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Rachel has recently returned to her producing roots under her own production company Isola Productions, in Auckland, New Zealand, after launching a variety of shows for South Pacific Pictures; critically acclaimed "Educators" of which Series Two is a finalist for 'Best Comedy' at the NZTV Awards, was a finalist for 'Best Streaming Comedy' at the 2021 New York Festivals TV & Film Awards, where Series One was awarded a bronze medal), comedy series "Mean Mums" which is now in its third season for TV3 and "Head High" which completed two seasons on TV3 to positive reviews using words like "ground-breaking, critically acclaimed, super-diverse".
Prior to this Rachel was Head of Development for South Pacific Pictures, overseeing development of all South Pacific Pictures' dramas, including "Westside", "The Bad Seed", and the international co-productions "800 Words" (TVNZ/Channel 7), "The Sounds" (Acorn/CBC Television/PrimeNZ) and "The Brokenwood Mysteries" (Prime/Acorn). As well, Rachel was executive producer for Kura Productions launch of drama "Ahikaroa" and comedy series "Only in Aotearoa" (MaoriTV) and SPP's comedy series "Word Up", Shortland Street's 25 Year Anniversary Documentary "Inside an Icon" and the "Comedy Bloopers" Special (TVNZ2), two seasons of the documentary series "Forensics NZ" (Prime), and both seasons of independent production company Culture Factory's "Baby Mama's Club".
For the period 2009 to 2013, Rachel spent five years as Head of Drama and Comedy Commissioning at TV3. During this period, she was Network Executive Producer for the launch of the channel's Friday night comedy line-up, commissioning and executive producing series like "Super City", "Hounds", "Golden", "Sunny Skies", "7Days", "Jono and Ben at Ten", "Funny Roots", "Comedy for Cure Kids Red Nose Day" as well as multiple episodes of stand-up "After Hours", "Ben & Steve World Famous", "AotearoHa" Specials and Comedy Galas. For the network she was also executive producer for the second series of "The Jaquie Brown Diaries", the last two series of "Outrageous Fortune" and commissioned and executive produced for the network, many local drama series like "The Almighty Johnsons", "The Blue Rose", "Hope & Wire", "Underbelly NZ" and "Harry".
Rachel began her drama career line-producing high quality one-hour dramas for TVNZ1 including Niki Caro's "Plain Tastes" which was formative in Caro's (Whale Rider, The Zoo Keeper's Wife, Mulan) directing career, as well as being associate producer on Caro's first feature "Memory & Desire". Rachel has produced 11 short films, including Niki Caro's "Old Bastards", Hweiling Ow's "Vaspy" and Katie Wolfe's acclaimed "Redemption" which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival, has screened at many more including Sundance, and won best short drama at Imaginative, Canada.
After her early years producing at Frame Up Films, Rachel went on to produce comedic drama, like the one-off comedy "Love Mussel" and two series of the award-winning television drama series "Secret Agent Men" (26 half-hour episodes), both for TV3. Under her own production company Isola Productions, Rachel produced many documentaries like "Dawn Raids", and "Life, Death & a Lung Transplant", one-off drama-docs like "The Benefits Man" and "To Catch a Con Man", multiple factual series, as well as the critically acclaimed 13-episode half-hour drama series "The Market" for TVNZ2 and "Ride With The Devil", both finalists for Best Drama Programme at the NZ Film & TV Awards. At the NZ TV Awards Rachel has won Best Children Programme three times, Best Short Film and been a finalist many times over.
Rachel Jean has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Art History, a Master's degree with Honours in Film and Television, and a Diploma in Media Studies
