Queenstown-based television producer and director Julian Grimmond went to great pains to deliver an episode of the reality TV show The Amazing Race, and it has paid off.
Grimmond, who left his family in Arrowtown last year for his second gruelling four-month schedule producing and directing the popular CBS series, has just been nominated for an American Primetime Emmy award.
Nominated alongside executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer in the outstanding reality-competition programme category, Grimmond produced and directed The Amazing Race 3 episode filmed in Vietnam last September.
It was the episode when Grimmond had his ear "sliced in half" during a filming accident when a boat ran aground while the crew was setting the course, catapulting him into a metal bar.
He was taken to a hospital, received 34 stitches to his head and ear and immediately returned to filming.
The 55th annual Emmy Awards, administered by the American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, will be announced in Los Angeles on September 21.
Grimmond, picked by CBS to jointly lead an international crew, said it was tremendous to be recognised by his peers in the US primetime market.
To manage such an exciting global show was "exhilarating and challenging".
He and the crew were on the road non-stop, working 19- to 20-hour days from 6am until 1am, he said.
"I think I had three days off in the whole four months of filming."
He filmed The Amazing Race 2 in New Zealand, and has spent eight months filming The Amazing Race 3 and 4 over the past year.
- NZPA
New Zealander in line for Emmy
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