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we got into that but of course Karen was a graphic designer by trade and he was working at a full-time job at Yellow
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Pages so he could help me out when he wasn't in his full-time job of course and um and we got in some other help the
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guy that had worked in television and all that sort of stuff but he was expensive to get him to come and help us
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and everything I did that's not how you present that's a bad idea you don't get
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shots like that that won't work this is and he just rubbished everything we did
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um and I was like we're paying a whole lot of money for you to tell us that we're doing a [ __ ] job and we haven't
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got that much more so you can [ __ ] off um and and so I got that's when I got
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the manual and I I read the manual and learned how to use the camera myself and I was like oh if we try this and you
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know the old handicam the same one we used on for Sports Cafe I got a bit of drain pipe and I made an underwater
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housing out of it and then I got a torch and make and found a pencil camera a security camera I could fit inside it
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and I made that swim behind the boat so I started coming out with these innovative ways that literally cost
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nothing um to get footage and we got all this amazing footage like we filmed some
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incredible stuff but then we got to put it together um and that takes um skills and money and we didn't have the editing
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skills we have done it you it's worth it's worth pointing out at this point so
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this is 20 something years ago so it's not not like there's an app for everything there you can do what you
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were doing then you can do anyone can do on their phone you you couldn't google
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it even like you can't just jump on Google how do you edit a TV show or anything like that it was um well
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especially me I mean I didn't have a i' only just got an email account you know
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so like you know you go down to the library and like get a book out it was I didn't do that cuz I don't read either
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but um so it was just about like I'm I'm going to learn how to how to do this so
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um and one of the the first things we did and and because we had a lot of this really good footage is we put together a
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DVD but that wasn't like a TV audience thing that was was just the cool fishing
00:02:02
stuff that I was doing mostly on the boats that I was working on and we released it and fishermen loved it like
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DVDs were big at the time you know and that gave us a little bit of income to to make this TV pilot and one of those
00:02:14
DVDs got they went around the world got into their hands of a producer at the BBC and somehow he tracked me down and I
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got a phone call at home um in the far north and was a guy and I remember his name was Rod Stewart which I thought was
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and he was Scottish as well um wasn't the Stewart he was a producer he introduced himself as a producer for the
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BBC and he wanted to know how we got this incredible Maron footage he said we've spent over half a million pounds
00:02:43
trying to film Maron up close he said we've got some distant shots um he said
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look if you could please tell me what camera you were using what underwater housing what lenses and what propulsion
00:02:54
unit you were using to get right up close to these mland cuz we were really struggling and I said oh man um the
00:03:01
camera is a Panasonic handicam I got for a wedding present the housing is a bit of drain pipe from under my house that
00:03:07
um and I I siliconed a bit of ppix on the front of it I drilled a hole and got an eye dropper and made that waterproof
00:03:14
so I could hit the on off button I had no way of seeing what I'm filming um I
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got a surfboard tie down and strapped a couple of handle handles to it and and I
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didn't need a propulsion unit to get close to the Maron I just made the Marin
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come close to me and I do that by toing lures behind the boat when they come up I jump into the water with live baits
00:03:35
tied to my arms and then the Maron are trying to eat off of my arms and I've
00:03:39
just got to hold my [ __ ] together enough and not drop my nuts with these Maron
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racing around and he said mate if if you don't want to tell me that's fine and he honestly thought I was
00:03:51
taking the piss but that was the level we were at it was like have an idea figure out the way to do it and we
00:03:57
figured out a way oh it's it's the epitom that old um saying you number eight wire mentality which is not
00:04:03
something you hear all that often these days but it is just you figure out how to make it work whatever it takes you
00:04:08
know um I think Google maybe and YouTube instructional videos has maybe killed a
00:04:13
little bit of uh Ingenuity because probably you can find an answer for anything you want to do yeah you can and
00:04:18
sometimes in finding the answer you can actually find a better answer than what's conventional and you know and and
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in the benefit of hindsight that was a massive asset for us because here was this thing that made it to TV and it
00:04:31
didn't look like any other TV show cuz it was made by guys that didn't know how
00:04:36
to make a TV show they were passionate about fishing yeah so you had no preconceived idea that's right so we
00:04:42
could like you know and people would always say to me oh man it doesn't feel
00:04:46
like I'm I'm watching a TV presenter it feels like you're talking to me and I
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was like well I'm not a TV presenter I'm a fisherman and I'm speaking how I would
00:04:56
speak to my mates um when I'm not pretending to be my you know so um and it gave it a new look
00:05:05
and it wasn't intentional from the time that we realized it was intentional uh
00:05:11
that it was popular we're like yeah let's just stick with this let's um you
00:05:14
know I I did get better just through doing it about how to do a pie of camera or something like that um but I found
00:05:21
the most popular bits was when I would just get caught up in the moment I like holy [ __ ] we got to get this fish and I
00:05:28
didn't give a rat's ass whether it got filmed or not I was just so immersed and
00:05:32
wanted you know to catch the fish and they were the bits that people people loved or passion is really really
00:05:37
infectious isn't it like I've got I'm I'm like your wife I give zero [ __ ]
00:05:41
about fishing but you watch someone that is just into it and enthused and in the
00:05:45
zone and you can't help with be sweeped up yeah same as um I suppose a parallel
00:05:49
is like Steve uen just seeing his enthusiasm and excitement about your crocodiles or snakes or stingr or
00:05:55
whatever you get caught up yeah so so so how do you get it on TV like you ship off VHS tapes to TV andz TV3 sky sky TV
00:06:03
y they're the only options yep they they were our only options so we literally
00:06:07
went and brought a three pack of um video cassettes from Kmart we were going to go to the warehouse but we wanted to
00:06:13
look professional and get the expensive brand you know seriously that was a business decision we like yeah okay
00:06:20
should we get the like the $118.99 ones instead of the 12299 months definitely if we want to look professional and we
00:06:26
did have a cool logo cuz Karen was a a Tal graphic designer um and we sent it off and I put the proposal together
00:06:33
saying we're all about to fund this because fishing's this really popular
00:06:37
thing in New Zealand it's underrepresented on television we'll be able to bring in sponsorship M and I
00:06:42
honestly thought like I thought our pilot show was so good you know I really did and but all my feedback had come
00:06:48
from other mates that loved fishing as well um and that was um and I should say in doing that like I'd show people the
00:06:56
video but I wouldn't tell them it was a pilot TV show I told told no one so when
00:07:00
I was trying to put the TV show together KY knew about it Karen knew about it I knew about it Karen's partner knew about
00:07:07
it um I didn't tell my mom my dad brothers sisters none of my best mates I didn't why not to poy like I didn't want
00:07:15
I didn't want to be that guy who said I'm going to be on TV yeah like I mean
00:07:18
that's the that was the opposite of what you know at that time you wanted to be
00:07:22
as a kiwi bloke someone who's going to step their head up and go and I'd heard
00:07:25
it so much and to be honest like i' heard guys go I'm going to do going to
00:07:29
make a TV show about this and I'd I'd literally look at those guys you're wanker and I just didn't
00:07:36
want to be that wanker like um because there is I mean there is a there's a certain amount of um ego I guess you
00:07:44
need to have to be a to put yourself out there and you know that was at the time
00:07:49
that the you know the old blacks would get criticized if they celebrated too much that's right that's probably about
00:07:53
the time we Jeff Jeff Wilson came along and had score a TR fist pump and every was a little bit bit show boy I reckon
00:07:59
mate jeez it was it's not like he was doing some assaults he was like a fist
00:08:04
pump exactly M now these guys do full theater performances they get they get choreographed all these choreograph
00:08:11
sequences it's it's an interesting time out year because you you you know you
00:08:15
and know we raised about the same time and it's um like vulnerability is a very
00:08:18
big word now and it's like that just wasn't the uh environment we were raised
00:08:22
in y yep and so part of um like so so when we actually you know did I'm jumping forward of it manag to get it on
00:08:29
TV I didn't even tell my mates I just invited them around for a barbecue and
00:08:34
flick the Telly on and um Telly comes on they're like oh are you on gone fishing
00:08:39
which is one of the shows like no no no this is my show they're like what do you
00:08:42
mean your show oh it's a show that me and ker made and we put on telly and um
00:08:47
one of them first thing one of the boys T said oh you think you're [ __ ] Tom
00:08:51
Cruz now and I'm like that's why I didn't tell you just making sure you don't get to
00:09:00
exactly yeah that was 5 minutes into episode one series 1 you know yeah so that was on so that was on Sky how how
00:09:07
come there was no money exchanged like they they they I mean they they're thirsty for Content I guess CU they got
00:09:12
so many channels they'll play just about anything but why why did they never
00:09:16
offer you any money um because it was kind of seen that like you are lucky to be have this opportunity to be on be on
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TV now you need to go out because we've given you this amazing opportunity to
00:09:28
put your show on you're now got a platform to go and raise some some sponsorship so of course you can't it's
00:09:35
a tough ask when you're a um you know a roof fisherman you know setting up a
00:09:42
meeting and I managed to get a few face taces most of them that was email rejections and or over the phone
00:09:47
rejections but I I got to the stage of getting a few face to faces and I had some encouraging meetings for the first
00:09:53
series But ultimately um you know we would show if we found a marketing manager the head
00:09:58
and interest in fishing he could see the potential of how good it was going to be
00:10:02
but it would usually get killed when it got set off to their advertising agency to be assessed they'd come back and go
00:10:08
no no one's interested in this it's not going to work it's going to fail keep
00:10:11
keep your money and that's largely because of how advertising agencies work like they get a they clip the ticket on
00:10:17
what the company spends and if it was a direct spend they're not making any money so they're not going to want you
00:10:23
know a sponsorship unless it goes through them um and I wasn't having any advertising agencies ringing me up
00:10:28
saying hey we want to pitch you to you know a few companies so I got nose nose from everybody you know um so um I
00:10:38
thought well if we can get it on tally you know yes it's going to be a cost and
00:10:42
it's going to be a stretch for us to be able to do this um but once it gets recognized I should be able to get
00:10:48
sponsorship a lot easier um it did help obviously having something that would on
00:10:53
TV that had done well um but the TV um networks and then when we next went to to TV and Z they were the same they they
00:11:01
like hey we want this show um because we want to compete with TV 3's fishing
00:11:06
shows um but we're not going to pay you for it and how how do they expect you to
00:11:10
get by um just raising rate they don't they don't care they've given you this I
00:11:15
me you're you've you've really got to go ke in hand because it's not like I can
00:11:20
go screw you guys I'm throwing it on YouTube Back Then YouTube was in its infancy and it was like I think 2 minute
00:11:28
videos long um didn't really have the audience if you wanted to get something out u in in
00:11:35
front of the eyeballs you needed them so they dictated everything you know they were like this is the time St you're
00:11:41
going on in and we're not going to pay you unless you were like literally in
00:11:46
the click and to be in the click you needed to be here here in Oakland I was in a shed in in the far north I wasn't
00:11:51
having Bud um coffees um you know down there with these guys just shooting around some cool ideas you know and
00:11:59
letting them come up with the concept um that I could go and with a fist full of
00:12:03
money go away and do no so we were we were self-funded so um we needed a sponsor to be able to pay us to keep
00:12:12
going um and I always felt like we were going to get there but it just came it came really real close like so
00:12:20
were you were you grinding hard like sending off like proposals all over the place all over like and everyone had
00:12:27
said no and and my I I'd already had a rejection from itm um but of course it
00:12:31
never made it it got only got to my proposal only got to like a junior marketing person um um a guy called
00:12:40
[Music] Barnaby