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William Fitzwater William Fitzwater i(A143231 works by) (a.k.a. Bill Fitzwater)
Gender: Male
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1 form y separately published work icon The Maestro's Company Marcus Cooney , Sue Woolfe , Sheila Sibley , Marcia Hatfield , Hugh Stuckey , ( dir. William Fitzwater ) Australia : Independent Productions , 1985 Z1819592 1985 series - publisher film/TV children's fantasy

According to Moran, in his Guide to Australian TV Series, 'This hybrid series revolves around a company of opera singers (incarnated as puppets) who live in a disused theatre. They are found by two children who are their only audience as they proceed through thirteen different operas'.

The program was designed by Marcia Hatfield as a way of introducing child viewers to opera, and ran through such productions as Il Trovatore, Carmen, Aida, and I Pagliacci.

Moran notes that SBS, which purchased the series, ran it in an early evening timeslot during the traditionally poor summer season, but that the series did sell well to overseas markets.

1 form y separately published work icon Tarflowers Terry Larsen , Anne Brooksbank , ( dir. William Fitzwater et. al. )agent 1985 Z1203522 1985 single work film/TV young adult fantasy

Kev and Big Dog do their rounds every day, collecting scraps from the neighbourhood garbage bins and then beautifying the suburb with murals. Four-year-old Mary likes to help, but Mary will soon have to go to school. Kev decorates the schoolyard with tarflower murals, to the horror of the school authorities. But just as they're about to punish Kev, the tarflowers burst into life, so everyone can see their magic.

According to Patricia Edgar,

The film was to be shot on videotape as the special effects would have been expensive to produce on film. [...] When I came to Sydney to check on the production, Tom was worried about the coverage the director was achieving. Every scene was filmed in a long take, with no close-ups; the director said it was a personal style, but it meant that, when the scenes came together, the film was about thirty minutes longer than it should have been. The only way to shorten it was to cut out scenes completely, and then the film didn't make sense. I had to sack the director and try to make sense of the footage we had. Anne Brooksbank was brought in to write a narration to unify the film. Geoff Bennett, who had done well with On Loan and was available at very short notice, became a consultant director.

Source: Patricia Edgar, Bloodbath: A Memoir of Australian Television, Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 2006, p.169.

1 form y separately published work icon A Hard God Peter Joseph Kenna , ( dir. William Fitzwater ) Sydney : Australian Broadcasting Commission , 1981 6976843 1981 single work film/TV

Telemovie adaptation of Kenna's play about a sixteen-year-old working-class Irish-Australian boy falling in love with his best friend.

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