In this recording, Shirley Maddock is interviewed by Stephen Riley for the 1985 TVNZ Oral History Project. Maddock talks about her broadcasting career, which ran through the 1960s, with particular focus on her pioneering work in television documentary-making.[Unedited interview with short breaks between tapes.]
Shirley explains had done some television acting in England, which started her interest in the medium. She worked in radio when she returned to New Zealand and then went to America to work writing scripts for a television channel in New York.
She came back to New Zealand in 1960 and found work with television when it began in Auckland, with only five staff. She recalls the programmes which featured in the first TV broadcasts in New Zealand and the inexpert techniques they used.
She compiled and wrote the news bulletins, and remembers how mysterious the new medium was, even to those involved in producing it. She had grown up with film as her father was manager for MGM.
She became determined to get out of the studio and start making programmes that would show New Zealand to audiences. Her documentary series "Islands of the Gulf" was the first time that this really happened and had tremendous impact, being repeated three times and she also produced a popular book based on the series.
She talks about filming the series, how they managed to convince local boat-owners to transport them to the various islands and the people she interviewed for this series and a subsequent one "The Tall Trees and the Gold", on goldfields and kauri logging.
She talks about doing archival research and bringing the stories you find there to life. Descriptions of some early European paintings of New Zealand landscapes and how they compare to the land today.
She remembers in 1963 making a documentary on Gallipoli, ["The Distant Shore"] shooting images of photographs and documents on 35mm slides. She talks about her sound editor Wahanui Winyard and the soundtrack they created.
Shirley discusses some of the sexist attitudes she experienced and overcame. Women were not allowed to be credited as 'producer' on television series, but were 'programme organisers'. Women were also not supposed to direct from the studio floor or from the floor of the debating chamber, when she made a programme about Parliament. She mentions some politicians she worked with and their approach to being interviewed for television. She notes the National Film Unit in particular were very 'anti-woman' when she first worked with them.
She was the only women writer and director in television at the time, although there were some women announcers, production assistants, and working in makeup and wardrobe. She has memories of working with early television chef Graham Kerr and sculptor Greer Twiss, who when very young was a wonderful puppeteer making children's programmes.
She reminisces about technical staff she worked with and filming the first play for television, "A Time for Sewing" written by Frank Sargeson. It was recorded on new video equipment from America but it was discovered at a private screening that it had not been recorded correctly, which upset Sargeson greatly.