Be it a feature film, a reality series, a podcast or live event, we provide every project with just the same degree of passion, patience and loyalty. No exceptions.

As a result, our output is as unapologetically mercurial as our two Founders. Less a slate, more a family.

In fact, the only thing our offspring have in common is that each project is personally shaped by both David Nobay and Stephen Tate.

So, every creative decision benefits from over 60 years at the sharp end of steering big, global brands and big, famous TV shows.

It’s an unlikely alchemy that lets us conceptualise, craft and create with an altogether different slant.

A unique perspective for what’s possible in the space between brand and entertainment that’s as commercial as it is exciting.

Co-Founder

DAVID NOBAY

Instead, I ended up on a very different global tour. As a Creative Director, in advertising. On the bright side, that’s advertising pre-algorithm. Back in the days when pirates were prized and budgets allowed for even the most outrageous ideas to be realized.
Special times. In all honesty, it never felt like a job. Until, finally, it did. But by then, advertising had funded a thirty-year adventure; from Hong Kong, back to London, then San Francisco, Melbourne, New York and, ultimately, Sydney.
By the time I stepped away (or was pushed, depending on who you talk to), I’d managed to attain enough alleged accolades to believe I’d achieved what most people might accept as a meaningful career:
Archive Magazine had ranked me amongst their top ten most published copywriters of the Millennium. Saatchi and Saatchi felt moved to promote me to their prestigious Worldwide Creative Board. Perhaps thanks to Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney being crowned “The Australian Agency of the Decade” whilst under my creative watch.
For a couple of years, I was ranked the “No.1 most awarded Executive Creative Director in Australasia”. In 2010, AdAge were even generous enough to include me in their “Top 50 Creative Thinkers Worldwide” alongside Lady GaGa and Sir Jony Ives, no less.
I now suspect I was successful because, ironically, I was never that obsessed with advertising. Truth is, whilst I was still signing off million-dollar ads, I wrote a stage play for Australia’s National Institute of the Dramatic Arts, created a series of award-winning short films based on my poetry for ABC Arts channel and somehow pulled off Sculpture By The Sea’s first fully immersive artwork over the cliffs of Bondi.
Somewhere amongst the chaos, I even managed to co-found the New York-based NGO creativespirit-us.org, which finds employment in the creative industry for neuro-diverse talent. I can’t have been completely insane, because in 2021, FAST-COMPANY named Creative Spirit as one of the world’s best innovative organisations on the planet.
Not surprisingly, some concerned onlookers (my wife, for one) screamed “when will you finally decide who you want to be?”
Which brings us to today. To this website. To Favourite Child Studio. To the creative company I founded in 2025 with my partner, the equally mercurial Stephen Tate.
A place where a schizophrenic slate of projects is nothing to apologize for. Instead, it’s the very thing that, we believe at least, makes every one of our creative offspring that little bit more unique.
Maybe we’re crazy. The proof will be in the proverbial pud. Which is something we’re baking, as you read this. Ideas, performances and platforms that we believe will define who we are more than words on a website ever can.
So, that’s enough from me.
Unless we get to work together, of course.

Co-Founder

STEPHEN TATE

An exhilarating run that afforded me the honour to guide the evolution and re-invention of everything from global franchises like Idol, Big Brother, Amazing Race, I’m a Celebrity and Bachelor, to more local fare like Bondi Rescue, Body Hack with Todd Sampson and Rove Live. Oh, and somewhere in between, produce massive live, televised events like Aria and AACTA awards. To say, I’m happiest “on the tools” is an understatement.
Not that Australia has always been my centre of gravity when it comes to producing. Before I was deep, Downunder, I cut my teeth in London for seven years, working for ITV and The BBC with living legends like Sir David Frost and Cilla Black. Not bad company for a young bloke from Perth to truly hone his craft.
In retrospect, I now see that growing as a dyslexic kid who left school at 14 and grew up in arguably one of the world’s most remote cities, injected me with a born sense that communication was not something to be taken for granted. Indeed, WA’s very isolation gave me a heightened appreciation for the power of global media: a place where you felt the world wasn’t looking, so it was up to me to make my voice heard.
That same “anything’s possible” mindset won me a spot at Murdoch University doing Arts, despite my lack of secondary education. A magical opportunity, where I was given free rein to try completely mad things, like producing a Shakespearian play and touring it throughout Indonesia. Or forming the Pagan Heart Theatre Company in Fremantle. It’s also where I got my introduction to Radio. Even today, forty years later, still a true passion and, ironically, the muse for so many of the highly visual shows I’ve cast.
As both a producer and a creator, I’ve come to realise that creativity is ultimately about the elusive alchemy of managed chaos.
It’s no-doubt why Nobby and I have been so prolific since first casually teaming up back in 2024. It’s why our current slate is so seemingly schizophrenic: from unscripted shows to a scripted feature, and even a major Arts event.
It’s why we both love our company name: Favourite Child. Because every one of our projects, however seemingly eccentric or unique, is equally cherished by both parents.
Finally, it’s why I wanted us to be known as a studio. Because, above all, we’re in the business of making things.
Hopefully, with you.