Canvas Magazine (the New Zealand Herald magazine supplement) had a great article about Rob and his contribution for the filming industry in Auckland. Check out the article which features mentions of Lucy, Xena, Legend of the Seeker and of course Spartacus Blood and Sand:
Canvas Magazine - 31 October 2009
West Side Story
While most Auckland businesses have spent the past year with the recession blues, the city's film production industry -- our so-called Westywood -- has been quietly prospering, partly thanks to the man who gave us Hercules and Xena. But, as GREG DIXON finds, the industry is short of space for future growth
IN SHOWBIZ, glamour is just another I special effect. On-screen and on the I red carpet, the business is one of alluring fantasies and luminous stars. Off-screen -- in, say, a warehouse in Auckland's drab, industrial suburb of Mt Wellington on a wet October I morning -- film and telly look much like factory work.
American TV producer Rob Tapert is walking me -- at speed -- through a soundstage converted from this particular warehouse, one where he's shooting parts of his latest TV fantasy series, the sword, sand and sex epic Spartacus. I am, apparently, the first New Zealand journalist to get this tour. And while I was grateful to Tapert -- the guy behind Hercules and Xena and husband of Lucy Lawless -- for bothering to make the time, it is, as one often finds on film and television sets, rather less fun than you imagine.