As the year hurtles ever close towards it conclusion we still have some film business to take care of here at OVFM, in the form of three annual club competitions, created in tribute to past club members.
These three very different contests give club members a chance to test their creativity under explicit criteria and are not as easy as one may think, making this one of the unique and interesting challenges thrown down every year. As always, the three prizes up for grabs are:
Kath Jones Cup
Mike Turner Plate
Vic Treen Trophy
The rules for each of these can be found HERE which we ask you to adhere to, otherwise the subject matter of your film is entirely in your hands, and you can enter a film for one, two or all three categories.
Last year’s instalment had a disappointingly meagre response from club members, with one category receiving just ONE entry, making it a sadly predictable outcome when the winner was announced at the Oscars. So, perhaps this year we can do something about that and make this a real hot competition to end the year on?
Of course, if you are bringing a film this week then PLEASEREPLY TO THIS POST in the comments/reply section below, letting us know the film’s run time, format (DVD, Blu-ray) and picture ratio (4:3 or 16:9). This is a great help for us when planning the evening out and helping things run smoothly so if you could do us this courtesy it would be greatly appreciated.
Also, members are asked to submit their entries to the Annual Competition to Brenda at this meeting. the entry forms can be downloaded HERE(this is a Members’ Only page so be sure you are logged in).
Thanks for reading and good luck to all who enter a film/films.
Sometimes I wish I my mind would switch off when we discuss project ideas or here are calls for a film script to suit a competition theme at our club meetings; it always ends with many sleepless nights and unnecessary stress – for me at least. Yet, rather annoyingly when the end product comes together so well and I realise something pretty good grew from a brief image flashing in my neurologically aberrant brain, perhaps I should cut my fertile imagination some slack.
For the uninitiated or those with short memories, way back in April, our club treasurer David “Offshore Account” Laker was hosting the club meeting and mentioned former OVFM Chairman Chris Coulson has acquired a live(ish) dinosaur which he named Dexter and had kindly offered to allow the club to film his new pet one club evening.
“If it wasn’t for me, he never would have even heard of Oscar Schindler!”
The annual North vs. South competition was also a point of discussion and we needed scripts to fulfil the theme of “Out Of The Blue”. David quipped that if we could combine the two ideas it would save a lot of time. So of course my brain defied all orders to sit quietly and let someone else respond to David’s call to arms, and immediately produced an image of Dexter leaning over two shocked and scared looking people.
My deviant grey matter also decided these people should be parents of a young woman introducing her new boyfriend to them, Dexter being the boyfriend. By the time I got home that night a half-formed scenario occupied my head, and eventually I was forced into submission. A few days later I sat before my PC, opened up Celtx and began to transfer the mini-film playing in my head into script form and within a matter of hours I had the first draft completed.
At the club meeting on June 7th I bravely submitted my script – now entitled MEET DEXTER – to the club for consideration. I’m the world’s worst public orator so heaven knows how my pitch sounded to my fellow club members but I wasn’t confident I had conveyed my idea successfully, yet somehow I was persuaded to keep working on it and begin the storyboarding and blocking.
With MEET DEXTER apparently going ahead after all, we needed to begin securing the vital assets of the production, such as location, crew and cast. Simon “Snapper” Earwicker, our chairman and reigning Hide & Seek champion, suggested we contact Olive Allen, widow of OVFM stalwart Derek, to see if we could use her garden which I was told was “quite big”.
Quite big? Try @!%*$?# HUGE!! It ran on for miles and would divert off into another spacious hideaway which in turn would reveal a verdant labyrinth, shaded by a canopy of towering trees and divided by thick hedges. I actually discovered a tribe of pygmies settled in the undergrowth behind the garden shed, who thought they were in the Amazon, blaming their Sat Nav for not suggesting they turn left at Albuquerque.
Dexter defies all biological reason and precedent by giving birth
But it was the centrepiece of the garden, a stone paved square with surrounding low walls that sold me on this wonderful expanse of land being perfect for the shoot and Olive was gracious enough to confirm her permission for us to use it. So August 16th was marked in the diary, the day OVFM, the actors, Chris and 7 ft dinosaur would descend upon Chez Allen.
At this point it seemed that only I was aware that this was a club film and not a personal project so I was getting a little worried no-one had volunteered to help as per the request on the website. Thankfully David put the word out at the annual garden party and without the use of incriminating photos, managed to secure our crew.
Next was the casting. I had asked a few people that I had worked with on prior films if they would be interested but they were either on holiday on that filming date or were still traumatised from working with me before. I put out casting calls on social media with sadly little response, aside from two women I had to pass on for logistical reasons.
Luckily Anna Littler came to the rescue by referring me to Blitz And Bananas alumna Sue Gray to play Sandra and Hannah Whitehead, a budding actress and model to play Tilly. Rather fortuitously, Hannah has an older sister Beth, also an actress, so that was an extra role fulfilled too. The final piece of the puzzle was our male lead, the call answered by David Wrighton to play Ron after I e-mailed a number of local theatre groups for actors.
This is what happens when you let OVFM into your garden!
How would the shoot go? Find out in part two coming soon!
The 2016 North vs South final is upon us, taking place on Sunday December 4th!
OVFM has five films entered in to this year’s contest on the theme of “Out Of The Blue” and it has been a while since our name has been on the winner’s list so let’s hope 2016 is our year!!
As ever the venue is Farnborough Village Hall, High St, Farnborough Kent BR6 7BB.
A map if needed can be found HERE! (Ignore the picture in the side bar, that was taken across the road from the Village Hall).
Those attending are asked to arrive by 2.30pm for 3:00 pm start. Club members who have entered a film are granted free admission (non-club members and a partner are covered by their film entry fee) otherwise entry is £5, which includes tea and coffee.
Please contact Freddy Beard ASAP if you wish to attend in order to gauge the numbers for seating and the refreshments.
We’ve now reached the last of the four qualifying rounds of the annual Top 10 Competition meaning this is the final opportunity club members have to enter their film ahead of the final on January 10th 2017.
The remaining listed club invited to submit a film for this round are as follows:
Charlie & Nellie Caseley
David Laker
Malcolm Goodwin
Basil Doody
Freddy Beard
Harold & Maisie Trill
Colin Jones
Lee Relph
John & Sylvia Greengrass
Peggy Parmenter
If, for whatever reason, you haven’t submitted a film for this year’s contest and still wish to do so, then this is also you last chance to enter.
As ever if you can’t make your designated round be sure to let either Brenda know ahead of time or reply to this post below, or you have a film ready early, please bring it along as chances are it will be welcomed for screening time permitting.
And if you are bringing a film this week then PLEASEREPLY TO THIS POST in the comments/reply section below, letting us know the film’s run time, format (DVD, Blu-ray) and picture ratio (4:3 or 16:9). This is a great help for us when planning the evening out and helping things run smoothly so if you could do us this courtesy it would be greatly appreciated.
The previous results in this year’s contest can be found HERE.
Thank you and good luck to everyone who enters a film!
Another new film competition for IAC members (and non-IAC members) for the South has been created by Tim Stannard & Alan Colgrave but this one is slightly different.
Instead of having to burn a disc buy a jiffy bag then toddle off to the post office to buy the correct stamps in order to send it, this is one competition you can enter from the safety of your own home! As the legend above says, this is an online competition where you films are submitted by uploading them to YouTube, Vimeo, et al. and all you need to do is supply a link.
The is a very small entry fee involved for both IAC and non-IAC members which is easily payable through PayPal and such, making this one of the easier competitions to participate in. The closing date is November 30th 2106.
All the information, including how to submit your film, can be found on the official site HERE
If you wish to enter but don’t have anywhere to upload your video there is an OVFM YouTube account. Please speak to Vice Chairman Sam Brown to request the log in details and any other assistance in uploading your videos to YouTube.
With this being the inaugural run of this competition it would be great if we could encourage as much interest as possible for Tim and Alan which perhaps will be the start of a new annual tradition among our Southern circuit of amateur filmmakers.
Thanks for reading and good luck to all who enter on behalf of OVFM!
Believe it or not we haven’t had a dedicated archive evening since June 24th 2014! There have been a couple of club meetings in between then where the archive helped fill in some time when the allotted films had only taken up half of the meeting but this will be the first time in nearly two and half years where the sole programme will be compiled from films found in our extensive vault of gems from yesteryear.
However this also gives YOU the chance to dictate what we see on this evening as we are once again extending the opportunity to you to trawl the archive HERE (this is in the members’ section so be sure you are logged in to access it), pick a film you’d like to see and lets us know (time permitting of course)! It’s that simple.
Our regular projectionist Andy “Elementary My Dear” Watson has already sent out an e-mail to everyone giving you advance notice of this but he has decided to swan off on holiday rather than run the show, so he has left that to David “Offshore Account” Laker instead. So please send your requests to David via e-mail or by replying to this post below, no later than Sunday November 6th to give David some time to source the films and put the programme together.
It’s been a while since we’ve held a session like this in OVFM but with a few new members now among our ranks, it’s time to one again open up the floor to our resident experts who are willing to share their wisdom and years of experience with the rest of us in the art of filmmaking.
The line-up has yet to be confirmed but we can hope that previous contributors club president Reg “Bomber” Lancaster and Professor Mike Shaw will be willing candidates to hold court and answer our questions as best they can.
Whatever the subject, be it editing, setting up the camera, framing, composition, getting the lighting, etc. if there is anything that has been bothering you, or you don’t quite understand or simply are on the look out for advice on your next filmmaking related purchase, do be sure to take advantage of this opportunity to get the answers and guidance you need.
So get your thinking caps on and we’ll see you on Tuesday with your questions!
It’s round three of the Top Ten already and last time we had two entries so hopefully we don’t have a commensurate number of films for this session. Perhaps with the summer holidays now over club members will have something to share that documents what they got up to while the sun was out a few months back!
Maybe we’ll find out if anyone from the following list will oblige us:
Jim Morton Robertson
John Bunce
Kuldip Kaur
Barbara Darby
Brian Pfeiffer
Richard & Jess Pugh
Ann & John Epton
Peter Mitchell
Barbara Walker
Annabelle Lancaster
Roger & Brenda Wheatley
As ever if you can’t make your designated round be sure to let either Brenda know ahead of time or reply to this post below, or you have a film ready early, please bring it along as chances are it will be welcomed for screening time permitting.
And if you are bringing a film this week then PLEASEREPLY TO THIS POST in the comments/reply section below, letting us know the film’s run time, format (DVD, Blu-ray) and picture ratio (4:3 or 16:9). This is a great help for us when planning the evening out and helping things run smoothly so if you could do us this courtesy it would be greatly appreciated.
The previous results in this year’s contest can be found HERE.
Thank you and good luck to everyone who enters a film!
In one of the more egregious cases of “keeping up with the Joneses”, Basil Doody follows in the footsteps of Colin “Colin” Jones by celebrating his 50th Anniversary with OVFM.
1966 was quite the year – Doctor Who fans were stunned when William Hartnell morphed into Patrick Troughton before their eyes; the English football team actually won a match and The Beatles effectively kicked off the psychedelic era with their seminal album Revolver.
It was also the year that Basil Doody walked into the OCS club room for the first time. One member who was pleased to greet Basil was Colin Jones, since this meant he was no longer the new guy and could pass all the menial tasks onto Basil. For the next year, in between learning how to make films, Basil was also responsible for sweeping the ceiling, feeding the club platypus, exorcising the toilets and watering the fish.
Over the years Basil built up a library of films in which he either starred or directed, whilst became in demand as a voice over artist, although his voice-under skills were less in demand. Ever the team player, Basil would help other club members with their films and eventually would form a small group called The Gremlins with Pete Greenway (no relation).
While comedy was Basil’s favoured genre he also took a keen interest in special effects (but had to give it back as he failed to ask permission first) with his “Sperrymental Films”, as well as his famed “films cut to music” and his not so famed “films cut to ribbons”.
50 years worth of films is quite a lot to look back over, it would be a very long evening for a retrospective, so the Legion Of Doom (aka the OVFM Committee) have threatened Basil to narrow it down to a two hour sessions and he graciously acquiesced.
So join us for a special evening of archive films from one of the club’s most prolific and well regarded filmmakers, and for a slice of cake (we can’t afford a whole cake after Colin’s one broke the bank last year) in celebration of Basil Doody’s 50th anniversary with OVFM.
One of the most important dates in the OVFM calendar is our annual Autumn Show where we share the fruits of our labours from a year of busy filmmaking, along with some gems from our archive with the public. As the nights are getting darker and colder you’ll need something to brighten them up so why not join us for another evening of films from the very best local amatuer filmmaking talent.
In addition to the usual array of top quality films we will have a mini-Showreel looking back at the big events of the year including the Queen’s 90th Birthday celebrations.
This year’s event will take place on FRIDAY 14th OCTOBERat 7:00 for 7.30 pm
Club members get in free but for guests and non-members the tickets are £5 – which includes refreshments – and are available by making a request via e-mail at info@ovfm.org.uk or by telephone on 01689 837730 or 01689 813616. Don’t leave it too late as they tend to get snapped up very quickly!
And of course there is our famous raffle where a selection of wonderful prizes are up for grabs provided you have that all important winning ticket!
If any OVFM club members or our external friends wish to help publicise this event please download a printable version of the poster HERE (open the file, right click and save).
For an entertaining and sociable evening do join us on October 16th and bring along your friends and family!
