MEDIA
Asia Pacific Vision: 20 years of great stories Asia Pacific Vision is not only marking 20 years of filming terrific stories, but is also celebrating its success in keeping ahead of the technology curve to stay current and competitive in today’s rapidly changing marketplace.
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APV archive
efore APV there was a two-man show of documentaries when and where we could.” cameraman Mark Erder and reporter Adrian Chris Slaughter, who joined the company in 2005, Brown, who cut their teeth as a team in the first Gulf as managing director and executive producer, said: War for UK-based TV-am. “In my mind the company has a pedigree of news Erder, who joined TV-am in 1988 from ITN, and documentaries, which we continue to do even if formed APV with Brown in 1991. The company had the audiences are different and maybe the clients are a flying start when it was able to buy field and editing different. The kind of documentaries have changed equipment from TV-am’s Hong Kong bureau. “We but they remain informed story-telling.” convinced them they For APV there have would save the cost of been a number of shipping it back to UK,” defining moments that Erder said. “So they often became turning would save money by points for the business. selling the equipment to The first of these us.” was that soon after the They started by offering company was formed, a freelance packages number of broadcasters (research, writing, wanted to set up in shooting and editing) to Hong Kong to cover the likes of CNN, Channel the lead-up years to the 9 (Australia), Sky and the 1997 handover. The early days of CNBC. “At broadcasters included Adrian Brown and Mark Erder with the Dalai Lama: defining the time there were very CNN, the AWSJ start-up, few doing this in Asia and moments. the CNBC start-up and the maybe two others in other parts of the world. And Fox start-up, “we helped in the kick-off of all those from this we built the company,” Erder said. channels until they could do it for themselves,” Erder APV was an interesting but unlikely coupling. said. A few of them still outsource occasionally so “Adrian with his love for news and mine for APV is still working with them providing crews and documentaries. We had to work on finding the equipment. balance and make it work. When the handover arrived in 1997, APV had been “The reality is this company would never selected to manage the press and broadcast centre, have come into being if it wasn’t for Adrian. His which involved 160 staff servicing some 80 to 90 involvement was crucial to the development and print and broadcast media. The two-man show had growth of the company,” Erder said. “He, as one come a long way in six years. of the best TV foreign correspondents around, “The other defining times began when after buying enabled us to get CNN, Sky and Channels 9 and 7 in the equipment from TV-am we were doing our first Australia taking our stories. work for CNN out of Atlanta,” Erder said. “Next “In those days the emphasis was on news, which was proving ourselves in Manila in 1991 [Mount provided the backbone of the company. We also did Pinatubo eruption] where we worked for competing 28
THE CORRESPONDENT