People behind your screen (1)

Press, Volume Cx, Issue 32424, 10 October 1970, Page 4

KIM GABARA was bom in Calgary in 1943 and was training to be a commercial artist when he took a part-time job in television and that persuaded him to leave his art college and work for the local television station. He was attracted by the pace and the possibilities of TV; and he went through the television mill cameraman, sound technician, film editor, finally becoming a director. This process took three years; but he became the youngest television director in Calgary, a city about the same size as Christchurch. “We did everything there,” he said. "Live programmes, news, women’s programmes, children’s, pop music, musical shows. Television has been established in Canada considerably longer than in New Zealand, and so there were many live programmes to be directed.’’) He had a very good, reason for coming to New Zealand. In Calgary he met a New Zealand girl, a physiotherapist from Dunedin, who was on a working holiday, and on the way home. They were married in New Zealand, and Kim Gabara began his association with CHTV3 in June, 1968,

His first job was directing “Town and Around” and he later took over the producing of this programme, and remained as producer until it ended in 1969. One of his tasks this year has been “Toybox” and, in more recent months, “Bumper to Bumper,” the ‘motorists’ programme which began last Wednesday. Kim Gabara enjoys children’s programmes, and child-, ren’s programmes are what he would most like to do. “They appeal to me,” he says. “You have to create, to use your imagination; and it is satisfying to see some fantasy come to life. Children’s animated programmes take more work than almost anything else, but the results are I more rewarding.”

Both Kim Gabara and his wife Joan are keen on skiing, and he is “mildly fanatic” about squash rackets. “This may tend to make me sound athletic, but I am far from that —it’s simply fun to get out and bang that ball around ” Kim Gabara prefers to watch television solely as entertainment and likes children’s programmes tetter than deep, searching documentaries. But he has a soft spot for “Softly Softly,” in particular.