For over 25 years Rod Morris worked with TVNZ’s Natural History Unit and its successor NHNZ, documenting the wildlife of New Zealand. His passion for the natural world lead to his involvement in award-winning documentary series The Black Robin, and Wild South, as well as numerous one-off documentaries including The Devil’s Playground, Wild Asia, Ghosts of Gondwana and Dragons of Komodo. Since leaving NHNZ, Morris has worked on many wildlife books.

In this ScreenTalk, Morris talks about:

• Going with a soap opera theme for classic nature documentary The Black Robin
• How the discovery of a kakapo nest lead to him directing episodes of Wild South
• How the landscape became a character in documentary The Black Stilt
• Proving that kea kill sheep in Kea – Mountain Parrot
• Following the courageous character in Tasmanian devil documentary The Devil’s Playground
• How a bat, a kiwi and a grasshopper weta became the stars of Ghosts of Gondwana
• How the Natural History Unit came into being at just the right time
• Being proud of what he has been able to create over his long career

This video is available on YouTube to embed and distribute via this Creative Commons licence.

NZ On Screen: Camera and Editing – Andrew Whiteside