The Big Idea Editorial Contributors
Writing a column or blogging is a heavy time commitment and The Big Idea are priviledged to have and, have had, all our great contributors.
Opinionated? Some of them. Thought provoking and stimulating? All of them. So, meet the contributors.
 | Ande Schurr | How Freelancers Can Succeed Ande Schurr is a production sound mixer for feature films, TV productions and commercials. His How Freelancers Can Succeed series was born from the desire to document and share what worked, and didn’t work, as a freelancer. www.schurrsound.com |
 | Jeff Clark | Afterthoughts Jeff began working for The Court Theatre in 1996 as part of improvisation troupe The Court Jesters and became a full-time member of staff in 2006, and Communications Manager in 2008. Jeff's Afterthoughts blog follows his journey towards "getting back to the business of entertaining the people of Christchurch" following the devastating earthquake on February 22, 2011. |
 | Mark Amery | Visual Arts Mark Amery has worked as an art critic, writer, editor and broadcaster for many years across the arts and mainstream media. He has a strong interest in arts development. Mark currently co-curates the public art programme Letting Space, is a art critic for the Dominion Post and a member of the Wellington City Council Public Art Panel. Mark’s number one passion however is contemporary music, and he can be heard monthly DJing Radio Active’s art junkies’s fix Caffeine and Aspirin, on Saturday mornings. Mark loves and lives in Paekakariki north of Wellington, where he can be seen pictured admiring driftwood. |
 | Mike Chunn | Strange News Play It Strange Trust CEO Mike Chunn has worked with original songs all his life from his days with Split Enz and Citizen Band through Mushroom Records (Dance Exponents and DD Smash) to eleven years as Director of Operations for APRA. Chunn blogs about this world as well as an overview of the current world of music as it is changing and evolving today. |
 | Philip Patston | The Creative Collide Philip Patston has been a social worker, a counsellor, a Winston Churchill Fellow, a human rights activist, an award-winning comedian, a soap opera actor on Shortland Street, a columnist, a trainer and even New Zealand’s inaugural Queer of the Year as voted by TV show Queer Nation. These days he's also a New Zealand Social Entrepreneur Fellow, consultant, mentor, coach, team facilitator and motivational speaker for hire. Philip is the founder of Diversityworks, a New Zealand-based enterprise whose business arm provides specialist services in managing diversity and change, and whose not-for-profit arm works to improve diversity and professional participation in the arts. |
 | Renee Liang | TalkWrite Renée Liang is a poet, playwright, paediatrician and fiction writer. She is involved in organising community arts events such as artistic blind-dating initiative Metonymy and Funky Oriental Beats (FOB), a platform for Kiwi-Asian performing artists. She is a regular contributor to The Big Idea. For her activities in arts, medicine and science, Renee was named a 2010 Sir Peter Blake Emerging Leader. |
The Big Idea | Previous Contributors
We have had writers from around New Zealand and New Zealanders based off-shore - always bringing a fresh perspective on creative life and work.
Our previous contributors include:
 | Helen Baxter | The MsBehaviour Files Helen Baxter AKA MsBehaviour is Managing Directrix of Mohawk Media, and reporter for the g33k show covering emerging technologies weekly on Kiwi FM and Ustream TV. Helen is an international keynote speaker, XMedialab Mentor and lecturer in new media production. She loves to hack fabrics and make wearable electronics in her spare time. |
 | Ila Couch | Biting The Big Apple Ila Couch has been a Freelance Writer, Photographer and Television Producer for the past 14 years. Seven of those years have been spent working in the United States where her work has taken her to Aspen, Colorado for the Food and Wine Festival, on an MTV shoot to Los Alamos, New Mexico birth place of the Atomic Bomb and Phoenix Arizona where to her horror, people build retirement villages in the desert without using solar technology. She has been kissed by a camel in Texas, eaten bear meat in Florida, and earned herself a black eye and two stitches at NYC's Coyote Ugly Bar. Prior to leaving New Zealand Ila worked in Music Television and recently returned home for three months to direct the second season of Waka Reo for Maori Television. | |
 | James Hadley | Sets and The City |
 | Chris Bell & Jon Bridges | TBI Surf Report Chris Bell began the column with tips on surfing the web nationally and internationally. It was continued by writer and comedian Jon Bridges who offered up a beginners' guide to New Zealand arts websites. |
 | Simon Young | Right Brained Web Simon Young is the director of #sy social media consultancy. Simon has filmic aspirations, with the screenplay for The Last Gribblehickey languishing on the shelf after four years, although it has been mentioned in a Chinese film magazine. He also co-produced Crossover, a short film that never got made (but had everything else done to it) in 2005. |
