Hard out - The Makers

Chris Bailey, executive producer/ director

Greg McGee, executive producer/series writer

SCREENWORKS

ScreenWorks was formed by producer Chris Hampson, director Chris Bailey and writer Greg McGee in 1998 to produce Street Legal, which they had been developing since 1993.

The company has to date produced three series (39 episodes) of their flagship prime time drama Street Legal, for TV2 and is preparing to film the fourth series.

It is a niche production company, concentrating on feature films and high production value film drama for television. The founders see the company as a vehicle which allows them to keep their hands directly on the creative process and do better and more satisfying work.

Hard Out, a children’s series of13 x half-hour episodes, is the company’s second series for TV2. ScreenWorks also has Liability, 13 x one-hour prime time drama series in development, commissioned by TVNZ.

They are also developing two feature films: Skin and Bone, an adapation of Greg McGee’s landmark play, Foreskin’s Lament and an adaptation of the children’s cult classic Under the Mountain, which Chris Bailey directed as a television series in the 1980s.

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Chris Bailey, executive producer/ director

Chris Bailey is one of the founders of Screenworks, the company producing Hard Out. Bailey is also executive producer/director of the successful Street Legal, which is soon to film its fourth series.

With over 30 years in the New Zealand television industry, Bailey is regarded as one of the country's top producers and directors. He has also gained recognition overseas and in 1986 directed New Zealand's first ever international co-production: The Adventurer, with Thames Television, which starred Temuera Morrison.

His numerous television credits include direction of Letter to Blanchy, Cover Story, Plainclothes, Marlin Bay, City Life and Greenstone. In 1991 he won a New Zealand Film and Television Award for his direction of the series Gold, and many other productions, either directed or produced by him, have won various awards both at home and abroad.

For several years he was head of production at South Pacific Pictures, overseeing numerous co-productions with the UK, France, Canada and the USA. He was also executive producer on New Zealand’s longest running drama, Shortland Street.

Bailey’s early television credits include work as director on such New Zealand icons as Gloss, Mortimer’s Patch and the cult children’s hit Under the Mountain, which he is currently revisiting to develop as a feature film.

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Greg McGee, executive producer/series writer

Greg McGee is one of the founders of Screen Works, the company which produces Hard Out. He is also executive producer/series writer of the successful Street Legal, which is soon to film its fourth series.

McGee is one of New Zealand's most successful play and screenwriters. His enduring success, Foreskin's Lament, written in the 1970s, won best play award in 1981 and is still being performed in theatres throughout New Zealand.

In addition to Foreskin’s Lament, he has written Tooth and Claw, Out in the Cold, White Men and This Train I’m On for the stage.

His feature film writing includes Crooked Earth (with Waihoroi Shortland), Via Satellite (with Anthony McCarten) and Old Scores (with Dean Parker), which won best screenplay at the NZ Film and Television Awards in 1992.

He won NZ Film and Television Awards best television drama writer awards for the mini-series Erebus: The Aftermath (1988), the series Marlin Bay (1993), for which he was also associate producer and the miniseries Fallout (1995), with Tom Scott.

Marlin Bay also brought him a US Writer’s Guild Foundation International Screen and Television Writer’s Film Festival Award, with James Griffin.

His other television credits include episodes of Greenstone, Roche, CoverStory, Betty’s Bunch and Gold.

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Chris Hampson, producer

Chris Hampson is one of the founders of ScreenWorks, the company producing Hard Out. He was also producer of the successful Street Legal, which is soon to film its fourth series.

He was involved in developing the New Zealand Film Commission’s low budget feature scheme, ScreenVisioNZ. He was executive producer for three of the six films - Via Satellite, Savage Honeymoon and Scarfies.

In the late 1980s he produced, with Don Reynolds, the feature films Illustrious Energy and Arriving Tuesday, before becoming head of development at South Pacific Pictures in 1992. He was executive producer on SPP’s broad production slate, including the first three years of the highly successful serial Shortland Street, two series of the prime time drama Marlin Bay, the family drama serial Deepwater Haven and the mini-series Fallout.

In 1994 Hampson began a two-year project as producer of 26 hours of the prime-time drama series Coverstory, with the Gibson Group, while developing a range of projects for that company. He has also produced the Sunday Theatre drama Share the Dream and The Chosen, a four-hour mini-series, for Communicado.

Hampson recently oversaw production of the short film Tick, written and directed by Rebecca Hobbs, which was selected to open the New York Film Festival and which won the Capalbio Fim Festival Award in Rome.

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Jane Lindsay, co-producer

Jane Lindsay has worked in television drama in New Zealand since arriving here in 1984 from Australia.

She has a long association with the three ScreenWorks partners: Chris Bailey was the first director she worked with in New Zealand (on Country GP) and she met Chris Hampson and Greg McGee also in those early days.

She came full circle in 1998 when, after completing work as production co-ordinator on the feature film Jubilee, she became line producer for the first series of Street Legal for the newly-formed ScreenWorks.

Before Jubilee, she worked for Pacific Renaissance Pictures, as cast co-ordinator for Hercules, The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess for four years followed by one year as production manager for Hercules. During her time as cast co-ordinator, she was also ADR supervisor, and was a winner (along with technical crew) of the US Golden Reel Award for ADR for Hercules, Xena and Young Hercules.

Born in England and raised in Australia, Lindsay started work as a clerk at Channel 7, straight from school in 1977. She then moved into continuity on early Australian soaps Skyways, Holiday Island and Prisoner. She returned from New Zealand in 1985 to work on the very beginning of the extremely successful Neighbours.

Back in New Zealand from 1987, her work since has included New Zealand dramas Gloss, Gold, Star Runner and Plainclothes and international productions including The Other Side Of Paradise, The Ray Bradbury Theater, The Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, The Further Adventures of The Black Stallion, White Fang and Soldier Soldier.

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Peter Burger – director

Peter Burger, who directed six episodes of Hard Out, is best-known as the director of the award-winning television drama Fish Skin Suit.

He has recently directed an episode of the anthology series Mataku and a short film, Turangawaewae. He also directed BlastBack, an installation-ride film for Te Papa.

He directed more than 50 television commercials for Silverscreen Productions, including multi-award winning Toyota Rav 4 “She’s a Beauty”. He won the young director of the year award at the Australasian Television Awards in 2000, and the direction award for Cash Converters “Fence” commercial in the same year. He also won the 2001 Axis Awards silver direction award for Toyota Rav4 in 2001.

He was selected for the1999 Saatchi & Saatchi International New Director Showcase.

After gaining his BA in History and Maori at Victoria University in 1993, he did the television course at the New Zealand Broadcasting School, then worked with Duncan Sarkies on a short film, Ashley Thorndyke, A Work in Progress, before joining Silverscreen, where he worked as post-production co-ordinator before becoming a director.

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