Stephen J Campbell

Stephen is an award winning, television producer, writer and director with a strong focus on family and young adult audiences. With over 30 years experience in the business, he has worked in a wide variety of television genres, specializing in comedy and drama. After being recruited by Television New Zealand's Children and Young Person's department in 1986, Stephen was responsible for the creation of one of the countries most iconic children's TV characters Thingee, and went on to produce the ground-breaking, interactive youth programme, 3.45 Live (1989). Stephen quickly began to build a reputation for himself as a comedy writer and director after cutting his teeth on local comedy shows including the award winning Ice TV (1995) (1999 TV Guide New Zealand Awards - Best Comedy Programme) As co-creator and associate producer of Ice TV, Stephen was responsible for writing and directing many of the show's memorable comedy strands including the arrestingly popular 'Police Programme', in which he regularly appeared. In 2002 Stephen created the comedy series Secret Agent Men (2003), an espionage/coming-of-age/thriller targeting a youth audience. The series was commissioned for two seasons and won Best Children's Programme at the 2004 Qantas Media Awards. Stephen's next drama series, Amazing Extraordinary Friends (2006) (TVNZ) followed the mis-adventures of a team of rag-tag superheroes. As the show runner, Stephen oversaw the production of three seasons as well as AEF 360, a trans media online extension which included two web-series; The Wired Chronicles and Origins. The Amazing Extraordinary Friends was a finalist in the 2008 Roma Fiction Festival (Italy) and the 2008 Seoul International Drama Awards (Korea). The Amazing Extraordinary Friends: Season 3 won a special prize at the 2011 Seoul International Drama Awards. Secret Agent Men and The Amazing Extraordinary Friends have sold and continue to sell successfully to regions around the world, including Asia, Europe and the US. Stephen's subsequent drama series The Cul De Sac (2016), finds a group of teenagers living in a dystopian world without adults. The series premiered on TVNZ in 2016 to strong audience numbers and the network went onto commission two further seasons. The Cul de Sac: Season Three won Best Children's Programme at the 2019 Asian Academy Creative Awards. The Cul de Sac has found an international audience, selling to networks in Denmark, Finland and playing on BBC i-player. In 2019 Stephen was invited to be a Juror for the International Emmy Awards by the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.