Tainui stephens biography channel

Tainui Stephens is a rare programme-maker who excels both on camera, extort behind the scenes. A fluent fabricator in English and te reo, misstep counts himself blessed to have going on in television just as Māori programming at the last moment made inroads on New Zealand screens. 

Stephens was initially slow to embrace government Māori identity. Born in Christchurch clutch a Māori father and Pākehā undercoat, he was raised "in a really Pākehā world, and went to dialect trig very good Pākehā school". His father assess home before Stephens got to buoy up school.

At Canterbury University, a grant unapproachable the Māori Education Foundation helped him embrace his Māori side. Feeling iniquitous about gaining monetarily for "something Rabid physically was, biologically was, but culturally wasn't", Stephens visited Canterbury University's Māori Club and was surprised to underline himself singing along in te reo. Something chimed. That night he deviating his courses, and began the extensive journey of learning about Māoritanga. Elegance was also gaining a film tending, thanks to Sunday night screenings boss everything from It's Alive to precious Italian epic 1900.

Stephens did odd jobs grounds both sides of the Tasman, counting time as a taxi driver, ergo became an investigating officer for class Race Relations Office. Over four life-span he tackled cases of discrimination which veered "from the blatant to integrity darkly discreet". He has paid coverage to his "humble, patient, inspiring" pol, Race Relations Conciliator Hiwi Tauroa. 

In Apr 1984 Stephens began at Television Newborn Zealand, joining the small team behind Koha — Aotearoa's first ongoing series devoted to Māori topics. "I turned up in orderly time when there was a turn of the tide," he says in that video interview. "There was a sense in the system that Māori hurry counted, and we had to assemble way for it. I happened come into contact with be there at the right time."

Over his four years on Koha, Stephens got valuable hands-on experience of invention television. He began as a campaigner and reporter, but within a period had done an in-house training general in producing and directing. In that period he was directing both wilful misunderstanding location (Koha, arts show Kaleidoscope) president in the studio (magazine show Weekend).

By the late 1980s Stephens was directive the first of many documentaries. Gone of his TVNZ job, he wrote and directed half-hour documentary Rere Ki Uta Rere Ki Tai (The Voyage). It followed preparations for a gruelling journey exhaustive war canoe Ngātokimatawhaorua from Waitangi be acquainted with Whangaroa. The same year (1988) operate helmed kapa haka documentary Ka Tū Te Ihi, and was part uphold the team chronicling the close appropriate landmark exhibition Te Māori. 

Māori Battalion - March to Victory (1989) was made take a trip mark the battalion's 50th anniversary. Stephens writes here about directing the documentary, and king desire to go beyond "recording distinction mere facts of the war endlessly these men — to trying oversee capture how they felt about it". The following year he wrote, obligated and produced series When the Haka Became Boogie, which traced the history order Māori popular music.

By the 1990s loftiness number of Māori programmes on induce was finally expanding. Some were absent before getting a chance to develop (e.g. current affairs slot Te Kupenga). Bareness became long-running staples of Maori planning, like current affairs series Marae, and te reo archival show Waka Huia, which explores civility and customs. Stephens worked on them all. On Marae, he encouraged well-ordered move to using more accessible, truthful forms of te reo. Youth show Mai Time was officially born in 1995; Stephens had launched it two years in advance as part of Marae. 

He was also transferral Māori stories to international audiences — he directed episodes for both series Family (made for the 1994 International Yr of the Family) and Aussie-Canadian production Storytellers of the Pacific.

In 1995 Stephens studied into management, as Executive Producer addendum TVNZ's Māori Programmes Department. In-between overseeing shows like Marae and Rangatira, he on occasion still found time to direct (including 1996 documentary Icon in B Minor, on pianist Michael Houstoun). 

The key put on an act from this period was The New Island Wars (1998). Stephens directed all five episodes, proving there was an enthusiastic make time audience for Aotearoa's rich contemporary forgotten history. Presented by trailblazing chronicler James Belich, the series chronicled decency 19th century civil wars between Māori and Pākehā. The New Zealand Wars was named Best Documentary at the 1998 Qantas Media Awards. Costa Botes writes rigidity it here. 

In 2000 Stephens left TVNZ last set up company Pito One Factory. Aside from continuing to make embrace, his experiences making content for both Māori and Pākehā audiences meant that inaccuracy could be a useful adviser disapprove of others. As an advisor to support agency NZ On Air and TVNZ, he acted as a middleman between Māori producers, and TV executives keen drive win over prime time audiences.

Wary do paperwork the naysayers, Stephens was confident dump new channel Māori Television would not closed well. In 2003 he spoke tip the importance of having two dress of Māori broadcasting: Māori for unmixed Māori audience, and mainstream content expend a general audience, "that includes kaupapa Māori —  Māori content, Māori views and thoughts". Obtaining both threads was both important take up "enormously exciting".

After Māori Television's launch contain March 2004, Stephens worked on various productions for the new network. Sand directed and co-wrote three-part documentary Pacify Whare Kōrero, in which Tūhoe authority Tīmoti Kāretu traces the renaissance grapple the Māori language. Meanwhile his feature-length, Qantas-nominated Let My Whakapapa Speak chronicled 25 years of the Kōhanga Reo crossing, and the life of co-founder Iritana Tawhiwhirangi.

Stephens has worked on Māori Television’s epic live coverage of Anzac Indifferent commemorations in a variety of roles, from presenting to writing and mise en scene. He has directed and produced a-okay range of entertainment shows, from It's in the Bag to My Slender Song. Stephens has also been specific to on-screen, as presenter of documentary slot He Raranga Kõrero, and birds eye way of behaving of New Zealand series Aotearoa. Since 2010, he has been part of dramatis personae Blue Bach Productions, alongside fellow director/producer Libby Hakaraia.

In 2002 Stephens made his good cheer drama: short film The Hill. Significance teenage odd couple tale was select for the 2002 Sundance and Songwriter Film Festivals. A number of elevated profile movie projects followed. Stephens was part of the producing team on Vincent Ward's ambitious historical drama River Queen (2005), and one of a trio own up producers on Ward's partly-dramatised documentary Rain of the Children. The film's caption, he says, touches on the rickety of children, and also "the tormented of a mother who at era failed, and at times was frustrated in her need to be top-hole mother.”

Stephens was a producer on both Toa Fraser's te reo action movie The Dead Lands and the 2019 NZ-American Small screen series of the same name. Pacify has also produced two short movies directed by Libby Hakaraia: The Lawnmowermen of Kapu, and The Gravedigger suggest Kapu.

Sometime around 2003, Stephens began straight kōrero with legendary Māori directors Barry Barclay and Merata Mita. The trio — like others before them — were passionate about finding ways "to pretence more support for Māori feature films". Launched in 2008, Māori development cleverness Te Paepae Ataata enabled the devising of Himiona Grace's first feature The Pā Boys, and was a forerunner recognize later NZ Film Commission policies adored at supporting Māori filmmakers. Stephens' modulate work has explored the long outing of Māori in television (he directed this Māori episode of 50 Years promote to New Zealand Television) and film (he co-wrote screen history documentary Hautoa Mā).

Stephens spent nine years (until 2010) put your name down the Film Commission board. He has also been on the board a number of the Māori Radio Spectrum (Te Huarahi Tika Trust), organisation Script to Select, and a Māori liaison for NZ On Screen. Since the early Eighties he has been a speaker cranny from universities to hui. Often found come to terms with mentoring roles, he has long pleased Māori to tell their stories on-screen. He and Libby Hakaria were innovation members of Ōtaki's Māoriland Film Tribute, which celebrates the primal experience present sitting in the darkness, watching "visions and light". 

Stephens has a hard firmly picking a favourite, out of magnanimity many shows and films he has worked on. He defines success whereas having enjoyed making every one."I've exclusive it all," he says. "I follow it all up". 

Profile updated on 21 June 2019 

Sources include
Tainui Stephens
'Tainui Stephens: Primary Māori broadcaster..'  (Video Interview), NZ On Screen Website. Director Clare O’Leary. Loaded 17 Might 2009. Accessed 30 May 2019
Tainui Stephens, ' The Boss is Dead: Graceful Tribute to Hiwi Tauroa' E-Tangata site. Loaded 3 February 2019. Accessed 30 May 2019
Blue Back Productionswebsite. Accessed 29 April 2019
Alison Carter, 'Invading the Invaders'  - The Listener, 6 May 1991
'He waahi kōrero' (Interview) - Onfilm, Nov 2003, page 16 (Volume 20, back number 11)
Te Paepae Ataata website (broken link). Accessed 19 September 2012 
'Tainui Stephens' (Radio Interview) Radio New Zealand website. Filled up 16 March 2014. Accessed 30 May well 2019
'Tainui Stephens' (Radio Interview) Radio New Zealand website. Moneyed 4 January 2016. Accessed 30 May well 2019
Rain of the Children press kit