Alan Brash

Alan worked for almost thirty years as a screenwriter, story producer, script editor, story-liner, development executive, producer, financial controller, production accountant, and screenwriting lecturer in the New Zealand film and TV industry.

He was a freelance script writer on the TVNZ prime-time hospital drama, ‘Shortland Street’ from 1995-98. He then became a staff script editor on a sketch comedy series, and in ’99 was appointed Development Exec at The Gibson Group. There, he script edited Glenn Standring’s debut feature ‘The Truth About Demons’ before creating and co-producing two series of the prime time, 1-hour drama series ‘The Strip’ for TV 3.

Alan became Head of Development at Screentime Communicado in 2003 and in ’04 exec produced a half-hour satire for TVNZ, produced a short film and tutored screenwriting at The South Seas School of Film & Television.

He then returned to freelance writing on ‘Shortland Street’ before taking up a staff story-lining position there. In 2005 he started lecturing screenwriting at tertiary institution, Unitec, whilst pursuing various writing projects – including features for the US market – and working as a freelance script consultant. He continued this through ’06. In ’07 Alan left New Zealand for England where he continued to develop a range of film, TV and graphic novel projects for various markets. In ‘08 he returned to Auckland to resume lecturing at Unitec and to continue working on his own projects.

In 2010 Alan completed a Master of Creative Writing at AUT under the supervision of accomplished screenwriter, Nick Ward, and released a short film he wrote, directed and produced, ‘Be Careful…’ with Lisa Chappell (McLeod’s Daughters, Stingers, The Cult) and Craig Hall (King Kong, The World’s Fastest Indian, 30 Days of Night, Show of Hands). It was selected for the Show Me Shorts and Magma Film Festivals – where Alan won a Best Director award. The script was also a finalist for Best Short Film Screenplay at the 2011 Screenwriter Awards (SWANZ).

In 2011 Alan left teaching to pursue his own film, TV and theatrical projects. He has also periodically returned to production accounting, where he got his start. Throughout his career he has worked as the production accountant or financial controller on more than a dozen feature films and TV series, including Andrew Adamson’s ‘Mr. Pip,’ the ‘Evil Dead’ remake, 'Guns Akimbo’ (with Daniel Radcliffe), Joseph Gordon-Levitt's 'Mr. Corman', and 'Chief of War' (with Jason Momoa). Over the years Alan has also worked as an actor, drummer, and stand-up comedian.