INDUSTRY PROFILES

I am genetically pre-disposed to a love of storytelling and I’m hugely passionate about film and television – both as a viewer as well as the creative craft of producing content for the screen. When I was a kid I knew I wanted to work in the screen industry but I wasn’t exactly sure of what role I wanted to do. I knew I didn’t want to be standing on set all day and that I wanted to use my brain but I also still wanted to be amongst the action. Unfortunately at the time I didn’t even know that the role of a publicist existed so it was lucky that the job found me!

I left school at 16 and skipped 7th Form (aka Year 13). My plan was to kill a year doing extramural study via Massey University ( did a part time Bachelor of Arts majoring in Philosophy) until I could join my friends going to Auckland university the next year. I was happily finishing up my first year of uni study while working in a café and as a nanny when I got a heads up that the Shortland Street Publicist was in need of urgent assistance. called her up to find out more and almost immediately landed a 20-hour a week job as the Shortland Street Publicity & Casting Assistant in November 1994. My job involved answering fanmail (huge stacks of viewer correspondence would be delivered to our office), organising cast appearances and creating publicity materials, as well as working with the Casting Director coordinating auditions. After 6 months, Shortland Street’s popularity had grown exponentially and my role became full time as the show’s first Publicity Assistant. still think that role was one of the best jobs in New Zealand to learn about all the machinations of entertainment publicity – working with on-screen talent and crew, managing the demands of the production schedule with the expectations of the media and stakeholders. A handful of other brilliant local entertainment publicists have since worked in that role and they are, without doubt, among the best in the biz.

Since then, I have worked in the publicity departments at both TVNZ and at the Seven Network in Australia and also had a brief fling with freelancing and agency PR (the latter of which I quickly found out was not for me!). In 2005 I returned to New Zealand to take up a new role at South Pacific Pictures, eventually managing the in-house publicity team and overseeing unit and release publicity for the company’s slate of local film and television productions, international co-productions as well as trade and corporate communications.

In 2016, I left South Pacific Pictures and went out on my own, setting up The Public Good, a boutique communications consultancy specialising in media and entertainment. And, after 11 years of having the pleasure of managing a small team, I’m now indulging my true nature as an only child and am a sole operator with no staff (although I have a few trusty contractors who I can bring in to help on specific projects as required!)

My key skills are in unit publicity (which is the phase of PR during the production of a film or TV series), film and television release campaigns, talent publicity and crisis communications. After nearly 25 years in the business, I know a lot of stuff and a lot of people. I am also super efficient as well as being a creative and strategic thinker

I’m working on unit publicity for the television adapation of The Luminaries which is a massive international series being filmed in NZ and which will eventually air on BBC Two and TVNZ 1. I also work with MediaWorks looking after publicity across their radio brands and talent and with Johnson & Laird Management on PR and publicity for the agency and their clients. A few other recent campaigns include Celia, a local independent documentary feature film which is in cinemas on February 28 as well as unit publicity and social media for the upcoming Kiwi musical feature film Daffodils (in cinemas March 21).

Cost-cutting and job cutting in newsrooms here in New Zealand and globally is seriously problematic for those of us who work in communications. Particularly in the entertainment industry when there is more and more content being produced but there are fewer journos to cover it. I also think that New Zealand media is becoming increasingly siloed which makes broad-reaching publicity campaigns more difficult to achieve.

Journalists and editors who don’t respond to pitches. No one likes shouting into the abyss! I wish they’d just say no so we can all move on.
Also, printers/photocopiers that jam. It drives me bloody mental.

During my time at SPP I employed a few folks who have gone on to do great things and who are widely known for being the best entertainment publicists in New Zealand. I can’t take the credit for all of them being great at their jobs, but I will lay claim to my own excellent talent-spotting abilities.

Generally speaking, we aren’t dealing with actual crises – “it’s PR, not ER” as they say. So while something might seem like a total disaster in the moment, in the scheme of things and the ever-expanding universe, it’s nothing really.
Deep breath, move on.

I am pretty happy to keep things ticking along as they are for now…I have no grand plans of world domination.

Teaching yoga (actually I already do teach 3 evening classes a week!). Plus probably doing my Masters or something equally nerdy.

E: tamar@thepublicgood.co.nz
I: @thepublicgood
F: ThePublicGoodNZ