South Pacific Pictures

South Pacific Pictures is a New Zealand television production company. The company produces drama series, mini-series, telemovies and feature films for the domestic market and international market. SPP's largest property is Shortland Street the half-hour soap opera for TVNZ 2. In 2006, the company released Sione's Wedding and in 2002, the Oscar-nominated feature film Whale Rider. In 1998 the company produced the feature film, What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?, the sequel to Once Were Warriors.

South Pacific Pictures was first established in 1988 by New Zealand broadcasting company TVNZ as its in-house drama television production arm that would develop and produce high-quality television drama for TVNZ's channels domestically, it was formed when TVNZ had a massive restructuring of the network and the introduction of "Strategic Business Units" within the TVNZ corporation in 1988, TVNZ disbanded its internal Drama Department and spun off its core drama production unit into a new production subsidiary within TVNZ called South Pacific Pictures, which would produce programming in-house for TVNZ & its channels, with John Barnett serving as founder & CEO of the TVNZ's in-house drama production arm South Pacific Pictures. However, six years later in 1998, TVNZ had sold its drama production unit South Pacific Pictures to its founder & CEO John Barnett though a management buyout and became an independent production company & British TV production group Chrysalis Visual Entertainment, the television arm of Chrysalis Group, had brought a 33% stake in the New Zealand independent production company South Pacific Pictures, marking Chrysalis Visual Entertainment's first entry into the New Zealand production market with South Pacific Pictures became a subsidiary of the British entertainment group Chrysalis Visual Entertainment with them would handle international distribution to South Pacific's future programming while New Zealand media and investment company Force Corporation had brought a 25% minority stake in South Pacific Pictures.^[1] By December 2001 when Chrysalis Visual Entertainment was renamed to Chrysalis TV Group during that same year back in February, Chrysalis TV Group had increased its stake in the New Zealand drama production company South Pacific Pictures by rising its stake from 33% to a 60% majority stake in the New Zealand production studio South Pacific Pictures with Chrysalis TV Group acquiring its remaining shares from Force Corporation and John Barlett's own production outfit Endeavour Productions, and South Pacific Pictures became a subsidiary of the British TV production company Chrysalis TV Group.^[2]

In May 2000, the company moved from Browns Bay (Auckland) to a new purpose-built studio complex in Henderson, West Auckland.

In October 2001, South Pacific Pictures had partnered with Australian entertainment & production company Beyond International to form a new joint-venture distribution subsidiary entitled Beyond New Zealand, that would serve as Beyond International's new production division and the first independent distribution company based in New Zealand and would be based in Auckland & would provide a gateway to the international television marketplace for New Zealand producers, with South Pacific Pictures' founder & MD John Barnett serving as manager of the new joint-venture production unit.^[3]

In June 2004, South Pacific Pictures had colloaborated with producer & presenter Quinton Hita and established a joint-venture production subsidiary dedicated to produce programming in Māori language for the Maori Television Service (MTS) as well as other broadcasting networks in New Zealand, entitled Kura Productions. The new joint-venture production subsidiary Kura Productions will produce Māori-language programming for broadcasters in New Zealand while South Pacific Pictures will support development funding for the new subsidiary.^[4]

SPP is in a joint venture with Australian company SLR Productions to produce animated shows aimed at international markets and also has a 50% interest in Satellite Media and has also created a joint venture known as Kura Productions with Quinton Hita to produce programming for the Māori Television Service.

South Pacific Pictures was founded by CEO John Barnett.^[5]