2005-2006 NEWSLETTER
26/04/2006 The AGM was attended by 23 members with Tony deputising as secretary as Francis was absent. The increase in subscriptions (unchanged for 5 years) to cover the increased hall hire charge was accepted by the meeting. All the committee members were re-elected except for Peter who did not wish to continue on the committee. Roger Chapman was nominated and elected in his place. After the meeting closed, members formed teams for the summer project. Bob selected Don's Sign Language film as the zaniest film to win his traditional fuscia plants prize. Bernard showed his edited version of The Joker which was shot in the previous practical evening. A film about an interesting artist who paints lions, cats, dogs and aircraft was also shown. 19/04/2006 An excellent crop of 9 films were entered in the
last competition of the season. Some summary
stills are available. Neil and Laurie were the Stan Olman judges and
who, after very constructive comments on all the entries, nominated
Andy's film for his creative animation being very realistic and 'almost
Dr. Who standard'. The image shows Andy receiving the award from Geoff. 12/04/2006 15 members turned up with their cameras, props and weather proofs eager to get started after a wet dreary day. Three teams were formed and after tea the finished productions were reviewed. This had been the first experience of editing 'in camera' for many and they did not find it easy but did very well creating plenty of atmosphere and action. One video told a story of a woman being followed and held up for her box of Beechams Flu-Plus, another entitled The Ripper was a sinister plot which eventually revealed a dubious character who pounced to rip up paper. The third plot concerned Terry being hunted by torchlight and finally being realistically shot by Don with a pistol. Overall a useful and enjoyable exercise. 05/04/2006 Thanks to Dennis, the black box is now working again. About 20 hardy members turned up with their cameras and braved the arctic cold to capture footage which showed 'theatre' 'atmosphere' and 'creative potential'. They came back an hour later with some truly impressive results. Next week groups will try to produce a short story - edited in camera - using their creativity and things they learnt. 29/03/2006 Four entries were shown in the summer project competition.
Images below show Geoff presenting the award to Roger; and Roger with
his team. Some summary stills
are available. Phil had entered his Wormhole film into an
IAC competition as a club entry which won a silver+ award, along
with his The Sleeper fiction film which got a silver award.
Members watched a couple of European competition films to finish the
evening. 22/03/2006 Don showed members an interesting film about the role of the film editor, and how it had changed over the years. Six members attended the Staines interclub competition on Friday at which Geoff had to hand the trophy over to the Orpington Video & Film Makers who were judged worthy winners of the nine entries with their film Remember. Our entry Wormhole at Britwell Salome failed to make it into the top three despite getting the best audience reaction. 15/03/2006 Tony shared with members his experience of filming various events with personal connections which included rowing, triathlon, cabaret, skiing and flying. He illustrated problems of identification and participation with a variety of clips and films and concluded that it is often safer to have someone with a second camera to help capture these one-take events. 08/03/2006 Only 2 entries for the fiction competition and
at the start of showing the first one, the sound equipment failed.
After a delay, the projector was used to reproduce the sound and the
viewing proceeded culminating in a tie between the two films. Below
shows Dennis and Phil receiving the award. Neil and Brian were the
Stan Olman judges who nominated Phil's The Sleeper for his
original idea of using rewind several times to help tell the story
and the choice of music. Summary
stills are available. The rest of the evening was filled with
miscellaneous films of various lengths including one which won a prize
for animation at the Edinburgh Film Festival. 01/03/2006 Members appreciated the second visit from Robbie and Dave of In-Deep for introducing them to the Sony Vegas editing system. Their enthusiasm for the product and its simplicity of use impressed the audience. Facilities of the associated DVD Architect application were demonstrated towards the end of the evening. 22/02/2006 Don provided several films illustrating how animation films are made. The first one was about medievel knights done using drawings in the style of stained glass windows; then two commercials contrasting the use of drawings and 3D models which put our recent attempts at a commercial into perspective! The final film was about the making of the 2002 Disney 80-minute animation film. Geoff had also received a thank-you letter about the film show for the St Andrews Fellowship on 9th Feb. which was much appreciated. 15/02/2006 Neil introduced Andy Bolden of Glaxo Smith Kline who judged the dozen entries for the 1-minute commercial competition. Andy gave his comments on several of the films and judged the Jekyll and Hyde one the best. The evening closed with some Hollywood Special FX films and a cartoon. A 2-page spread article about the club was in the Reading Chronicle. 08/02/2006 Another crop of 8 very good entries for the documentary
competition one being on film. Laurie and Geoff were the Stan Olman
judges who decided that though the standard of the entries was high,
no entry was exceptional and warranted a nomination. Below shows Neil
receiving the award from Geoff. Summary
stills are available. 01/02/2006 There were half a dozen cameras in use as various members filmed shots for a 1-minute commercial. Edited results will be shown on 14th Feb with other films which have been made at locations away from the club meeting place. The meeting closed with the showing of the making of Creature Comforts 2. On Sunday various members posed for a photo for the Reading Chronicle reporter. The annual dinner entertainment photo gallery is available 25/01/2006 Andrew of Canopus gave members a very proficient demonstration of the facilities in the entry level editing system Let's Edit 2 as well as the full version Edius Pro 3. A copy of each was given away together with some T-shirts via a draw.
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18/01/2006 A very good attendance for the 4 minute competition
which attracted 13 very varied entries, two of which were on film.
Neil and Brian were the Stan Olman judges and two nominations were
made, one for Mark with his moving graphics achieved on film, and
one for Geoff for the exceptional quality of his images which still
remained after several conversions from HD to DVD. Some summary
stills are available. Alec Kingham from the Reading Chronicle
attended the meeting and we look forward to seeing his write up. Well
done Laurie, seen below receiving his award from Geoff. 11/01/2006 After a long seasonal break, members enjoyed an entertaining presentation from Laurie and Brian about making corporate videos. They illustrated their talk with a BP HSE Induction video and an IPN Promo film. Adding extra value was then exemplified with problems of adding subtitles in Japanese and Chinese, and personalisation for particular companies and countries. The evening was closed with a film about the Buxton Puppet Festival. 14/12/2005 Members were given a brief talk about what computer to use for video editing and some suggestions on what software to use. Neil then showed some historical adverts for Beechams from the 1960s to the present day for ideas on the 1-min commercial exercise next year. The final meeting of 2005 ended with the showing of a film about Ewelm - a good example of a film about a place which was familiar to the cycling members. A very Happy Christmas to all our members. 07/12/2005 It was great to see so many entries for the holiday
competition, some from new members. At the previous meeting there
were only 4 entries known about and it appears that several members
made an effort to produce something to make up the numbers, resulting
in a total of 11 entries including one on film. Laurie and Neil were
the Stan Olman judges despite Neil having an entry. They had one nomination
for the award which was for Dave's short film Venice which
was particularly creative in its use of colour and picture in picture.
Many a holiday film is made as a personal memory for the author which
does not always make for good viewing by other people, and is often
rather lengthy. Summary stills are now available soon. Below, Geoff receives the award from Laurie. 30/11/2005 Alan illustrated his 3D presentation with an impressive
display of cameras and viewing devices, and members experienced seeing
several 3D films (using the special glasses) including an early Tomorrows
World TV treatment of the subject and a very technical explanation
of how it all works. The picture shows Alan adjusting his 8mm projector
for the showing of a short colour film viewed by the audience through
polarised glasses 23/11/2005 Members were grateful to Phil for stepping in at short notice to give a very entertaining presentation about making fiction films, illustrated by his prize winning film The Sleeper. A lively discussion developed as he presented his views on film ideas; crew; actors; locations; equipment; props and the various production stages. He suggested some hilarious ideas for films by reference to stories in the day's newspaper. 16/11/2005 Dennis illustrated his explanation about what the club black box does with a short film, and followed it with an example of an abstract video Kaleidomania which demonstrated his Blue Peter talent for inventiveness. He finally showed The Great Pram Race which was a hilarious Benny Hill style film made by his friend the late Edward Agius of the Finchley Cine Society. Don recommended a book What Shall I Film? for script writing ideas and illustrated his suggestions with several films including the making of the 3 minute BBC South item about his private cinema which Dennis had filmed. 09/11/2005 Seven entries for the 1-minute competition produced
a very varied set of topics, which made it difficult to judge. There
were ties for 2nd and 3rd places. The picture shows Andy with his
plaque (seated as he was hobbling on crutches). Phil and Don were
the Stan Olman judges and they nominated Dave's film Art over Florence for the relationship of the imagery and music to the art. Some summary
stills are available. Members were asked to think of ideas for
the 1-minute commercial challenge later in the season, and also asked
to acquire green and red glasses for viewing 3D images for Alan's
presentation soon.(Left eye should be Red, Right, Green). 02/11/2005 After seeing the probable future of video last week, members were shown a sample of what was achieved 100 years ago with a documentary about the restoration of Michell and Kenyon film negatives by the British Film Institute with clips illustrating the history of cinema. 26/10/2005 Members were enlightened about the values of High
Definition by in-deep with an excellent presentation illustrated by clips of the Flying
Scotsman. The difference between inframe and long GOP formats were
explained along with editing considerations. It was good to see several
new prospective young members who contributed to a lively discussion. 22/10/2005 Six members enjoyed seeing the films as Reading
successfully retained the Gateway trophy at the triangular competition
hosted by Staines. The results were:
The picture shows Ken Ferguson presenting Geoff with the trophy 19/10/2005 Don showed members a film about the making of 007 Bond films. Though the budget and advertising for club films are vastly different, there were plenty of general lessons about storyboarding and production which are relevant to the making of shorter films. 12/10/2005 The first competition of the season was rather disappointing as there was only one entry which Laurie and Neil as the Stan Olman judges deemed not worthy of a nomination though they liked the idea behind the flm. Kate (last years winner) wanted feedback on a film she had made in Japan about the Chistmas Lectures. Members then had another viewing (some people had not seen it) of the Italian wedding and also saw an interesting offering about The Housewife from another prospective new member. These were discussed. 05/10/2005 Members were grateful to Howard and his wife for visiting the club from up North and giving such an interesting talk about audio and microphones. He personally uses Sennheiser for capturing wild life sounds, and used recordings to demonstrate his points and the improvements his preamplifier could make to the hiss level. Questions prompted a lively discussion and it was nice to be able to welcome some more potential members. 28/09/2005 An excellent guide to making the most of your camera covering the pros and cons of auto and manual settings was well received by an appreciative audience which contained some prospective new members. The slides of the presentation are available as a pdf file. The points award table for this season is now established, having started with some tea makers from the tail end of last season 21/09/2005 The new season started with a pleasant social with plenty of food and drink and time to catch up with people after the summer break. Two films were shown, The Maharajah's Well and the Clayfield Copse Woodlands Day film, both made by club members. It was disappointing not to be able to welcome any new potential members. 07/09/2005 The programme was finalised at the committee meeting. Congratulations go to Phil for his 2nd place in the Canon 3-min competition 08/06/2005 At the committee meeting it was decided that the web site would benefit from a new apperance and that the use of frames should be avoided. All the pages have now been restructured and undergone some standardisation, and a few errors have been corrected along the way including a lost page from an early issue of the magazine. A write-up about the filming of the panto has been added to Snippets. Apologies for any other errors which may have crept in. The cycling gallery has been extended 01/06/2005 At the first committee meeting, the committee roles were established. Peter Marsh volunteered to stay on the committee and remain as Treasurer for another season. Next season starts on Tuesday 20th September. A very provisional programme is available to allow committee members to identify available slots for club evenings which are their responsibility. |
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