The cast of Not Even (Photo: Supplied)

Pop CultureFebruary 6, 2023

‘I approached writing a TV series the same way I approached writing my Tinder profile’

Guest writer

The cast of Not Even (Photo: Supplied)

Screenwriter Dana Leaming’s debut comedy series Not Even is out now on Prime and Neon. This is the out the gate story of how it got there.

Kia ora, Hi, What up? Up to? U up? …I’m Dana.

I wrote and co-directed (with Ainsley Gardiner) the TV show Not Even out on Prime and Neon. It depicts the lives of Māori and Pasifika 20-somethings floating around Wellington failing spectacularly at being adults and failing even worse at understanding their cultural identities.

And it’s a comedy.

In all honesty I approached writing Not Even like I approached writing my Tinder profile. All my insecurities rose to the surface, got somewhat drunk, called a friend, found a cat, cat was not friendly, got my friend drunk with me, ate dumplings, wrote manically for three hours, freaked out, deleted it and then ended staying up till 4am to then return to my original writing thinking it wasn’t that bad in the first place.

My Tinder profile is now defunct, Not Even on the other hand is anything but.

Ainsley Gardiner and Dana Leaming on the set of Not Even (Photo: Supplied)

I would say my journey to what is a fully formed TV show on a major platform was a bit, excuse my French, out the gate.

I first lived and experienced a good portion of what happens in Not Even when I was gracefully (I say this with a heavy sprinkling of sarcasm) crashing through Wellington from about 2009 until 2014 as a uni student and general hot mess. I found struggling with my connection to my taha Māori was causing havoc with my mental health. I was forging an identity but it wasn’t coming easily and I felt like a fraud most of the time which would serve as the basis for the kaupapa of Not Even.

After a stint overseas I came back to start my Masters in creative writing for the screen at the IIML at Victoria University in 2018 and spent the year developing Not Even as my major project. And then the project lay dormant for three years. During that time I hustled. I worked at a cafe, worked on music videos on the side, got an office job, still tried to hustle on the side but wasn’t making it work as well. Eventually I started to let the dream of being a writer/filmmaker go.

Bear in mind, I was 30 at this point and being a mild failure was getting less cute by the minute. I was like, “alright, you had a moment, that moment has passed and now you’re out here eating toast off your bare chest, girl find another dream.”

So I found another office job that was quite fulfilling – not my dream, but it was good work.

Then I got an opportunity with a production company. I sent my Not Even scripts away to be read and… they politely passed.

So like every unhinged 30-year-old with their dream disintegrating right in front of them I got schwasted at my friend’s 30th, went missing for an hour, was found in a tree and was then fed bread on a picnic blanket by my friends. Six months later, around July 2021, I got an email from someone who had read my script back when it was at the IIML – they put it forward to Thomas Robins at Sky Originals and nek minute I was on a zoom call with Ainsley Gardiner and Georgina Conder from Miss Conception Films discussing how we were going to go for funding to get Not Even off the ground.

By December 2021 we had full production funding and I was staring down a 2022 that now had me writing and co-directing my own TV show.

When I think back to the first hour and a half conversation me and Ainsley had over Zoom I cannot fathom how she thought, yip this woman is the vibe, let’s shoot a TV show together. I don’t know exactly what I said in that Zoom but whatever it was I will be forever grateful to that Dana because I could not see myself going through this without the formidable leadership of Ainsley Gardiner.

Dana Leaming and Ainsley Gardiner on the set of Not Even (Photo: Supplied)

Ainsley is the tits, there’s no other way to put it. She knows her shit and she’s really freaking smart. And she took me along for the ride which was and still is a genuine privilege and honour I’m still coming to terms with. I was taking a massive step forward and she had this really great way of getting the best out of me in very short spaces of time but also allowing me to impart my vision for the series freely. But the best thing is we had a great time. We laughed like hyenas for a good portion of the shoot in spite of the crazy hours and unpredictable weather. And for that I’m extremely lucky.

I will never know why it was the right time for my script to somehow make its way in front of a commissioner at Sky and set off my new career. Luck? Hard work? The universe finally answering my drunken prayers? Who knows?

What I do know is that Not Even is here and I was able to get it made with an awesome cast and crew and amazing co-director. If there’s anything I’ve learnt from this insane experience is that sometimes, for whatever reason, things work out and you get to do it all. It’s a humbling place to be.

I still eat toast off my bare chest though.

Not Even is available from February 6 on Neon and SkyGo.

Keep going!

Seven Sharp’s original hosting trio (Image: TVNZ / Archi Banal)

Pop CultureFebruary 4, 2023

Rewatching Seven Sharp’s very first episode, 10 years on

Stewart Sowman-Lund

The Bulletin editor

Seven Sharp’s original hosting trio (Image: TVNZ / Archi Banal)

It’s been exactly a decade since Seven Sharp first appeared on our screens. Remember the first episode? We’ve unearthed the tapes.

On this day in 2013, a bombshell was thrown into the New Zealand television landscape. “Time for us to make way, because you’re here to see what everyone’s talking about, aren’t you?” said Simon Dallow at the tail end of 1News. And he was right – everyone was talking about Seven Sharp.

A decade on, the 7pm light entertainment show is a fixture on the New Zealand television landscape. It’s produced thousands of episodes, been through several set changes and debuted a handful of new hosts over that time. It’s a ratings juggernaut too, at least by today’s standards, and routinely pulls in big name guests from Hillary Clinton to and Celine Dion.

But the Seven Sharp of 2023, with Hilary Barry and Jeremy Wells sitting on a lovely couch, is very different to what we started out with. For starters, there were three hosts: Jesse Mulligan (now on Three’s Seven Sharp rival The Project), Ali Mau and the late Greg Boyed. There was no couch, with the trio perched at a long, curved desk. There were lots of jokes. Maybe too many jokes. There were snappy effects, monologues and a lot of janky social media integration.

It wasn’t an instant success. Just eight days after launching, TV3’s Campbell Live began out-rating its TVNZ opponent for the first time.

Ordinarily to mark the 10th anniversary of a show like Seven Sharp I’d have chatted to some of the names that made the show what it is today. Nobody was that keen to look back on history. I did, however, acquire a short message from former host Mike Hosking: “Ill pass thanks I am not a rear view mirror sort of person ,it was a project ,we had fun ,it was years ago now.”

So, instead, and with the help of the TVNZ archives, I’ve managed to hunt down the very first episode of Seven Sharp to remind us all: what actually happened on this day in 2013?

Subliminal messaging in the title sequence

Today, Seven Sharp’s opening titles showcase places and people from Aotearoa. In 2013, things were far more intense, with coloured boxes flying at the screen displaying such relevant references as “Skype Me” and “Pin This”.

Skype was what we used before Zoom (Image: TVNZ)

Others are even more obscure, with one briefly visible box appearing to display the word “subliminal”.

How many chicken wings?

The very first words spoken on the very first episode of Seven Sharp: “February 4, the day Americans ate 1.2 billion chicken wings during the Super Bowl.”

Close Up would never.

Edgy jokes

Carrying on from that chicken wing fact came this zinger from Jesse Mulligan. “The Super Bowl, an annual afternoon of televised violence that divides a whole nation. We’ve got one of those coming up in New Zealand this week, it’s called Waitangi Day.”

There was also a monologue on the Labour Party leadership, also by by Mulligan, which can be summed up via this image.

Nobody knows what is going on (Image: TVNZ)

So many polls

Seven Sharp was clearly big on social media, from Skype to Pinterest, and went very hard at trying to foster online engagement. “We’re real keen to hear what you think about the stories,” said Ali Mau, directing viewers to an interactive website that viewers could use to get in touch, vote in polls or watch additional content.

The poll on the first episode was asking who should lead the prime minister on the marae on Waitangi Day, and it appears the gag answer – disgraced Belarusian shot putter Nadzeya Ostapchuk – was the viewers’ favoured choice by some margin.

The set was a big empty room

We’ve written extensively about Seven Sharp’s set evolution here at The Spinoff, but the very first iteration was one of the most intriguing. The hosts were positioned in front of a large, dimensionally confusing wooden room, almost entirely empty aside from a sparse book case and a single couch. Where – or what – was this room?

Did they live in that room? Was it like the Big Brother house? (Image: TVNZ)

John Key holds things

The very first segment on Seven Sharp was a tour of John Key’s Beehive office. The former prime minister described it as a “fluff piece” and then proceeded to call the show “Sharp Seven”. The extensive tour included a brief peek at Key’s personal bathroom, but the real highlights were:

1. Sir John Key brandishing a sword at Heather du Plessis-Allan.

2. Sir John Key brandishing a can of beans.

He then cracked a bottle of red wine, which du Plessis-Allan proceeded to spill on the ground.

Chris Hipkins hasn’t aged

From one prime minister to another, that Beehive tour also features proof that new PM Chris Hipkins somehow has not aged over the past 10 years.

This is from 2013, somehow (Image: TVNZ)

Josh Groban really liked Kanye West’s tweets

In other content that hasn’t aged especially well, Seven Sharp’s first big celebrity interview was with singer Josh Groban, who discussed his love of Kanye West’s Twitter account. “His tweets are comedy gold,” he said, before a clip of him singing the tweets was played.

Happy 10 year anniversary, Seven Sharp.