NHNZ expands to Middle East

NHNZ expands to Middle East

Dunedin based production house NHNZ is expanding its global presence by establishing a production office in the Middle East. NHNZ will set up office in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

From there NHNZ will manage Middle East specific productions, where it will also be working on building up its 3D production output and expertise. This will be done in co-operation with TwoFour54 – a regional creative centre facilitating the development of Arabic media and entertainment content.

NHNZ managing director Michael Stedman says that having been investigating 3D for the last 12 months, NHNZ is poised to embark on a raft of 3D productions. “The interest in 3D is accelerating and the world is embracing 3D at an incredible rate. This format is a great enhancement for story-telling and will create a wonderful platform for telling the stories which we are famous for. So collaborating with TwoFour54 will give us a major opportunity to venture into the production of high end HD and 3D documentaries,” he says.

The NHNZ production office will offer skill transfer and workshops to help grow Arab talent and production infrastructure. It will also be looking at developing projects with local producers for international broadcast. NHNZ is already moving into the production of seven hours of programming about the Middle East. These productions cover wildlife, engineering and culture.

NHNZ already has offices in Washington DC, Singapore and Beijing and is increasingly active in Australia and South Africa. Mr Stedman says it makes a lot of sense for NHNZ to also expand to the Middle East. “The Middle East is an enormously rich region of intense diversity and full of surprises. >From a television landscape point of view it has largely been ignored for a long time and there are many stories to tell.

“We have a long term commitment to work in the region,” he says. He points out that NHNZ has established a solid reputation over the years as a production company that, once committed to working in a region, never failed to deliver programmes of the highest standard.

“We have been working for more than 15 years now on a regular basis with Japan’s national broadcaster NHK; we have been active in China for more than 10 years and recently increased our presence there; now it is time to explore the rich diversity that the Middle East can offer to international television audiences.”

NHNZ produces some of the most popular non-fiction programming in the world, which it supplies to the leading broadcasters such as A&E, Discovery, National Geographic and Fox. As one of the largest production companies in the world, it produces around 60 hours of programming a year ... a figure which, Mr Stedman believes, will increase significantly through NHNZ’s presence in the Middle East.

He says NHNZ will have people on the ground in Abu Dhabi within the next couple of months.

ENDS

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