Spreading the Word:
Who is Jam TV?

Jam TV is the little New Zealand production company that sees the globe as its studio.  Melanie Rakena and Jane Andrews set up the company four years ago to allow themselves the luxury of making interesting and innovative programmes “their way” and so far that has meant a great deal of globetrotting and some once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

The company’s flagship television production, Intrepid Journeys explores high-energy adventure travel around the world with a focus on extreme and unusual experiences in far flung lands like Burma, Borneo and Bolivia.

This award-winning series, and the team behind it, thrives on rolling with the punches required to capture the very best aspects of unrehearsed, unpredictable, unscripted television.

The team travel with no research or pre-prepared shoot schedule and trust they will track down the best experiences on the ground.  The producers also wanted to accurately capture the type of travel that ordinary backpackers undertake – to travel and enjoy chance adventures without the aid of researchers, tourism bureaus, Foreign Affairs, international production company contacts and the like.

Having enjoyed success with this approach out in the big wide world, Jam TV decided to attempt a new reality series on home turf in New Zealand, once again involving travel and a relaxed approach to meeting people and exploring places not necessarily on the tourist trail. 

The result involved following broadcaster and talk-back host Marcus Lush on an odyssey around New Zealand, in fair weather and foul, tracing what remains of our rail system and discovering what he found compelling along the way. The series was to be one of the stand-out television hits of the year.

The Jam TV team have also recently dabbled in the standard documentary format,  exploring the path of war of a New Zealand solider who died on the World War I battleground of Passchendale in Belguim. 

Having hands-on experience in a various forms of the media and across a wide range of programmes and formats prior to forming Jam TV is what the principals of the company, Melanie Rakena and Jane Andrews, believe gives them a unique approach to making television.

Their joint experience spans most facets of the industry - news and current affairs, experimental youth programming, documentaries, live comedy, production and executive production of several magazine shows and first-hand experience in the crafts of drama and film.

Jam Showreels

Check out our fabulous showreels from the past three years to get an idea of what we can do. (You'll need Quicktime 7 to watch these videos.)

	New Zealand Content dial-up broadband
	2005 International Content dial-up broadband
	2004 International Content dial-up broadband
	2003 International Content dial-up broadband

Melanie Rakena
Not everyone can say they are living their dream but Melanie can – global adventure travel is what makes her tick.  Having got a huge kick out of backpacking to far flung corners of the globe, her passionate tales of travel sold TVNZ on the idea of taking local celebrities off the beaten track and out of their comfort zone. As a result, Intrepid Journeys was born. 

With that format off and running, Melanie turned her hand to Off The Rails, creating a train show that was not just a train show, one of the hit shows of the year.  The series  employed high production values to deliver an informative and entertaining look at New Zealand and New Zealanders.  As well as producing the series, Melanie also directed seven of the twelve episodes.

Directing and producing the most successful debut series of 2002 is where she is at now, but Melanie also has an extensive track record in executive production having overseen a vast array of reality and magazine formats.  As Head of the Lifestyle Unit at TVNZ, she was responsible for the successful completion, on time and on budget, of over 200 hours of television a year. 

Jane Andrews
Jane cut her teeth in the newsroom but is now to be found cutting deals for tuk-tuks, cyclos or camels in developing countries.  It is all in the name of reality television as co-producer for Intrepid Journeys.

Jane’s media career started with a journalism degree from the New Zealand School of Broadcasting and an internship in the TVNZ newsroom in the early nineties.   Thriving on deadlines and the pressure of fast-turn-around television, the newsroom remained home for five years before an interest in other forms of story-telling took her through an array of reality programmes and live shows. 

Along the way she has directed or produced over 500 hours of television, both live and pre-recorded.  Creatively, she has devised field and challenge components for several programmes and has been involved in successfully launching two new formats into the New Zealand television market.

Jane’s career highlights include reaching the summit of a Nepalese mountain and having the footage to prove it, maintaining phone contact with a hostage-taker while police engineered a rescue attempt, rowing a boat down the Ganges in India, mounting a successful public campaign to free a war veteran who faced spending his 80th birthday behind bars, being kissed by celebrity chef Jamie Oliver and playing the late, great Johnny Cash’s guitar.