Ideal outlet for creativity

Chris Key, left, and Allan George on location in Fiji. Photo / Peter White

There is nothing quite like The Crowd Goes Wild on New Zealand television.

The innovative blend of sport with a manic, comedic edge screens five days a week.

Producing that much live television is testimony to the dedication and skill of a small multi-talented crew of just eight people.

At the centre of all the general mayhem that makes the show so popular are two proud former Bay of Plenty residents.

Presenter and the newest face on the show is Chris Key, 23, who grew up in Te Puna and went to Otumoetai College, while camera operator and editor Allan George, 28, is a product of Rotorua and Western Heights High School.

Key can still scarcely believe how he ended up fronting such a popular television show for the last two years with no previous television experience.

"I came out of Christchurch Broadcasting School in 2012 and within a week I was working as an intern at George FM in Ponsonby. Then with three weeks left on that I got a job with Crowd," Key says.

"All my mates went off to uni after Year 13 but the best thing I did was take a year off and then do a radio course at the Bay of Plenty Polytech in Tauranga.

"They work in with the Christchurch course so I managed to get in there. I didn't plan any of it but in my opinion Western Bay is the best place to come from to do it. There are ways to get in if you do your research."

And was Key nervous in front of the camera at the start? Absolutely.

Chris Key, left, and Allan George set up. Photo / Peter White

"My first story starts with a blooper reel of 10 starts of me trying to do my first piece to camera in a paddock of cows in the Waikato," he says, laughing.

"But they obviously enjoyed my humour because I had been watching the show so long and kind of knew what would work.

"When I arrived there I saw a blonde lady across the carpark hop out of a brand new, black Merc and walk into Sky and I thought it was (Crowd presenter) Hayley Holt.

"I thought "wow these people are so rich" but it wasn't her. It was one of those big executives and then Hayley walked in with her work boots on."

There is more to camera operator George than keeping everything in frame when the red light goes on.

"It is a bit rare to have someone who can shoot and edit. I know of only three or four other people who can do it in New Zealand but for daily turnaround I don't know anyone else," George says.

"I was a fan boy before I started at the show. I used to schedule my dinner around The Crowd Goes Wild with my mates. It was all-encompassing with all the things I like. The humour is bang on to what we enjoy. It is more about us being idiots in front of people which is really fun."

George is an award-winning filmmaker with an international reputation. He continues to make films outside his television commitments and is short-listed to receive $30,000 funding from the NZ Film Commission to make a short film.

"At the end of 2012 I made a short film called Sounds Perfect. We did it in a weekend with a former presenter, Greg Stubbings," says George.

"We made it for under $300 and submitted it to Tropfest, the world's largest film festival. It made the top 16 and it was screened in front of a live audience of 8000 people at the Bowl of Brooklands in New Plymouth.

Haley Holt, right.

"We won two of the four awards and I won a directing award. From there it got into 12 international film festivals and three Academy Award-accredited festivals.

"It got into the Short Film Corner at Cannes and the Short Film Austin Film Festival in Texas, which was mind-blowing. I was across the road from the guy that created Breaking Bad and was in a room with Will Ferrell. It was really surreal."

George would love to go back to his old school and mentor students who have a similar passion.

"I went to the SAE Institute in Auckland and I did well because it is all about the story.

"It is an ambition of mine to help create a pathway for students to follow. I want to do a workshop with some other film makers at Western Heights (high school) and show them not only creative film making as a pathway but creativity as a pathway," George says.

"There are a lot of talented people there that don't have an outlet for their creativity and it kind of goes awry.

"They put their extra energy into things that are probably the wrong thing ... so if you can tell them it is okay to paint or draw, then that's a positive."

-Peter White flew to Fiji courtesy of Fiji Airways.