Round the Twist is an Australian children's comedy television series that follows the supernatural adventures of the Twist family. The series was created and produced by Patricia Edgar, and developed by the Australian Children's Television Foundation (ACTF). It was created with the intention of producing a show that both children and parents could watch. Edgar met with the author Paul Jennings and asked if the ACTF could option his stories.
Katherine Leigh Ritchie is an Australian actress, radio presenter and children's author, she remains best known for her long-running role as original character Sally Fletcher on the television soap opera Home and Away, for which she won two Gold Logie awards. She played the character for 20 years, appearing from the pilot episode in 1988 until 2008. Ritchie is currently part of Nova FM's national drive show, Kate, Tim & Joel with Tim Blackwell and Joel Creasey.
Sky Trackers is a 26-part science-based Australian children's television adventure series, and a stand-alone children's television movie of the same name, which feature the adventures of children who live at space-tracking stations in Australia. Both series and telemovie were created by Jeff Peck and Tony Morphett, and executive-produced by Patricia Edgar on behalf of the Australian Children's Television Foundation (ACTF).
The Flying Doctors is an Australian drama TV series produced by Crawford Productions that revolves around the everyday lifesaving efforts of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia, starring Andrew McFarlane as the newly arrived Dr. Tom Callaghan. The popular series ran for nine seasons and was successfully screened internationally.
Claudia Karvan is an Australian actress, producer and scriptwriter. As a child actor, she first appeared in the film, Molly (1983) and followed with an adolescent role in High Tide (1987). She portrayed a teacher in The Heartbreak Kid (1993) – the film was spun off into a TV series, Heartbreak High (1994–1999), with her character taken over by Sarah Lambert. Karvan's roles in television series include The Secret Life of Us (2001–2005), Love My Way (2004–2007), Newton's Law (2017) and Halifax: Retribution (2020). She won Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Television Drama at the AFI Awards for her appearance in G.P. (1996). She won two similar AFI Awards for her role in Love My Way and in 2014 for her work in The Time of Our Lives (2013–2014). As a co-producer and co-writer on Love My Way, she won three further AFI Awards for Best Drama Series in 2005, 2006 and 2007. Karvan was inducted into the Australian Film Walk of Fame in 2007 in acknowledgment of her contributions to the Australian film and television industry. From 2010 to 2011, she starred in the drama series Spirited, which she co-created and was executive producer. She appeared as Judy Vickers in Puberty Blues. Karvan has co-produced House of Hancock and Doctor Doctor (2016–2021). In 2021 she co-created, co-produced and starred in the TV drama series, Bump.
Mario Andreacchio is an Australian film producer/director.
Noah and Saskia is a 13-episode TV program initiated, developed and produced by Patricia Edgar for the Australian Children's Television Foundation (ACTF) and the BBC as she stepped down after 20 years as Founding Director of the ACTF. The 13 x 24-minute drama series involves an Australian teenage girl, Saskia, and her internet-based relationship with Noah, a teenage boy living in the United Kingdom. The two characters project their ideal selves to each other in a virtual world, and in the process get a little closer to reaching their ideals in the real one. The show is about the power of someone's essence and how someone can touch you from 10,000 miles away, and change your whole life. Noah & Saskia speaks directly to today's young people about the technologies which are changing the way we communicate.
"I wanted one more crack at producing the type of television I had always believed in; not a formulaic soap-style series; not a co-produced mid-Pacific blancmange, but something that really spoke to adolescents about the issues that were on their minds," Patricia Edgar, Bloodbath: a memoir of Australian Television, pg.399. "The Internet was the place to set much of the action as this allowed for a modern, contemporary story, which would be new territory for drama. The other appeal of online chat spaces was that they give the characters opportunities to express themselves in multiple ways. The Net is a space where young people are much more at home than their parents and increasingly it will be their world", Patricia Edgar.
Lift Off was an Australian children's television series that was developed and produced by Patricia Edgar and broadcast on ABC Television from 1992 until the series ended in 1995. Each episode featured a live action storyline about a group of young children, and the problems they encountered with growing up, their parents, and various other social issues. Episodes would also feature segments of short animation, puppetry and documentary segments, as well as various songs, stories, and word games. Aimed at 3- to 8-year-olds, the series was linked with the school curricula through the Curriculum Corporation of Australia. The different episodes used stories and locations to explore subjects such as jealousy, loneliness and anger. The puppet characters were designed by illustrator Terry Denton and were constructed by the sculptor Ron Mueck.
The Genie from Down Under is a children's comedy television series. It was a co-production between the ACTF, the BBC and the ABC from 1996 to 1998. The Genie from Down Under is based on an idea from Steve J Spears which was developed into a series concept with a 'Round The Twist' flavour. Esben Storm, Steve Spears and a team of writers work-shopped the storylines. Patricia Edgar was looking for a new idea for a comedy series which would capture the debate about Australia becoming a Republic - a significant issue in Australia at the time. She invited a few writers to submit original ideas then chose the concept submitted by Steve Spears to workshop its potential. She asked Esben Storm, who had been the co-author and Director of the successful Round the Twist series to lead the development workshop.
Patricia May Edgar AM is an Australian author, television producer, educator and media scholar best known as the founding director of the Australian Children's Television Foundation.
Yolngu Boy is a 2001 Australian coming-of-age film directed by Stephen Maxwell Johnson, produced by Patricia Edgar, Gordon Glenn, Galarrwuy Yunupingu and Mandawuy Yunupingu, and starring Sean Mununggurr, John Sebastian Pilakui, and Nathan Daniels. Yolngu Boy is based around three Aboriginal teenage boys linked by ceremony, kinship and a common dream-to become great Yolngu hunters, in a remote community at Yirrkala in North-East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia. The feature film traces the metaphorical journey of the three young Aboriginal teenagers caught in a collision between the modern world and traditional Aboriginal culture where they hunt wild animals in the morning using spears and play football while listening to hip hop rap music in the afternoon. The project involved a significant number of community members in the cast and crew of the film.
Amma Asante is a British filmmaker, screenwriter, former actress, and Chancellor at Norwich University of the Arts, who was born in London to parents from Ghana. Her love for the film industry started when she received her first role in BBC's Grange Hill. Asante wrote and produced the 1998 BBC Two series Brothers and Sisters, starring David Oyelowo. She was a childhood friend of model Naomi Campbell, whom she met when they were seven years old.
Nan Chauncy was a British-born Australian children's writer.
Michael Carson was an Australian television director who was responsible for some of Australia's most significant series in the last decades of the twentieth century. His work as a director, producer and script editor was recognised with AFI Awards, Logie Awards, Penguin Awards and AWGIE Awards.
Mystery Road is a 2013 Australian crime film with neo-Western elements and setting, written and directed by Ivan Sen. It was screened in the Special Presentation section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. A film sequel entitled Goldstone was released in 2016, and TV series in 2018, all featuring Aaron Pedersen as the brooding Indigenous Australian detective Jay Swan.
Kaboodle is a 13-part anthology television series which includes animation, puppetry, and live action and was produced by the Australian Children's Television Foundation (ACTF) that ran on ABC Television from 1987 to 1990. Kaboodle 2 was a follow-on series which provided another six half-hour episodes of innovative television drama for the under-tens. Kaboodle 2, however, was fully animated and instead of being an ‘anthology’ series of many short dramas, all of which are different, this season had regular characters in every episode. The show commenced screening on the Seven Network across Australia in April 1990.
Winners is an Australian children's television anthology series conceived and produced for the ACTF by its founding director, Patricia Edgar. It first screened on Network 10 in 1985 as part of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal's newly implemented C classified drama quota. It featured eight self-contained telemovies and stories. Patricia Edgar was confident that Winners would be a landmark in the development of quality children's television and that it would go on to set the standard nationally and internationally for future children's productions. More Winners is the second season of the series, first screened on ABC in 1990. It featured six self-contained telemovies and stories.
First Day is an Australian drama television series which premiered on ABC Me on 30 March 2020. The series originated as a short film of the same title which aired in 2017. The series retells elements of the short film. The series was filmed in Adelaide, South Australia including on location at Marryatville High School.
Ian Alexander Munro is an Australian film and television director and producer. His career has spanned a variety of genres including telemovies, documentaries and children’s programs.