OVFM Club Meeting Tuesday January 6th 2015

Posted on January 2, 2015October 16, 2020 by Lee Relph

As we welcome the New Year here at OVFM we kick off as always by taking care of some unfinished business vis-a-vis our annual Top Ten competition!

The qualifying rounds have taken place and the results can be found HERE with the ten highest scoring films from those individual rounds having now earned their spot in the final.

By now the ten finalists will have been notified and ironed out any tweaks based on the comments and feedback given ready to wow us once again on this night, en route to having their name declared the winner at the Oscars on March 17th!

Also club members are reminded that this meetings marks the deadline for the Annual Competition so please have your films and entry forms on hand to give to Brenda Wheatley. If you need an entry form you can download one HERE!

Finally another deadline is looming this week as the footage for the Newsreel is required so John Epton can begin compiling it in time for the Spring Show. So it would be appreciated if you have your footage and a short 20 second clip of you filming or performing “film related” activities ready to hand over to John on Tuesday. if you unsure of what is required then drop John a line and he’ll enlighten you.

Happy New Year to all and hope to see Tuesday!

OVFM Club Meeting October 28th 2014

Posted on October 23, 2014January 5, 2022 by Lee Relph

This week’s club meeting will feature a tutorial on the basics of Stop Motion Animation courtesy of our chairman Simon “Snapper” Earwicker!

Here’s Simon with a brief overview of what we can expect:

“I will regale the club with my knowledge and experience of the ever popular cinematic technique of stop motion animation.

So that’s the first five minutes taken care of, what shall we do for the rest of the evening?!

Seriously though I hope to demonstrate that stop motion animation is simple, requires only basic equipment and easy to find props and yet can be fun to do and even more fun to watch.

I’ll have some stop motion animations to show and I’ll be attempting to make a very short example during the space of the evening…fingers crossed!
So come armed with a small prop and you might find it starring in the film. “

So if you’ve any ambitions of being the next Ray Harryhausen or Nick Park then be sure to pop along to the meeting next Tuesday evening for what promises to be an interesting and educational session!

Free Film Making Coaching Sessions

Posted on October 15, 2014January 5, 2022 by Lee Relph

Free Coaching Sessions

OVFM will be running FREE Coaching Sessions in the New Year to show you how to get the most of your film material. This offer is not limited to those using a camcorder but also includes anyone filming on an SLR camera or smart phone. It also includes anyone who takes only still pictures but would like to know how they can put these together into a short ‘film’ by adding pan & zoom effects and adding music. These sessions are completely free and without any obligation.

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED:

Why are we offering these free sessions?

Most families probably only have a couple of faded photographs of grandparents or perhaps great grandparents and these will be passed to the next generation as family heirlooms. Our hope is that in years to come what is being filmed today will be regarded as similar family heirlooms by future generations.

You can’t fail to notice the boom in people using their smart phones or SLR cameras to film moving images nowadays, in addition to those using camcorders. Sometimes they are filming an important family event such as a wedding, sometimes it’s children or grandchildren, sometimes it’s a holiday scene or maybe it’s just something that has caught their eye. Some of those moving images should also become family heirlooms but too often they are deleted after a couple of viewings, in part because when watched the quality is disappointing.

Our members enjoy film making but do get frustrated when they see films that could have been so much better if a little more care had been taken with how the material was filmed and how it was edited. In the club we give feedback on members’ films to help them improve, and with these free sessions we are keen to pass on what we have learnt to the wider public.

We also want to show people who only take still pictures how they can put the images together using effects such as pan and zoom and adding music to create short ‘films’.

For the club we hope that when people meet us through these sessions, and see what the club has to offer, some will decide to join OVFM. However there is absolutely no obligation to join.

How can the sessions help you?

We can help you if you are not completely happy with the material you have filmed or what you do with it after filming. For example:

If what you filmed doesn’t look as good as you had hoped when you play it back.
If you don’t know how to edit out the parts you don’t want and move clips around to turn it into a memorable film that is worth preserving.
If you only take still pictures but would like to know how to arrange them in a show with pan and zoom effects and added music
If you want advice on cameras, software or any of the special effects you can create in your films.
If you don’t know how best to produce and store films for the long-term or how to convert old 8mm or 16mm films or VHS tape.

What will the sessions cover?

We will finalise the content when we have heard what people want to have covered. We will cover topics such as:

how to plan what you will film,

how to build a story with your film,

how to film without excessive camera movement, which spoils many films,

how to edit your film to cut out the unwanted parts and move clips around,

how to make a film from still pictures

how to store your film for longer-term viewing.

When and where will they be held?

Fortnightly from 8 to 10 on alternative Tuesday evenings in the New Year at our club meeting room in St. Augustine’s Church Hall in Southborough Lane, Bromley Common. Precise dates and further details will be provided when we know how many are likely to attend.

If you are interested in taking part or have any further queries please email us at info@ovfm.org.uk

OVFM Club Meeting September 30th 2014

Posted on September 25, 2014January 5, 2022 by Lee Relph

It’s that time were we once again hand over the reins of the club meeting to a guest speaker.

This week we will hear from Graham Kirkman who is an award winning dubbing mixer with 15 years experience currently employed by Halo Post, with a range of TV and film projects under his belt including Top Gear, The Apprentice, Made In Chelsea and Gladiators!

One of the common hurdles that has blighted the films of OVFM members is sound, and I am guilty as anyone in that, so perhaps Graham can provide us with some tips of the trade to help us improve our sound recording. Of course we don’t have the same hi-tech equipment as Graham does but the principle is still the same so this should prove to be an enlightening evening for us. For the record however Graham is sworn to secrecy as to the identity of The Stig!

For more info on Graham Kirkman visit his website HERE.

See you all on Tuesday!

OVFM Club Meeting September 16th 2014

Posted on September 10, 2014April 24, 2022 by Lee Relph

Time flies when you’re having fun but the annual Top Ten competition waits for no man (or woman – and it’s position on children and animals has yet to be made clear) judging by the fact we’ve hit the fourth round already.

In the last round we had a healthy six entries (the results of which are HERE). Will this number be topped in round four? Only one way to find out!

Selected to enter films for this round are:

Nick Kasper

Andy & Marian Watson

Mo & Peter Lodge

Sam Brown

Jim Morton Robertson

Hugh Darrington

Harold & Maisie Trill

Simon Earwicker

Lee Relph

Barbara Walker

As ever if you can’t make your designated round be sure to either reply to this post below saying so or let Brenda know ahead of time – conversely if you DO have a film ready early, please bring it along as chances are it will be welcomed for screening time permitting. This is also applicable to new members and recent joinees who wish to share their work with us or throw their hat in the ring.

And if you are bringing a film this week then PLEASE reply to this post in the comments/reply section below, letting us know the film’s run time, format (DVD, Mini DV) and picture ratio (4:3 or 16:9). This is a great help for us when planning the evening out and if you could accommodate us on this it is greatly appreciated.

Good luck to everyone who enters a film.

My Top Ten entry ‘Census’

Posted on June 20, 2014January 12, 2022 by Bob Vine

The Making of “Census”

By

Bob Vine

For my upcoming top ten entry entitled ‘Census’, I thought it may be useful to share my experiences in making what is only my third short film!

To come up with an idea for a script is hard, especially something original, but my wife Joan and I usually sit down and discuss topics in the news which people will have views on or emotions about and then try to pull those into a story. By using material such as this we have found it gets people talking about the film and thankfully not looking too closely at it’s quality !! Saying that, I do try to always improve on the last film; making sure I learn from my mistakes (there have been many!) and try something new.

My latest effort called ‘Census’ was written around the time both my father and father-in-law passed away almost simultaneously; both big influences on our lives and both very much into genealogy. What with the TV series showing famous people learning all about their family trees etc it has quite a following. In the news at the time was ‘Curiosity’ the latest space craft to land on Mars – a bit controversial with the amount of money it cost but a land mark in space exploration none-the-less. So Joan came up with the idea of putting the two together and I got writing. ‘Census – history is not what it seems’ was born!

When it was finished I remembered comments from my last film and reduced it down considerably – in an effort to make it roughly 5 minutes at the most. My last film was over 15 minutes long which just doesn’t get accepted at many film festivals. I also wanted to try to create a complete CGI (computer generated image) of a set; which also meant green screen work which was another area I wanted to improve on. The locations in this film allowed me to have ago at two CGI locations – an aircraft hanger (Biggin Hill refused me access to any of theirs) and of course Mars (!)

First draft of computer generated hanger interior

After some really harsh lessons learnt about lighting and focus I decided to not only buy a new camera and join the HD revolution (which has already passed and now is 4K!) but also some really special film lenses which, according to the sales person, I don’t actually own; I am just holding onto them for the next person! I spent a few hours at one of the ‘normal’ locations testing out lighting and using my new camera so hopefully all would be okay on the day. This also allowed me to plan the shoot better; and make detailed comments on my storyboards so I knew what lens, what lights etc to use for each shot.

I gathered my crew (friends that have been long suffering of my hobby!) and asked some actors from my last film to join me to make this thing.

To make the green screen shoot a bit special for me, the crew and more importantly my two actors, I splashed out and hired a small green screen studio for the day in Camberwell. It was an important scene and I didn’t want to take any chances with it. However, I learned another very harsh lesson when I came to keying out the green! In my excitement about the day; being conscious of focus etc I didn’t make sure (using my camera’s waveform monitor) that the background green colour was lit 2 stops brighter than my actors. The result of which was perfectly exposed shots (for once !!) that no matter what keying software I used (Keylight, Primatte etc) I could not get those all important clean edges – just a lot of horrible noisy/jaggerdy edges instead ! I am my own worst enemy !

Checking storyboards in the green screen studio - shame I didn't check the waveform monitor! — Checking storyboards in the green screen studio – shame I didn’t check the waveform monitor!

My extremely talented 'green screen' actors! — My extremely talented ‘green screen’ actors!

It actually looked like the end for the film as I could not afford to re shoot it. But after a lot of internet trawling for solutions and finding some hidden pieces of software within Apple’s Shake program (don’t ask!) I managed to key the green screen footage using a combination of Keylight mattes, Primatte mattes, rotoscoped tracked mattes using Mocha Pro and a lot of manual frame by frame animated mattes. What should have taken weeks actually took months ! Still, I have learned another lesson and I actually want to try it again for my next film to see if I can get it right.

My Apple Shake 'node tree' workflow which keyed out just one clip — My Apple Shake ‘node tree’ workflow which keyed out just one clip

So the film is now ready to be shown. It’s been filmed in HD, at 16:9 but I have then added a film aspect ratio crop of 2.235:1 just to give it a bit more of a cinematic feel. This may be a bad move as on our 4:3 projection screen it’s going to appear very small !! Looks good online though….

Hope this has been helpful and I look forward to hearing and learning from your comments

Bob

Coaching Evenings – Your Opinions Please!!

Posted on May 25, 2014January 5, 2022 by Lee Relph

Your Opinions Please!!

Coaching Evenings 2014

The five evenings have now completed and the numbers attending each ranged from 3 to 17. Most of those who came seemed to get something from the variety which was provided. Mike Shaw’s film music and sources presentation was particularly welcome.

The club owes a vote of thanks to all the stalwarts who contributed as speakers and demonstrators, without which the evenings wouldn’t be possible. Thanks also to all members for having supported the cost of the sessions through their subscriptions.

Your ideas for possible future coaching evenings will ensure that there are some!

Ian

Please use the comments facility below to leave your feedback on the evenings held so far – positive and negative – and what YOU want to see in future coaching evenings or let Ian or a member of the committee know directly.

Thank you!

Coaching Evening April 8th

Posted on April 2, 2014January 5, 2022 by Lee Relph

As you know, I have tried to arrange something different each year, to test your reactions of interest, which is why these evenings have changed from around Christmas to now..

On 25^th March at the first evening of this session Simon showed us the different basic aspects of lighting and how to use reflectors to improve shadows etc. Sam was a willing model and also a presenter. This could have run and run, but we then had Lee’s presentation of the Celtx free programme for screenplays etc. There was a good discussion on the pros and cons of it. Thanks to those who contributed and spent time on their presentations, very useful and entertaining. You can see Simon’s notes HERE an I urge you to at least glance through it.

The members who attended appreciated the evening, the rest of you missed it!

The next on April 8^th will see Mike Shaw on an evening of Music – in films, moods and sources for us to use. Should be entertaining and I might even film it for posterity, or whatever we choose to call our Archives.

Then, on April 22^nd we’ll try what we haven’t before and have four members demonstrating their editing and other programmes in the four corners of the hall, to only 3 or 4 members each, with questions and answers, as follows:

David Laker will be using Pinnacle Studio for those who want to see a basic demo in action;

John Epton will show multi cam editing on Serif MoviePlus, plus the very useful (and cheap) noise reduction software Music & Speech Cleaner. Why not bring along a troublesome audio on a USB stick and he could try to fix it? May also include Animations on Serif Draw Plus, if time allows

Andy Watson will also be using Serif;

I’ll show Edius and the stabilisation software Mercalli – bring some shaky clips!

Naturally, numbers are limited for this event (as they say for all the best raves), so let me know if you wish to come.

Ian Menage

OVFM Club Meeting Tuesday March 18th 2014

Posted on March 13, 2014January 5, 2022 by Lee Relph

When I was very young, my Dad once said to me “If you don’t ask, you don’t learn”, which confused me because when I asked him where babies came from he clipped me round the ear and told me to mind my own business! Of course as we get older we learn the right questions to ask for minimum embarrassment and maximum reward on the knowledge front. Unless it’s Prime Minister’s Question Time in which you get procrastination, evasion and bullplop!

What has this got to do with OFVM? We are always learning new things in the world of filmmaking and some of us have knowledge and experience in various where others may lack. So each year we gather together those with the mightiest databanks of filmmaking information, tips and helpful hints stored away inside their craniums and crack them open to ensure we all benefit from this imparted wisdom en route to applying them in our future film making endeavours.

So, if you have a burning question about filmmaking you’ve always wanted an answer to then I’m sure you will get it when we get together this Tuesday and you get your chance to pick the brains of OVFM’s finest – or whoever turns up on the night. Beggars can’t be choosers you know!

OVFM Coaching Evenings 2014

Posted on March 6, 2014January 5, 2022 by Lee Relph

It’s Spring 2014 and once again it is time for us to restore the faith in our less confident filmmakers with the annual coaching evening sessions.

As ever Ian “Hole In One” Menage has been hard at work constructing another programme for all of us to benefit from with helpful advice and masterclasses from the more experienced and knowledge club members to aid those of us still in the starting blocks with improving our filmmaking skills.

There is one notable change to the programme this year – we will NOT being making a film as part of these sessions. This was part of the programme in the past but it was felt that we were rushing some of the more practical and theoretical aspects of these tutorials in the hurry to put them into practice. Therefore this year, while there will be some practical endeavours, the idea is that we have time to refine and apply what we have learned in our time with the end results hopefully being demonstrated in our films entered for the Top 10 or project evenings.

This is the current list of dates and proposed by Ian along with the subject and theme for each evening (subject to change):

Mar 25: Lighting with Simon Earwicker / Scriptwriting with Celtx pt 2 with Lee Relph

Apr 8: Music in film: Best choices of music for your film / Music software and royalty free music with Mike Shaw

Apr 22: Editing Different editing suites demonstrations (in small groups) with John Epton, David Laker and Andy Watson

May 6: Outside filming practice Pt 1 – practical filming experience at a nearby external location

May 20: Outside filming practice Pt 2 – As above

We do hope you will all take the opportunity to attend these sessions and improve both your knowledge and understanding of filmmaking and equipment, as previous years have proven to be invaluable to those who have attended. Good or bad we’ve all learned something!

Any further questions should be directed to Ian Menage at ian.menage@gmail.com or please check back at this page for any updates.

Thanks for reading and hope to see you there!