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Bryan Bruce (born 1948) is a New Zealand documentary maker and author. [1]
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Bryan Bruce emigrated with his family to New Zealand in 1956. He grew up in Christchurch and attended the University of Canterbury, where he graduated with an M.A. in Sociology and Philosophy. Bruce earned a Diploma in Teaching from Christchurch Teachers' College and taught for ten years.
He was a professional musician for 20 years before he took up a career as a documentary maker. While moonlighting as a bar pianist, a chance meeting with Dunedin Producer, Ross Johnson, led him to hosting and writing scripts for the TV series The Late Late Show in 1982. [2] Presenter Ian Johnstone, accepted Bruce's proposal for We’re Only Human, a pop-psychology program which ran for two successful seasons on TV2, followed by Just Testing. In the mid to late 1980s, TVNZ’s documentary department dissolved, but launched Bruce's career as an independent filmmaker. He partnered with New Zealand’s Department of Health to write and present Safer Sex, an educational documentary dealing with sex in New Zealand in the age of AIDS. He then decided to follow New Zealand yachtsman Peter Blake as he competed and won the 1989 Whitbread Round the World race, and sold the documentary internationally.
Under his company banner, Red Sky Film & TV, Bryan Bruce is involved in most, if not all aspects of the documentary production, including writing, producing, directing, editing and often presenting. Often, he travels around the world to see how other people and systems operate to help provide perspective on the documentary topic.
Bruce's feature-length documentaries cover diverse topics, from natural history, biography, psychology, sociology, social justice, mental health and crime. Over his career, Bruce has written, produced and/or directed 30+ documentaries and docudramas. In addition to many one-off documentaries, Bruce also wrote, produced and directed the real crime show series, The Investigator [3] that debuted on TVNZ1 and CBS Reality in 2007. The second series in 2009 won a Qantas Award for Bruce’s directing, and sold to a number of overseas channels. [4]
Bruce's published non-fiction works include the following:
Source: [5]
Some of Bryan Bruce's documentaries have been controversial, and garnered media attention particularly in New Zealand.
Inside Child Poverty, which exposed the plight of children living in New Zealand's poorest homes on the eve of the 2011 election, contributed to the establishment of a Ministry for Children, The Children's Act and the setting of Child Poverty Reduction Targets. [14]
Another controversial documentary was Bryan Bruce's award winning Jesus: The Cold Case, which looked at the roots of antisemitism. TVNZ was initially reluctant to release the 90 minute documentary, [15] and after doing so, Bruce received criticism from some reviewers and members of the fundamentalist Christian community. In spite of this, it won the NZ AFTA for Best Documentary and was a Silver and Bronze Medal Winner in the Religion and History categories at The New York Festivals Television and Film Awards in 2011. [16]
A number of Bruce's documentaries are lodged at The New Zealand Film Archive [17] and can be viewed at his online newsletter. [18]
Source: [19]
Documentary Series
Source: [19]
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