11:31
And she just went, "What is it?" Like, and I went and and then it was bluster
01:11:35
because what was it? You know, we, you know, we did go down south down to Queenstown and Paul and I and Jeremy
01:11:43
spent a weekend, you know, whiteboarding and thinking up ideas and all this. We came up with a few like celebrity share
01:11:49
market and a few things like that. Um but then in the end Paul just went h [ __ ] it. We'll just do what we feel like
01:11:56
you know we'll just go back and when we start we start we'll just you know so it
01:11:59
wasn't a format. It was sort of like what's an idea of the week and then
01:12:04
Jeremy um you know they started out with stutter which was the first um the first
01:12:09
episode and we sent it into TV and Julia rung up and she was just absolutely wetting herself with laughter. It was
01:12:17
unbelievable. It was so funny. >> Is that when he was finding tool back stations with a
01:12:20
>> stutter? Yeah. And doing the Mari de Mari dea and all that and um Yeah. And then he did
01:12:27
the Tenoto challenge and stuff and you know it's just um you know satire does
01:12:34
challenge things and the there really isn't any satire in New Zealand at the
01:12:38
moment. It's comedy and it's really good like seven days. you know, all of our
01:12:42
brilliant comedians who are all so talented and doing so well on the international stage like Rose Metafo and
01:12:48
Chris Parker and all these it's incredible what what these guys are doing. Satire is kind of like not
01:12:53
comedians. Like we're actually just a bunch of little shits. Like we none of
01:12:57
us would ever stand on a stage and do standup. So, it's a different form of comedy. It's kind of like taking pot
01:13:03
shots at everyone, but always aiming up and never never kicking down. And that's
01:13:09
that's why it was so charming. the uh Tenoto challenge that you're talking
01:13:12
about. I remember that clearly. It was just Yeah. Jeremy again ringing talkback stations and um when the host um
01:13:18
introduces him just saying Tenoto as many times as he can before they they cut him off. What was the record like 18
01:13:24
or something? >> Oh yeah, I think that was Southland TV and uh of course being Southlanders they
01:13:30
were way more polite and let this guy go cuz a they probably were trying to interpret what the word was and um b
01:13:36
they were just more gracious about it. But um Michael Laws uh was the shortest. He was he snapped us off really quick
01:13:43
and >> one get rid of him. So um yeah, they they targeted the right people, you know,
01:13:51
like every year um I was always staggered by who the New Zealander of the year would be and like Paul Castley
01:13:57
has just got such a um different perspective on things like he can just find things. He goes, "Oh, it's obvious
01:14:03
like >> who the New Zealand of the year is." And it was a guy who got pulled up for a
01:14:08
speeding ticket driving down the northwestern motorway and he had no arms and he was driving with his feet and
01:14:14
he's he was doing 140 ks an hour down the northwestern motorway when he got pulled over. So we presented the New
01:14:20
Zealander of the year award to him, you know, like that's the way we were thinking, you know, it's like finding
01:14:26
these different things and you know, there's some really um really boundary pushing. You couldn't do it today. You
01:14:33
can still do satire, but it just has to be you have to understand that when it does go out onto social media in black
01:14:39
and white and you see it written down, it looks what it looks and what it is saying is kind of two different things.
01:14:46
It would be very it would be dangerous, but it can be done. >> Oh, so you got to think of the optics of
01:14:50
how it look out of context. >> Yeah. When it goes to the BSA, like we went to the BSA few times with eating
01:14:56
media lunch, never had one complaint upheld because the adjudicators said this is this is satire. this is in the
01:15:03
name of this and the complainant doesn't understand the context of what they were
01:15:07
saying and so we could always sit behind satire but today in black and white when
01:15:11
you see it and you take it in a little piece and you don't understand the context of what's trying to be said uh
01:15:18
people could go crazy and you know it's a shame because it's the 3% that make
01:15:22
the most noise to get the most attention we've now got the other 97% in New Zealand down in you know it's huge in it
01:15:29
university eating media lunch they all love it cuz it's saying the truth. It's
01:15:33
say it's authentic. >> Yeah. It's the the noisy minority. A and often people that that that
01:15:39
>> don't even watch the show or may not even be offended, but they're just like
01:15:42
virtue signalers or something. Yeah. >> So, but the the show just looping back
01:15:46
to something you said before. So, the show in some form could make a comeback. >> Uh we Yeah. I I think that, you know, as
01:15:54
I was saying before, the split from comedy to satire is one where I think highlighting a lot of the absurdities in
01:16:01
New Zealand, in our society is ripe. It's absolutely ripe. But I do think, you know, you proceed with caution, but
01:16:08
and you definitely I always say it's like an America's Cup course. You sail
01:16:11
right out to the point and you tack and come back. We would be sailing more not quite going out like eating me lunch
01:16:18
went out over the course and then turned because they were always going a little
01:16:22
bit further and but you can still do it like like society still deserves a voice
01:16:28
you know and so many people are down rabbit holes and everyone's got their thing that they know so much about now
01:16:34
and um it's it's got really concerning to see people so sort of polarized and
01:16:39
so the media has changed so much. There's so much to lampoon and so much to look at. I I think yeah, it easily
01:16:46
can have its day. >> Wow. Another one of your um amazing shows is the Casceteers.
01:16:53
>> Yeah. >> How how did that come about? Did did you did you sort of meet the Tiffany's in in
01:16:58
passing and think this would be a good idea for a show or did someone um like you put them on your radar? How does
01:17:05
that come about? Um so we we we basically were making the hoie but um so Annabelle Lee is a wonderful producer
01:17:13
Mhei Forbes they kind of were leaving MI television and they came to me and they
01:17:19
had three ideas and they had the hoie um New Zealand wars and casketeers first pitch ever where people have walked in
01:17:29
three ideas all commissioned and all went forever. So the hoie is still going. New Zealand wars are still going
01:17:36
and the casketeers are still going. This is 10 years. >> So So um Annabelle Belle said, "Look, I
01:17:44
know these people who are kind of like a TV show, but they're for real. You you
01:17:47
should meet them." And so I went out and I I didn't go out, but she filmed them.
01:17:52
And I talked to them, and they were they were incredible. So Annabelle shot some
01:17:57
footage of them and I then went into a suite and cut like a 4-minute promo one weekend, gave it to TV and it and you
01:18:05
know it got buried for about a year. >> Excuse the pun. >> Yeah, that's a terrible pun. Oh god.
01:18:11
Yeah. Okay. Uh so I'm going to have to watch that from here on in. But you know
01:18:15
there was sort of like they just didn't want to show on Undertakers. That was
01:18:19
fair enough. Uh but I was trying to say this is funny. This is really good. And in the end, um, we managed to do a deal
01:18:26
with TVNZ that worked for everyone for TVNZ. Uh, and we got the funding and the rest is history. In fact, uh, I sort of
01:18:36
knew we're on to something because one of the first calls we got after the first episode was Paul Cassie saying, "I
01:18:42
want Jeremy to go out there and do a show on Seven Sharp about them." And and
01:18:46
that's when I realized uh because Paul has got a knack for knowing what's Kiwi
01:18:50
and what's going to get under what's going to infiltrate society and he so he
01:18:55
went out there and I thought this is going to be something really special and the people you know the Tippines are are
01:19:01
awesome people. You know the media had a crack at them about a year ago. Um and >> problem not a problem with them though
01:19:06
with the staff member right? Yeah, it was with a staff member and when the full truth came out because you know
01:19:11
there was some some reporting that you know had to be redacted uh and and the reportage and and the company did redact
01:19:19
and and acted responsibly but it just gave them the ability to assure people that this was a a lone wolf operator and
01:19:27
that they do have a fantastic company which they do. My mom died last year. Of course, the casketeers, my mom had
01:19:33
insisted, Francis and you know, Ky going to bury me. Don't you have anyone else?
01:19:38
So, of course, the moment my mom Heather died, you know, I rang the casketeers and they did a wonderful job. And so, of
01:19:45
course, they did, you know, and because it got such heart, you know, that's what
01:19:48
everyone loved, you know. >> Yeah. >> It was actually um I completely missed
01:19:52
the show. I I think it must have been broadcast on Netflix in Australia and my sister in Perth, she was like, "Oh my
01:19:58
god, you've got to watch the Casceteers and I watched it on TV and Z Plus, but
01:20:02
um yeah, I thought that was interesting." >> Yeah. Well, it's a beautiful combination
01:20:05
of character, but also culture and society and so and language. So, it sort of tied everything in and it taught us,
01:20:12
you know, like obviously as Pakiha, you know, our version of death and death ritual is quite sort of it is quite
01:20:19
Scottish really. It's sort of like Yeah. Whereas like you know there's a
01:20:23
celebration aspect. So for I think um Pak New Zealand were able to see that you know death is part of a process and
01:20:29
it it you don't have to be so scared you know of these things and so it sort of
01:20:33
elevated people and and it was very educational but what wonderful teachers and they're off in a few weeks off
01:20:40
overseas doing another series. So we switched them out from we'd sort of done
01:20:44
enough leaf blower and buried enough people in enough cultural learnings and TV and Zed were fantastic. They said,
01:20:49
"What else can we do?" And we were like, "Well, they can go on the road and look
01:20:53
at um sort of life and death on the road." And so they've already been and
01:20:57
done one series which is hugely successful. They're about to do another series we're about to shoot. So it's a
01:21:03
it's a it's a good one. >> Yeah. And a lot of fun. >> Um these stories are great. By the way,
01:21:09
I've got like a massive list of these shows, but unfortunately we got a limited time. But oh, another one. Who
01:21:14
wants to be a millionaire? Um, there's a rumor I heard that you you didn't even
01:21:19
have a million dollars to give away as prize money. >> Well, I was, you know, I said I was a
01:21:24
bit dreamy earlier on in the interview. I was sort of a bit like a little bit vague in the producing fronts on the
01:21:30
insurance and what we're covered for like and we did we did give away I think
01:21:36
we gave away 250,000. It it was all through insurers basically and where we were covered. And so um I
01:21:44
uh there was there was gray area. There was gray area when when I was in Australia. I think I went gray. I
01:21:50
remember I was walking ironically I was walking past a hotel in the main street called the Great Southern Hotel which uh
01:21:57
same name as the company. I remember TV and said and I said to them, "Yeah, but
01:22:00
you know if we got to this point, you know, you you have agreed you' put in that amount." It was like, "No, no, no.
01:22:06
We'd only do it once and we'd already given away." And I was I was like,
01:22:10
"Yeah, but our insurers say this." And it all got a little bit uh but that's
01:22:14
the risk you take, you know, like um it's high-risisk business. >> That's terrifying.
01:22:20
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We we we we got away, you know, Husking was incredible. I I
01:22:25
think, you know, he's sort of it's a bit sad with Mike because, you know, he's
01:22:31
he's so good on radio, but he was so good on television. Like he's he was the
01:22:37
master, >> you know. He he he came in and did that show just in a blink and he was as good
01:22:41
as the Australian host who'd been doing it for a decade and all the Australians
01:22:45
said that and he did it on the first episode. >> Oh, he's a phenomenal broadcaster. Yeah.
01:22:49
The radio stuff you're talking about in t in terms of TV, he did breakfast for a
01:22:53
while and he did seven sharp. Why do why do you say it's a bit sad with him?
01:22:56
>> Well, he's not on TV. >> Oh, right, right, right. >> Yeah. like I just wish uh there was
01:23:01
something you know to get his viewpoint across you know he's got he's got an
01:23:05
interesting viewpoint a lot of people agree with it and he's got a lot to say
01:23:09
um but he doesn't need it you know he's he's comfortable he's done really well
01:23:14
um but occasionally I'd like to encourage him to push himself and maybe consider you know giving something back
01:23:20
or giving a perspective that might help uh the wider you know community that's
01:23:25
that's helped him become who he is >> I wonder there there was um when he was
01:23:29
on seven sharp a few years ago, there was um like this big change.org petition to like to get him off TV. I wonder if
01:23:35
that had some sort of impact on him. You'd probably never get him to admit it. Um but I remember it felt really
01:23:40
really mean and personal at the time. >> Yeah, >> I think he subscribes to the don't let
01:23:44
the bastards get you down uh theory. I think he he lives he lives a really uh enjoyable life and I think uh it doesn't
01:23:52
bother him too much >> and he's actually um he's actually like yeah super hardworking, super positive,
01:23:58
super optimistic, super enthusiastic. >> Yeah, great guy. >> Yeah. >> Um how do you feel about the uh current
01:24:05
state of media and in particular TV in New Zealand? Um well it's obviously in a
01:24:10
huge change cycle you know and it's less of a pivot and more of a kind of a complete reconstruction of how the
01:24:16
fundamentals operate and that's mainly because like everything what we're doing
01:24:20
it's about eyeballs and we're all competing for eyeballs. Eyeballs have moved. They've moved on to YouTube.
01:24:24
They've moved on to streaming services. Traditional networks have got less money
01:24:28
because there's less people watching. So advertisers pay less and they're taking
01:24:32
their money elsewhere. you know, an advertiser now can target something like if they want a 16-year-old boy in Mangry
01:24:38
who wants to buy a bike somewhere within an algorithm, you will be able to find an advertising campaign uh on social
01:24:46
media that can get to that boy. Television can't do that. It just sort of blasted out everywhere. So,
01:24:50
obviously, we've got that challenge and then at the same time, we've got AI
01:24:53
colliding with this change. So, it's how you adapt to AI and and the non-humanity
01:24:59
of that. So multiple challenges but the New Zealand government to be honest has been really supportive and understands
01:25:05
that we have to grow the industry. you know, we have, you know, uh, wool, meat, fish, timber, all diesel, all put in
01:25:12
ships, sent overseas, carbon toxic. People in Europe don't want to touch it because it's come so far. We still sell
01:25:20
a lot, but that's not our growth. Like our industry, $3.5 billion, can grow. We
01:25:25
think, you know, it can be a $5 billion industry and we send it down a fiber optic cable. So, my view is that New
01:25:30
Zealand can become a film set. You know, it employs so many people and generates
01:25:35
so much money. So we have got good government support New Zealand air film commission government itself to grow it
01:25:41
to make it bigger because we need alternative industries and Rod talked about this
01:25:45
>> you know we can't be just putting up forests that destroy our towns and you
01:25:50
know and having uh milk powder that's got beef and all of that you involved in
01:25:56
in in the manufacturing of it when we can use our IP and our brains that's our
01:26:01
future. So I believe optimistically that once all of this settles down again, AI
01:26:06
is going to disrupt a lot, but there's definitely some blocks there in terms of
01:26:10
what humans want to see, um, we're going to see networks settle into more of a a
01:26:16
new normal and, uh, away we go. So I remain optimistic. >> Yeah. Yeah, you you are you're a
01:26:23
relentless optimist. Um, can AI be a good thing in your industry? >> It's useful. uh but uh you know I think
01:26:30
people are probably people need to be reassured that there are controls and systems in place but it's the people
01:26:36
themselves that are going to decide you know like there was that Tilly Norwood the the synthetic actor was launched
01:26:42
last year to the world we're going to have a synthetic actor and these people
01:26:45
thought they're the smartest people in the world and they're going to get an
01:26:48
agent in America and she's going to star in a movie well she got crushed man all
01:26:53
of the slop that is on social media and coming out on streams The new generation, Gen Alpha, is about
01:27:01
authenticity. And thank God for them. They're going, I want real. I don't want to see Benny,
01:27:07
you know, in LA beside a swimming pool with an umbrella. I want to see on the couch telling me exactly how she feels
01:27:13
at the moment. That's what I That's authenticity. And all the artists are
01:27:17
getting into it. So now when you come up with a synthetic character, it's absolutely not going to work. They said
01:27:23
they're going to give it an agent. The agencies ran from it. So AI is going to
01:27:27
help us to be more efficient. But human stories, human actors are always are going to be core, you know, because I
01:27:35
think AI could become a genre within like horror, that's an AI movie. But when you want to go to a movie and you
01:27:41
want to see an actor like a Robert Downey Jr. and you go there and you know, I know his journey. I know he is
01:27:46
good and then he was bad and then he's really naughty and then he did this and
01:27:50
now he's back and he looks good and you know, I'm part of him. He's part of he's
01:27:55
lived and he's telling me a human story. AI doesn't have a heart, you know, it's
01:27:59
scanning and skimming everything that's gone before, you know, so it's not real.
01:28:04
And so, you know, we we still believe that humans are going to are going to be there even though it's going to be more
01:28:11
cost effective and there's going to be some advantages, it's still about the
01:28:14
heart and soul. >> Yeah, I love that. That's such a great take. If you could commission one last
01:28:18
show with no ratings pressure and a big budget, what would you make? Uh uh yeah that that's interesting. Like I
01:28:28
would I'd probably just want to make you know like a plurabus you know a massive
01:28:33
high-end show in New Zealand like you know maybe you know something like the new America but be given the money to
01:28:40
actually make it uh the way that shows like I've just watched Night Manager which Amazon put a lot of money into.
01:28:46
It's just incredible. Um they the Jackal was you know all around the world. I'
01:28:52
I'd just want to be given uh I'd be happy with, you know, sort of 40 million
01:28:57
an episode and eight episodes. It's possible. >> Is it is that >> Yeah, we could do that. You know, I I
01:29:03
believe we >> That sounds like a lot like an unfathomable amount of money.
01:29:07
>> Yeah. It disappears quick. >> Does it Does it really? >> Yeah. Doesn't matter how much you got.
01:29:12
It doesn't matter. Like, you know, there's major movies in New Zealand that
01:29:15
come here. And uh they'll always turn around and say, "We haven't got enough
01:29:19
money." even though they might have two or 30 hundred million. There's never
01:29:22
enough money. They they always have to take the water cooler away and cut back on musli bars. So, it's just it's just a
01:29:29
bizarre thing. But, you know, at the moment, we play in the, you know, 10 20 million game. If we can start bringing
01:29:36
bigger dramas, then it's going to help everyone in New Zealand because it stimulates so many jobs and and so much
01:29:43
um so much tax basically. It's good for us. >> When are you at your happiest? either
01:29:48
either at work or out of work. Yeah. When when are you peak happiness? >> Leanne would say it's when I'm on my
01:29:54
ride on listening to a podcast. So, I mean, we've got, you know, I we mow about uh 10 acres of of grass land on
01:30:02
our place down there. So, I love being in Queenstown, having the barbecue on. Uh you know, it's really beautiful down
01:30:09
there. It's quiet and um just hanging out with mates. you know, obviously, you
01:30:14
know, friendship and companionship's also very important to your, you know, your life. Uh, freedom and purpose, they
01:30:21
say, are the two keys. I think that's something out of some text somewhere, Hinduism or something. But, uh, I think
01:30:28
for me, you know, being down in Queenstown, being on the deck, cooking a barbecue, watching the cricket, chatting
01:30:35
to Leanne, and just um doing simple things. Yeah. As long as we win the cricket, of course.
01:30:42
Well, you Yeah, you you control what you can. Um, yeah, Leanne, you've mentioned
01:30:46
her a few times. Lean Malcolm, very well known and respected New Zealand journalist. That's been a successful
01:30:50
partnership. Hey, you guys have been going a long time. >> Yeah, we have. >> Longer than Mythbusters.
01:30:54
>> Yeah. Longer than Yeah. Well, that's that's ironic, but no, Le's like
01:30:58
reinvented herself into a musician and she's called Gina Malcolm and she's
01:31:02
released an album that's um been really positively reviewed internationally. Um
01:31:07
and uh we've got a recording studio on our property now and uh but she records
01:31:13
um uh at another uh recording studio in the South Island and um she's recorded
01:31:19
some really good music. So she's having a great time doing that and uh yeah she's she's wonderful broadcaster like
01:31:26
you know she was one of the best when she was news reading >> incredible >> and um you know she she's just you know
01:31:33
bit bit of a chameleon is has changed and she's always her family is very musical Greg Malcolm her brother's
01:31:39
acknowledged New Zealand artist and um you know I'm into music as well my son's
01:31:43
into music he he's drum and bass and he tours around New Zealand plays the festivals um played a festival at the
01:31:50
weekend. Um, so he's he's quite successful as well. So music's our our
01:31:55
big thing in our family. That's what keeps us all together. >> At 61 years old, have you got your head
01:32:00
around drum and bass? >> Uh, yeah. Yeah. Appreciation for it. >> Drum and bass, you know, it's more like
01:32:06
jungle and and you know, which is more like reggae. So it has, you know, there's there's trance and hardcore and
01:32:12
beats per minute and really intense drum and bass. There's c certain aspects of
01:32:16
it that that are accessible. And so he's not really in that just full-on manta uh
01:32:23
kind of like thing. And we've we've met the whole drum and bass community
01:32:26
globally like you know we've had the founder of drum and bass whose best mates were the stone roses stay with us.
01:32:32
So we've met the guys who tour and uh we've met Dutch drum and bass all of
01:32:37
them have come and stayed with us. And the one thing I've learned is that there
01:32:41
was a there was a drama in New Zealand recently where they had these drum and bass guys. They were involved in a
01:32:46
murder plot. It was one of these local things and the writer wrote the drum and bass guys and they all had tattoos and
01:32:51
they're driving a valiant. They look like heavy metlers and I was like this person has never met a drum and bass
01:32:58
exponent in their life but they should have because drum and bass people are you know they're not tattooed they're
01:33:05
nerdy. They wear glasses. They're quite conservative. They might even wear almost a rotten gun shirt. like they're
01:33:11
they're actually quite weirdly conservative people in a way who make these huge sounds globally. They don't
01:33:18
want to wear a rotten gunship, but they're they're not that. So, you know,
01:33:24
it's quite fun. So, we meet, you know, through Joel doing his um his altercation through that we just meet
01:33:30
all these incredible musicians. Yeah. So, >> you being at a venue when some hardcore
01:33:35
drum and bass is being played, I don't know what your cardiologist would say
01:33:37
about that. >> Yeah. No, it's No, I've talked to Joel about the beats per minute. He's he's
01:33:42
he's very on to that. I think I can't I think drum base 180. Yeah. Beats per
01:33:47
minute. But then jungle drops down. So, >> yeah. But, uh, you know, he played to 2
01:33:52
and a half thousand people like right in Paradise at the weekend. I mean, it was
01:33:56
the most stunning thing you could ever see down south. They basically had it in the woods way out the back of Paradise.
01:34:02
So, this is south of Gleni. 2 and a half thousand people went to and they lit all
01:34:06
the trees and it was a full moon. and this music in the middle of the night, you know, um it was certainly a night. I
01:34:12
think they had a psychedelic tent there, uh rehab tent, so they were responsible,
01:34:16
but it looked like a hell of a time. I got to admit. Yeah. >> You're so proud. E I can tell like when
01:34:22
you talk about your wife's achievements and your kids achievements. What's um
01:34:25
what would you say your best and worst habits are? Uh definitely too much time being
01:34:30
inquisitive and online, you know, like scrolling and like I've got no social
01:34:35
media, so I so that's probably why I do sit anonymous. I I I don't post anything. Um but, you know, I you know,
01:34:43
I'm always I'm always inquisitive about finding out stuff cuz you can use it in
01:34:47
writing. It's where you find ideas. So, too much of that. Uh, you know, not enough time probably out just walking
01:34:53
and refreshing your brain and making it cleansing it. You know, exercise is good. Leanne made me go and swim, you
01:34:58
know, 20 laps the other day and, >> you know, she's she's really healthy and
01:35:02
she plays tennis and walks and does all this good stuff. So, it's it's it's
01:35:07
good. It's good for me. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Is it that bad a habit? I I feel
01:35:12
like that maybe stem from your journalism roots in a way. >> Yeah. Yeah. I yeah I think well
01:35:17
apparently my iPhone says I spend too much time on it. It's it apparently somewhere in there it says you've been
01:35:22
on it for this amount of time you know get a counselor. Oh, we've got a counselor online, you know. So, hold on.
01:35:28
I'm trapped in this loop now. This like tech loop. But, you know, chat's been is
01:35:33
is a great tool that actually speeds things up for me, you know, it's such a
01:35:37
such an awesome tool. >> GPT. Yeah. >> Do you just use it as like a glorified
01:35:41
Google or >> Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, same. >> Don't I don't use it like obviously, you
01:35:45
know, we we're pretty much, you know, we've pretty much prohibited ourselves
01:35:49
from using it in a creative space because it's not creative. It's just skimming what other people did in the
01:35:54
past. So, and it's not it's not real. So, you know, in terms of being a creative, it's it's it's a it can assist
01:36:01
in terms of writing sort of not it can assist in terms of researching and telling you of things, but then you
01:36:10
write like everything that comes out of Great Southern, we have a human stamp that we put on our projects in the
01:36:14
bottom corner. Human stamp generated by humans. Like too many humans now are just sending [ __ ] out that's written by
01:36:20
AI. In fact, I heard of someone recently who sent someone else an email applying
01:36:24
for a job and at the bottom of the application they it had in there, >> do you like this version? I could next
01:36:31
um modify it and tell the employer they left that on the bottom. You know that >> oh my god that's so dumb.
01:36:37
>> Yeah, it's the dumbest thing ever. Like right back going mate uh to actually
01:36:43
read what chat's written like. So um yeah, but what's your question? What's
01:36:48
the best things and worst things? But proud of Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Do you have any regrets?
01:36:54
>> I'll probably It does take up a lot of time, you know, like and I probably
01:36:58
work. >> Yeah. Like, you know, it's seven days a week because there's always there
01:37:03
generally there's always a problem and as a producer, not a writer, you're
01:37:07
always trying to resolve something, you know, it just comes out of the blue. It will just be and it's constant two or
01:37:12
three things a day in general where but because I'm older now and I've seen it
01:37:17
before I can reassure the younger people don't panic you know it's okay I've seen
01:37:21
this before we can solve this and you know it's always through good communication um so in terms of regrets
01:37:27
yeah I a I wanted to go back to Tanzania and I haven't been back uh you know I'd
01:37:32
like to travel a little bit more um and and see some amazing sort of I I do like
01:37:37
going to dangerous weird places you know like so I've got some travel plans there
01:37:42
and um but otherwise no I I I am really proud of of what we've achieved and in
01:37:48
particular our people at Great Southern. So yeah, >> you're never going to retire, are you?
01:37:53
>> No, no, not retire because it's that sort of like stop thinking like I'll get
01:37:59
myself into a place where you know it suits me more as I get older. Uh so that I'm doing slightly less. But if you look
01:38:05
at John Barnett, you know, amazing guy, you know, tragically died last year and missed by the entire industry. But John
01:38:12
was still he still had massive projects. He just shot Dark City. >> John had big projects. He was still
01:38:18
going and he was 78 because >> you're part of the community. So it's
01:38:22
just scale. But, you know, I'm always thinking of ideas and going, is that an
01:38:26
idea? Is that a concept? Could I use that? You know, like, you know, I hear things like I heard a phrase recently
01:38:32
someone everyone was going on about Seven Sisters, which is a suburb in, you know, London. And, you know, my brain's
01:38:39
like, "That's a good name." Seven Sisters is a good name. You know, like
01:38:42
my brain works like that. I'm going I can see that on a tile. And these days
01:38:46
we're designing for tiles. And a tile is, you know, on Netflix, the tile is just the little icon you click on. You
01:38:52
have to be able to sell your show, its name, and its concept on that one tile. Now, that's how distilled our creative
01:38:59
process is now. You have to have it right there. And so, I'm always trying to think of the next idea.
01:39:05
>> Yeah. And there's that saying, don't judge a book by its cover, but um the
01:39:07
thumbnail is the complete opposite of that. Thumbnail is everything. >> It's everything. You know, like when
01:39:13
you're going through your Netflix options for the night, you know, you kind of the thumbnail is really,
01:39:17
>> you know, you'll stop and it'll be an actor or name or you can just sense a
01:39:21
genre. So, that's a real skill getting that right. And so we we now really try
01:39:26
and distill our shows down and go what is its absolute essence like down to three-word log line and its title and
01:39:34
the visuals. You know what is our what's the pitch? Because if you can't go into
01:39:38
a network and go it is just this and you go let me explain it. It's a long story.
01:39:43
They just go glass over. You've got to be able to go bang. It's this. And then
01:39:48
of course, you know, in this modern day and age, the other thing is, you know, you need the script, you need the
01:39:52
writer, you need the screen, you need the actors, and then you need the showrunner as well. So, you got to bring
01:39:57
in the director, the actors, the script. You got to have it really well packaged
01:40:01
now with drama. So, >> [ __ ] you've done so much and you've still got so much to give. Um, last
01:40:06
question, Phil Smith, are you proud of yourself? >> Yeah, I guess I am. like you know and I
01:40:11
think even if someone like Cass is watching I've always sort of uh you know to sell you you have to give people
01:40:19
confidence in you so you have to sell yourself and and a lot of young people today don't sell themselves so I'm proud
01:40:25
to say you know things like yeah okay I've won a lot of TV awards or you know
01:40:30
when we go internationally people have to have faith that you're going to um
01:40:35
deliver for them so you have you have to learn to sell yourself if you're not
01:40:38
going to sell yourself no one else will. So, yes, I'm proud to tell people that
01:40:43
I've been successful. I don't do it on a big sort of pariting stage and go on
01:40:49
social media and say it all, but I'm proud of our achievements. I'm proud of
01:40:52
my my family, and that's pretty much really what you want in life. And yeah,
01:40:57
no regrets. >> This has been a great episode. I feel like it's um it's a border collie I've
01:41:02
met today. >> Oh, all right. That's nice, Dom. Yeah. No, you've had so many incredible
01:41:07
guests. Really good. like and and this is the beauty of this format. You can, you know, you can talk and you can share
01:41:13
and tell these stories and and actually get to the essence and get something out
01:41:17
of it. >> You know, it's well done. >> Yeah. Well, you're you're a great mate
01:41:21
and um now a great podcast guest and it's been wonderful to connect with you
01:41:24
in front of the microphones today. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Cheers.