David H Fowler

Several boyhood encounters with film crews visiting his home town of Nelson so fascinated David Henry Fowler, he set his sights on a career in filmmaking. In 1954, aged 17, he joined the National Film Unit as a production trainee, and set about learning the craft of editing and writing for film.

The first film he directed was short trailer Picking a Winner in 1956; a more substantial early effort as director was The Big Mill (1957) which was released as Pictorial Parade No. 63. At that time the Pictorial Parade magazine series was the staple output of the National Film Unit, with a new issue released each month.

Fowler wrote edited or directed roughly 40 items for the series between 1957 and 1962. One of the most significant was Pictorial Parade No. 129 – Twenty One Years (1962), marking the NFU’s 21st birthday.

For several years Fowler worked on a number of films in collaboration with cameraman John Hutchinson. He edited, and twice wrote commentaries for, the award-winning Jetobatics (1959), which Hutchinson had filmed and directed. In spite of winning an award at the Edinburgh Film Festival, distributors decided that the commentary of Jetobatics proved too flamboyant for English audiences, so a new soundtrack with revised commentary was recorded.

A three-man camera team (headed by Hutchinson) filmed seven matches of the 1959 British Lions tour. Short films of each match were rushed to the screen. All were edited by Fowler, who also wrote the commentaries. He filled the same roles for The Lion and the Kiwi (1959), the feature-length documentary record of the tour.

At the end of 1959 Fowler and Hutchinson set out for Asia to make colour film From Indonesia to India (1962), which chronicled New Zealand’s role in the Colombo Plan. They also worked together on the films of the French Rugby tour of 1961 and on Royal Return (1963) covering the Queen’s second visit to New Zealand.

In the early 1960s Fowler was associated with filming for television. Along with co-ordinating news items filmed by the NFU, mainly for Channel One in Wellington, he also directed These New Zealanders (1964), a series of six programmes fronted by Selwyn Toogood. By the time these programmes went to air Fowler had left the NFU to work for an advertising agency supervising television commercials. He then spent two years with production company Steeletelefilm in Auckland, as a film director and general manager.

In 1968 Fowler returned to the NFU to take up the position of Assistant Producer. Although administrative duties dominated, he occasionally engaged in creative roles, writing scripts for such films as The Crown in New Zealand (1970) and TV series The Years Back (1973).

Fowler was appointed overall producer at the NFU in 1972, and succeeded Geoffrey Scott as manager in November 1973. In the top role a good deal of his attention was taken up with major projects, including overseeing the production of the official feature film of the Commonwealth Games, Games 74, and planning and construction of the NFU’s new studios at Lower Hutt, which opened in October 1978.

The weight of responsibility took a toll, and eventually ill-health forced his early retirement as manager in May 1980. It was not an idle retirement. Fowler contributed his experience in less stressful, but active film roles as chairman of the NZ Film Archive board from 1981 to 1984, and as an alternate member of the NZ Film Commission. In January 1985 he was appointed manager of the Arts Council’s arts and business programme, a position he held at the time of his death on 11 March 1989, at the age of 52.

Writing and original research by Clive Sowry.

Sources include
Photograph of David H Fowler courtesy of Archives New Zealand/Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga, Wellington Office. Reference AAQT 6421 B57
‘Top Prize For N.Z. Film’ – The Evening Post, 16 September 1959, page 28
‘Fine Film On Lions’ N.Z. Tour’ – The Dominion, 20 October 1959, page 11
‘Glimpses Into Lives In Asian Countries’ – The Evening Post, 1 March 1960, page 11
‘FILM UNIT PRODUCER’ – The Evening Post, 9 August 1972, page 6
‘Film unit leader’ – The Dominion, 20 November 1973, page 2
Barry Clarke, ‘Film unit’s new boss is dedicated to the medium’ – The Dominion, 29 December 1973, page 4
‘CHAIRMAN’ - The New Zealand Film Archive Newsletter, No 8, April 1984, page 2
‘Arts world loses esteemed worker’ – The Dominion, 16 March 1989, page 15
David Gascoigne, ‘DAVID FOWLER’ (Obituary) – Onfilm April 1989, page 37 (Volume 6 Number 3)