Jenny played the key role in establishing the ACTF as one of the most successful international marketers of children’s television programs.  Today the ACTF’s programs sell to more than 100 countries and are seen by 96 million people.

Formerly the General Manager of the ACTF, Jenny also has extensive experience in business, financial and legal affairs.

He followed this success with Life Begins, starring Caroline Quentin, the first series of which achieved an average audience in the UK of 9.9 million viewers per episode. This year he has had two shows he’s created shown on British TV: a second series of Life Begins, and All About George, a comedy drama starring Rik Mayall. He also did his first rewriting job in Hollywood , of a feature script for Dreamworks SKG. Mike recently made his directorial debut with a short film shot in Sydney ; this was shown on the opening night of the St Kilda Film Festival and was a finalist for the $10,000 Rosemount Diamond Award. He is now working on a third series of Life Begins and is developing Australian-based TV projects and a feature script that he also intends to direct.

As if quantity was not sufficient, Bryce has worked on some of Australia 's best known films in the 80s, 90s and naughties. His executive producer credits include Malcolm (1985), Death in Brunswick (1990), Two Hands (1999) and The Tracker (2002).

His legal work can be seen in Muriel's Wedding (1994),  Ned Kelly (2002) and more recently The Proposition (2004) and Like Minds (2005). He continues to act as legal adviser on feature films, shorts, documentaries, television series.  Due to his flourishing legal practice he only occasionally executive produces.

Bryce is currently a member of the Film Victoria Board.  His previous board memberships have been with Screen Tasmania and South Australian Film Corporation.  He was the initial Chair of the current Melbourne International Film Festival when it re-invented itself in 1985. 

Bryce is passionate about films and red boots.

He was responsible for transforming the novel Whale Rider into an international award-winning film.

Barnett has produced or executive produced the second, third and fourth highest grossing New Zealand films at the New Zealand Box Office. He has been active in the politics of the business throughout his career and was a founder of New Zealand ’s industry magazine, OnFilm.  He has also been actively involved in film, television and video distribution and in the development of multiplex cinemas in New Zealand . Barnett also set up Sundance Channel (NZ) – the first Sundance affiliated channel outside the United States .

Barnett was on the Board of the New Zealand Film Commission until 2002.  He is now a member of the Screen Production Industry Taskforce, part of a Government initiative to further develop the New Zealand film and television industry. In November 2002, he was made the SPADA/OnFilm Industry Champion of the Year, for his ongoing contribution to the New Zealand industry.

In June 2003, he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list for services to the film industry.

Her previous film, Whale Rider was her film adaptation of Witi Ihimaera’s acclaimed novella.

Niki and Whale Rider have won or been nominated for over 50 international awards, including Audience Awards at prestigious international film festivals including Toronto , Sundance and Rotterdam .  Keisha Castle-Hughes, in the lead role of Pai, is the youngest actress ever to be nominated for an Academy Award for her work in the film.

Niki is married to architect Andrew Lister and parent to Tui.

In 2003 Karen established Moving Light Communications, a specialist film promotions company, giving her the flexibility to provide independent marketing services to the film industry at large. Whilst working on publicity and other film-related projects, Moving Light Communications’ main focus is third party promotions, securing promotional partners such as Bank of New Zealand, Mobil, Hill & Stewart and Barkers, working closely with their marketing teams to develop campaigns that support the theatrical release of a film.

Some of her recent work includes The World’s Fastest Indian, (currently #1 on the NZ Box Office charts for it’s third week of release), Robots, Garfield, Star Wars EPIII as well as specialised independent films such as Luther, Me & My Sister (opens Nov 17th) and Fahrenheit 911 to name a few.

Most recently he was Chief Executive of the Pacific Business Trust based in Auckland . A qualified accountant by profession, he has held a variety of private sector roles including General Manager of a marine engineering business and Financial Controller for a local subsidiary of a Swiss multi-national.

Aligned with his commercial background, Jim Mather is also a former officer in the New Zealand Army, and was awarded the Sword of Honour in recognition of his distinguished achievements in Officer training.

Prior to moving to South Pacific she was Director of Acquisitions & Development at RDF Rights, a division of RDF Media, one of the UK ’s largest independent production companies. While at RDF Millichip oversaw the acquisition strategy and programme development for the international distribution arm of the company.

Between 2001 and 2004 Millichip was Senior Commissioning Editor at Living TV (UK), a leading cable and satellite channel in the UK geared to entertainment. She commissioned and executive produced around 500 hours of programming a year across all factual and entertainment genres through to drama. Before making the move to commissioning she was Manager of Co-production & Sales at international programme distributor ITEL.

Millichip began her career as a magazine journalist, and after stints writing about everything from cars to dog racing she moved into media journalism. She was editor of the leading industry magazine TV World for four years before segueing into television.

Before that Elizabeth was a freelance Commercial Producer, writing, producing and directing commercials and corporate presentations.  She spent seven years at TV3, first as the network’s Commercial Producer and then as Head of On-Air Promotions.  Elizabeth worked as a journalist at the Auckland Star from 1988 – 1990 when she left to do her post graduate Diploma of Broadcasting at Auckland University .  Prior to that she completed a BA in languages at Auckland University and a Diploma in Journalism at ATI.

bro’Town Bio
bro’Town was born in the year 2000 when a woman from the American network Nickelodeon visited New Zealand searching for new programme ideas. She contacted freelance producer Elizabeth Mitchell who had recently been to see her old friend Oscar Kightley in his hilarious play Naked Samoans Talk About Their Knives.  Elizabeth went home from the Nickelodeon meeting and wrote a list of programme ideas and top of the list was “animated Naked Samoans”.

By the time she got round to sending the list to Nickelodeon, the woman had left!  But in 2001 Elizabeth’s good friend Kelly Martin got a great job as TV3’s Associate Director of Television, so Oscar and Elizabeth got together, worked out what characters would be good in the show, and pitched the idea to TV3, who loved it!

Three years of development and fundraising followed.  The Naked Samoans (Oscar Kightley, David Fane, Shimpal Lelisi and Mario Gaoa) and Elizabeth were joined by animation director Maka Makatoa and designer Ant Sang and we started our own studio!! 

The labour intensive 2D animation style means that a team of about 150 people, both here at Firehorse Films and at our satellite studio in India, are needed for each episode.  Each bro’Town show has between 16,000 and 24,000 drawings and takes around six months to complete!

After Hong Kong , Elizabeth moved to London where she took up a position with Warner Bros Theatrical Distribution working on Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, managing a talent tour for Will Smith for Wild Wild West and overseeing regional publicity and promotions across a range of films.  From London she moved to Sydney to fill the position of Marketing and Licensing Manager for the BBC in Sydney before returning to NZ where she works back in film for Hoyts.