Making the Story
The producers and makers of Frontier of Dreams faced a challenge - to weave together the many strands of New Zealand history to make an exciting and compelling story about the people and the land and how they changed one another. It has involved the best of everyone - historians, writers, directors, animators and the people who have made this living land the unique nation it is today.
The Process:
- Before we set out on our journey we approached many of New Zealand leading historians. Together we mapped out the territory and scope of the series and our ambitions for this ground-breaking programme.
- The historians then conceived and wrote 13 foundation essays highlighting the themes of each period and the people and events that featured during those times.
- The essays were then passed to telescript writers who converted them to stories told in television structure and style.
- An intensive period of research followed. One of the keys to the series has been to find the right things to film. The series' researchers found the places and images and people. These were then integrated with the telescripts to produce a shooting script.
- Directors took the shooting scripts and shot the film - travelling across New Zealand and overseas to find and capture the right pictures and people.
- Hundreds of hours of 'wild' footage was then edited to create 13 gripping episodes of history-making television.
The Historians:
Frontier of Dreams is based on historical consultation
and contribution from many of the best historical minds in New
Zealand.
- Claudia Orange, OBE - Director of History & Pacific Cultures, Te Papa Tongarewa Museum of New Zealand; Associate Editor for the New Dictionary of National Biography (UK); past General Editor Dictionary of NZ Biography, and past Regional Editor, online Encyclopedia of New Zealand
- Jock Phillips - General Editor, online Encyclopedia of New Zealand; past Chief Historian, Ministry for Culture & Heritage
- Ranginui Walker, DCMNZ - Emeritus Professor of Maori Studies, University of Auckland
- Manuka Henare - Associate Professor, Management & Employment Relations, Associate Dean Maori & Pacific Development, University of Auckland
- Matt McGlone - ecological researcher, Landcare Research Lincoln, Canterbury Agricultural & Science Centre
- Geoff Irwin, FRSNZ - Professor of Anthropology, University of Auckland
- Janet Davidson, FRSNZ - an archaeozoologist, has carried out excavations throughout the Pacific and New Zealand, and has published extensively on the prehistory of New Zealand and Pacific Islands
- Dame Anne Salmond, DBE, CBE, FRSNZ - Pro Vice Chancellor (EO) University of Auckland; Winner of the 2004 Montana Book of the Year Award, non-fiction for The Trial of the Cannibal Dog, Captain Cook in the South Seas
- Judith Binney, CNZM, FRSNZ - Professor of History, University of Auckland; member of the Waitangi Tribunal and the Board of Te Papa
- Danny Keenan - Lecturer in History, Massey University; member of Te Pouhere Korero (Maori Historians)
- Gavin McLean - Senior Historian, Ministry for Culture & Heritage; New Zealand's foremost naval historian
- Erik Olssen, ONZM, FRSNZ - Emeritus Professor, Department of History, University of Otago
- Ian McGibbon, ONZM - Senior Historian, Ministry for Culture & Heritage; specialist in New Zealand's defence and foreign relations
- Miles Fairburn, FRSNZ - Professor of School of History, University of Canterbury
- Malcolm McKinnon - contributor to Te Ara - Encyclopedia of New Zealand; editor, New Zealand Historical Atlas; author, Treasury: the NZ Treasury 1840-2000
- Bronwyn Dalley - Chief Historian, Ministry for Culture & Heritage; author, Living in the Twentieth Century
- Charlotte Macdonald - Associate Professor, History Department, Victoria University; member, International Federation for Research in Women's History; council member, NZ Historical Society
The Editorial College:
A core group of historians supervised the historical content of the
series, and the writing of the scripts and final shape of the
programmes. The college of four include two prominent Maori
historians and two historians who have been intimately involved in
telling the New Zealand story in other formats.
The College members are: Ranginui Walker, Manuka Henare, Jock Phillips and Claudia Orange.
Their involvement, and the work of historians at the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, means that by the time Frontier of Dreams screens, it will have had the best possible historical scrutiny. Historians will have seen everything.
The Writers:
The writers of the initial telescripts took the rich material in
the historians essays and crafted from it a fined down and
concentrated version for each episode of the series. Each
script remains true to the major themes and overall balance of the
founding essays.
The telescript writers were:
- Philip Temple - freelance writer and journalist who has written over 30 fiction and non fiction books, including important historical works like The Explorers and a major biography of Edward Gibbon Wakefield. He has been a script writer on several television series including At Risk of Our Lives, Our People, Our Century which won an award at the TV Awards 2000, and Our New Zealand.
- David Young - freelance journalist and writer, currently president of PHANZA and a board member of WWF. He has written about the history of conservation in New Zealand, the Resource Management Act and stories from the Wanganui River region. For the past nine years he has worked largely in the area of history and environment for national and regional government, museums and television.
- David Filer - military specialist and freelance researcher and journalist. He is a published author and was associate producer (in charge of research) on Our People, Our Century. David has provided research for a number of major television programmes. He has also worked for the Office of Treaty Settlements.
- Buddy Mikaere - consultant and writer; board member of the NZ World Wide Fund for Nature, NZ Conservation Authority, member of the Resource Management Law Association and founding chairperson of Tamaki Makaurau - the Maori Business Network. He is the author of Te Maiharoa and the Promised Land, (finalist in the NZ Book awards for 1988) and a contributor to Scars on the Heart and Taonga Tuku Iho - An Encyclopedia of Traditional Maori Life. He has been a script writer for the television series Epitaph and Our People, Our Century.
The Descendents:
The people featured throughout the series are our links
back to past events and the reality of the New Zealand of those
times. The programme gives us their personal and their
families' experiences, their memories and feelings, as participants
or eyewitnesses, through diaries, letters, journals and on-camera
interviews.
The Experts:
The talent and expertise involved in making the series is not just
confined to the historians. Frontier of Dreams has been a
magnet for experts in the specialist crafts of film making.
Experts in creating pre-European clothing for Maori, making replica
uniforms worn by New Zealand soldiers in all the wars that they
fought, and armourers who provided weapons for each of the many
conflicts in which Maori and Pakeha have been involved.
Other people have provided on-camera interviews for the series, among them leading experts and specialists in subjects as various as science, music, archaeology, agriculture and food.
