Shortland Street

[edit] Production

Shortland Street is produced by South Pacific Pictures, with assistance from FremantleMedia and Television New Zealand. In the first few years, the production was also assisted by New Zealand on Air.

[edit] Writing

The writing team includes at least one medical advisor, for help with medical terms and procedures.

Every few months, the writers map out the storylines for the coming months. These storylines form the basis of the action on-screen.

With the amount of paper required, Shortland Street was once New Zealand's biggest paper user after the government. ^[7]

[edit] Filming

Today, most of the filming for Shortland Street occurs at South Pacific Pictures Waitakere City studios, with Ferndale High School scenes being filmed at the nearby Waitakere College.^{[citation needed]} The exterior shots of the North Shore Hospital is Central Hospital which is the other hospital mentioned in the series as the place where patients are sent. Location scenes are usually filmed in Auckland, but other locations, including Fiji, have been used.

Originally, Shortland Street was filmed in North Shore City at South Pacific Pictures Browns Bay studios until their relocation to purpose built studios in Waitakere City in 2000. The original Ferndale High School was played by a North Shore college until the studio relocated.

[edit] History

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can. (December 2007)

Many New Zealand actors' careers have been launched by, or included a role on Shortland Street, including Marton Csokas (Dr. Leonard Rossi-Dodds), who has since starred in xXx, The Bourne Supremacy, and Æon Flux; Temuera Morrison (Dr. Hone Ropata), who has since had roles in Once Were Warriors, Speed 2, and Star Wars: Episode II and III and the 2004 DVD release of The Empire Strikes Back, Katrina Devine who appeared in two series of the Power Rangers franchise Power Rangers: Ninja Storm and Power Rangers: Dino Thunder, Rene Naufahu starred in Power Rangers: S.P.D., Josephine Davison was cast in Power Rangers: S.P.D. and Power Rangers: Mystic Force and Martin Henderson, who has since starred in Bride and Prejudice, The Ring, Windtalkers, Little Fish and Torque and the ABC pilot Mr and Mrs Smith.

The first episode became infamous for having a sex scene between Doctor Chris Warner and an aerobics instructor, Jill (Suzy Aiken). The first episode also included the line, "You're not in Guatemala now, Dr. Ropata" which has since become one of the most widely recognised lines in New Zealand television. While the show was initially criticised for bad acting and poor storylines, it was praised for its sensitive portrayal of a teenage suicide storyline later on in its first year. Ratings were initially high, but within weeks they had fallen considerably. However, the show was saved from cancellation by the fact that TVNZ had pre-ordered a years worth of episodes. By May 1993, the show was rating high enough that it was renewed, and later became the highest rating programme in the country for a brief period in August 1994. Since then, ratings have fallen somewhat, but the show remains in the overall top 20 highest rated New Zealand television shows, and still regularly rates number one in the 18-49 demographic, the target audience that advertisers most desire.

During this time it was well known amongst Shortland Street cast and crew of a young keen fan of the show who would send the cast Christmas cards and Birthday cards each year who was affectionately known around the cast and crew as 'country girl Claire', even going on to using her surname for a character who appeared on the show, as a kind of secret message of personal thanks for her unique support.

Over the years there have been a number of cast changes, with Michael Galvin, who plays Chris Warner, was the only remaining original cast member but Craig Parker, who played Guy Warner from 1992-1996 returned in 2007 and therefore is another member of the original cast. In 2001, the show received much media attention in New Zealand when 14 cast members were either let go from their contracts or decided to leave. This was part of the revamp on the show which saw many new characters introduced, most notably the Hudson family, who were Maori. While Maori characters had always been featured on the show, the Hudsons were the first Maori family introduced into the show.

In 2003–04, the show introduced its first double-killer with the Dominic Thompson storyline. Dominic was the brother of nurse Toni Thompson and was believed to be the illegitimate half-brother of Dr. Chris Warner, but after this was revealed as a lie, the pair became bitter enemies. Dominic's love affair with 17-year-old Delphi Greenlaw also created controversy and eventually saw the teenager leave town to escape him. He also killed two characters, Delphi's brother, Dr. Geoff Greenlaw (froze to death in chiller) and PA Avril Lucich (drowned in a bathtub) who had threatened to get in his way, before being killed off himself in an explosion after trying to kill Chris in an attempted murder-suicide. The storyline created immense popularity that saw the show ranked once again in the top ten highest rated shows in New Zealand.

2005 saw the departure of the show's longest-serving cast member, Karl Burnett, who played Nick Harrison, after almost 13 years. Burnett was the only cast member who had been with the show since its inception (although the character and the actor did take a sabbatical from the show in 2002). Burnett still has links with Shortland Street, however he is now behind the scenes as a sound operator.

While Michael Galvin has also been on the show since the beginning, his character left for four years, from 1996 to 2000.

During June 2006, Shortland Street celebrated its 14th birthday and 3,500 episodes. In November 2005, Shortland Street was the winner of Woman's Day TV Choice Award for Favourite New Zealand show at the 2005 Qantas TV Awards. They won the same award again in the 2006 Qantas TV Awards.

On 22 November 2006 it was announced that actress Laurie Foell had decided to leave the show and that her character Justine Jones would be recast with Lucy Wigmore. This marked the first instance of multiple actors playing the same role in the programme, excluding child characters such as Lucas Harrison and Harry Warner. Another character recasted was Dame Margot Warner who was first played by Glynis McNicoll during 1992-1997, then Dinah Priestly assumed the role of Dame Margot for the character's death in 2003.

Shortland Street celebrated its 15th birthday in May 2007. As a result there were many changes that have occurred such as a refurbished hospital, new uniforms, and a new logo. A television special celebrating 15 years was screened on 13 May 2007, and on Shortland Street's actual 15th birthday (25 May 2007), the episode featured photos of previous characters and settings, which "were found in the renovations", and a reworded edition of the infamous line from the first Shortland Street episode: "You're not in Hyderabad now, Nurse Kumari." (referring to Nurse Shanti Kumari's Hindu origins and reluctance to drink alcohol).

From 2007, several Shortland Street characters were murdered by the show's first serial killer. The storyline resulted in a viewership rating surge, which at one point in November reached 60%.^[8]. The serial killer, dubbed the Ferndale Strangler, was revealed in the season finale on 14 December 2007 to be male nurse Joey Henderson.

[edit] Shortland Street and New Zealand's health system

The producers of Shortland Street have tried to make the show reflect the current trends in New Zealand health services. As a result, the hospital featured on the show was originally under private ownership, which reflected the increasing privatisation of the New Zealand health services in the early 1990s under the National Government. After the current Labour government was elected into office in 1999, there was a renewed focus on public health services. As a result, in 2001 the producers of the show decided to have the hospital come under government ownership in order to reflect the renewed focus on public health. This change was part of the show's revamp in 2001, and coincided with the cull of 14 characters mentioned above.

[edit] References

Coming up...

[edit] External links

• Shortland Street Wikia
• News about 2008 season
• Official website
• Shortland Street - TVNZ ondemand (only available to New Zealand due to copyright reasons)
• Street Talk
• Shortland Street at the Internet Movie Database
• Shortland Street at TV.com
• http://www.freewebs.com/shortlandstreetfanclub » Version 2 On Freewebs
• Image Archive '94 to '95