For the first club meeting of March, the floor will be handed over to a guest speaker. This time it is someone who should be a familiar face to those who frequent the various events on the annual SERIAC circuit.
Ron Prosser (FACI) has a storied career in filmmaking spanning 60 years, cutting his teeth professionally with Hollybush Films in a number of roles, including the shooting, editing and presenting of corporate films. This has given Ron experience in using many extinct and moribund film formats including 8mm and 16mm, which held him in good stead since crossing over to simpler practices in his award winning amateur career, keeping up to date with the digital age.
Some of these films from Ron’s extensive catalogue will be shared with OVFM club member during this session, along with a few stories about the backgrounds and making of and Ron is willing to take questions as well if there is time. This should be an interesting and entertaining and hopefully those who already know Ron will make him welcome when he pays us a visit this Tuesday evening!
Another annual inter-club competition is upon us, this time it is the Triangle Competition in which three of four clubs – OVFM, Spring Park, Shooters Hill and Epsom – enter films in a three-way contest to be judged by the fourth, with the judging role alternating each year.
This year’s event take place on Friday February 24th and the judging will be handled by Epsom Movie Makersthus will be held on their turf at St Mary’s Church Hall, London Road, Ewell, KT17 2AZ. at 8 pm (doors usually open 7.30 – 7.45).
OVFM has done well in the past in this competition so let’s see if we can add another win to our score card. For more information or if you want to attend on the night to support and represent OVFM in person on the night please let our esteemed secretary Freddy Beard know so she can tell Epsom how many visitors to expect.
One of the most important dates in the OVFM calendar is our annual Spring Show where we share the fruits of our labours from a year of busy filmmaking, along with some gems from our archive. What better way to celebrate the days getting lighter and warmer than with evening of films from the very best local amateur filmmaking talent.
In addition to the usual array of top quality films we will have our famous Showreel looking back at local events of 2016 and the pubic premier of our ambitious club film project MEET DEXTER!
For those of you who need a reminder or missed it at the Autumn Show, here is the teaser trailer for MEET DEXTER to whet your appetite:
https://vimeo.com/180420260
This year’s event will take place on FRIDAY 24th MARCH at 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 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 Friday March 24th and bring along your friends and family!
Since the weather outside is frightful and I’m sure you’ve all been somewhere more delightful in the past year, now is the time to share your trips to sunnier climes and your memories with the club in our annual holiday films session.
Whether you’ve strolled on the beaches of Barbados or feasted on the fromage de France here is your opportunity to relive those moments and rub it in to the rest of us who were stuck in dreary Old Blighty!
However there is the caveat that your films are limited to a run time of FIVE MINUTES MAXIMUM so if there is any trimming that needs doing please ensure it is done in time for Tuesday’s meeting.
Of course, 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, 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.
Thanks for reading and don’t forget your sun cream on Tuesday!
With the festive season now over with and the huge haemorrhoid that was 2016 now consigned to the dustbin of time, we welcome 2017 with open arms. However here at OVFM there is still some unfinished with last year, namely the annual Top Ten competition.
The qualifying rounds concluded in late November and now it is time for the final, in which the ten films that tallied the highest votes from their individual rounds are brought together one last time to face the scrutiny and judgement of the club members.
With only THIRTEEN entries submitted across the whole year, the lowest I’ve known in my 6 1/2 year membership with the club, the final ten films are as follows:
1. “Meet Dexter” by Lee Relph
2. “H4 by Barbara Darby
3. “Dawlish Air Show” by Jane Oliver
4. “On a Roll” by John Epton
5. “Victor Lilia Goes To War “ by David Laker
6. “Obsession” by Jim Morton Robertson
7. “Heaven or Hell” by Hugh Darrington
8. “Free of charge” by Reg and Annabelle Lancaster
9. “Mon Dail Mobility” by Andy Watson
10. “Back Porch Revamp” by John Bunce
It is this round in which the scoring is the most important as your marks will contribute to deciding the eventual winner of the 2106 competition, to be announced at the Oscars in March.
I’ve done the maths and the total running time of all ten films is 58 minutes 39 seconds so we have a long night ahead of us.
Everyone on the list above is required to being their films on Tuesday, having been given the chance to make any amendments or adjustments following the comments in the qualifying rounds. Failure to do so will incur a forfeit of your spot in the final.
Also, at this meeting if you plan on entering the Annual Competition, this is the deadline for getting your films, entry forms and entry fee to Brenda Wheatley.
Staying with competitions the SERIAC and BIAFF competitions are now accepting entries with their deadlines both on JANUARY 31st! Please see Freddy Beard for more details.
Good luck to all Top Ten finalists and hope to see you all on Tuesday!
Typically films aren’t shot in chronological order and this was no different although we did start close to the running order for the early scenes, seeing as Dexter wasn’t due to arrive until a little later. In hindsight one shot we should have done much earlier was where Dexter’s shadow looms over the parents – the reason being that by the time we came to film it, the sun had selfishly moved thus we couldn’t get the shadow to appear in the same spot the actors where previously situated in the surrounding in scenes.
When it came to the edit the sun’s movement as the day progressed also caused a problems with the colour grading in the later scenes, and the use of reflectors on set to counter this problem didn’t help either. Bearing in mind though the shoot ran for over six hours and was still very light by the time wrapped we did well to get the amount of natural sunlight we did and in the final analysis, it is only a few shots that are affected by this.
“Relax – a bit of fiddling in post and it will look like a dinosaur!”
For a couple of shots I was ambitious and used the club dolly, as I wanted the opening scene to be a single take, all movement parade of people to lead into the first scene with dialogue. We actually did this in only a few takes and John did a good in keeping the camera moving; the only minor niggle, which I didn’t spot until the edit, was that at the end of the shot we could see Andy’s gazebo, the rest of the crew all standing around in the background and the back of Olive’s house when this was meant to be a public park!
Similarly, while another dolly shot was being filmed by John and Andy, David (Laker’s) camera was filming Sue’s reaction shot at the same time – in the edit we could clearly see John and Andy in the background behind Sue with the dolly filming David and Hannah! But, as Professor Mike Shaw likes to say, this was “fixed in post”.
Editing is that strange beast in that it is rewarding and often fun but tiresome and just as likely to cause stress as the shoot itself. The first few stages are always a joy, seeing two different frames attached to one another for the first time but as the job progresses this tends to lose its lustre (perhaps I should nail it down in future), unless one pulls off a smooth cut where movement is involved maintaining the natural flow and tempo between shots.
I can’t speak for other people as I don’t do impersonations, but when I edit I tend to find the first day sees plenty of work done then the next I’m redoing what I did the day before. Perhaps this is me being a perfectionist or maybe we see things much more clearly after a break, or when I have my glasses on which also helps. This meant the edit was one of the longer ones I have undertaken through forever fixing what I had already done.
Yet I learned so much during this process, not in the least because I was using my upgraded editing software for the first time so I was learning on the job. Despite knowing what keyframes were, I had never used them before but they came in handy for a number of shots, as did many of the built in effects my software boasts, which I was previously too scared to use.
“I know a great plastic surgeon who can fix that for you!”
Also during the edit, I was inspired to add new ideas to the presentation and narrative beyond what I already had dancing about in my head and in the script. The arrival of Dexter, for instance, was more abrupt and less visually evident that this huge beast was arriving imminently. I realised I needed some kind of transition between the two shots of the parents but couldn’t figure out what.
Then I noticed when Hannah says “Meet Dexter” the bushes behind David and Sue are ruffled by a gentle breeze, reminding me of old cartoons when the ground would shake when a large monster would appear. So I located footage of the garden and applied an earthquake effect to it, along with a candid outtake of Penny (whom I was pained about cutting from the film), and voila! we have a credible transition scene to denote Dexter’s arrival I would never have thought of before!
But each filming experience is a huge learning curve and I for one can say unequivocally that has been the most educational filming experience of my meagre 6-year filmmaking career thus far, not limited to the instances outline above, and I hope that everyone else involved also took something from working on this shoot.
That said, the most important thing I learned from it was why I rarely make films!
Once again, an almighty humongous and heartfelt thanks to everyone who was involved in making MEET DEXTER and thanks for reading!
It’s Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor all over again….
Finally August 16th arrived once August 15th had left and the first order of the day was rehearsals which took place at my house. Hannah and her mum Alex arrived first, then David and finally Sue. I have to say that when David started reading from his script, admitting he hadn’t learned his lines, only skimmed through the dialogue my heart sank. At least I think it was my heart but it necessitated a change of underwear all the same.
After feasting on the spread my Mum provided for us, the leftovers from which was our dinner for the next six weeks, we left for Olive’s. I asked David, Sue and Hannah to travel together so they can get to know each other and hopefully create a credible family chemistry before the camera. As the end results attest this was one of my better ideas on the day.
Unfortunately arriving a little later than anticipated, the butterflies in my stomach had reproduced and beget a second set of butterflies and quite mysteriously, a dragonfly too, but I was pleased to see most of the crew had arrived and were already setting up, under the guidance of John Epton, whose contribution to this project and the personal help he gave me was invaluable.
Hello Dolly!
The sun was blazing down on us but despite our best attempts we couldn’t blaze back so we got down to the small matter of filming. We had a three camera set-up which reduced the amount of takes dramatically since we could cover all angles in one go. It meant that when it came to editing I had three lots of separate footage to sort through but this is a small price to pay for the sake of expedience on the day.
For the audio, we did something that was new to me; at John’s insistence we recorded the audio separately on his digital recorder instead of through the camera – still using the boom mic – which made a tremendous difference. Again it meant trawling through many individual files to find the correct one to match the right video file, but the quality is superior with less extraneous interference and background noises to deal with in the edit.
Despite his earlier admission for not learning his lines, David Wrighton seemed to have absorbed them pretty quickly. I don’t know what happened during the car journey with Sue and Hannah and perhaps it’s better I don’t know but whatever it was it worked! By the end of the filming, I felt that David became more intuitive about his character and little direction from me was needed.
Sue was the same, having instinctively found the right nuances for her role that made Sandra the perfect foil for David’s Ron. I felt a genuine rapport between them, as though they were a legit married couple (which, I am legally obliged to point out they are not) and I could feel them bouncing off each other. Finally Hannah was the final element in this unique alchemy, again showing a flair for little touches which I liked, as well as the fire and righteous passion when Tilly finally blows her stack at her father.
By the time Chris and Dexter arrived most of the family scenes had been shot, so it was just a matter of shooting the interacting scenes with Dexter and a few incidental and solo shots. Dexter really is a magnificent beast (although his presence meant I was no longer the tallest creature on set) and we have to credit Kyle McSporran for his efforts both physically, in donning the heavy suit in such heat, and in giving Dexter the requisite personality for this project.
A fearsome beast… and Dexter!
It seemed the cast enjoyed interacting with Dexter too. The only struggle came with the scene featuring Dexter and my pug, Penny. The (rather optimistic) idea was that they’d stare each other down from a distance then face off with Dexter roaring at Penny, who then either run away or just play friendly like she does. Instead Penny did neither, finding more interest playing with an apple on the ground that with the giant roaring beast before her. Still it makes for a fun outtake.
One of Olive’s daughters, Janice, stepped in at the last minute to play the woman who bumps into Dexter and faints. However Janice was wearing a short summer dress and when she lay on the ground it rode up and gave Andy an eye full – although this was nothing compared to when he got home and Marian gave him an earful!
As mentioned earlier, Hannah’s elder sister Beth is also an aspiring actress and agreed to the part of the lady knocked over by Dexter’s tail. Originally I wanted Dexter to knock someone off a bicycle but in a fortuitous turn of events, Alex informed me that Beth had a pair of crutches since she hurt her foot so the idea changed to that instead. But, on the day, not only was Beth still using her crutches but she had an operation on her other foot that morning.
I was a bit hesitant but Beth gamely agreed to the shot anyway and after some trial and error we settled on a relatively safe falling forward prat fall for her. So we went for a take but just as I called “Action” I realised we hadn’t put any mats or cushions down for Beth to fall onto. Before I could yell “Cut!” Beth had already taken her tumble! But it was such a good shot and Beth was unhurt that I didn’t dare ask to do it again, so the final shot of the day was the only single take of the day.
We finally wrapped just before 8:30pm and remarkably it was still light but much cooler. Fatigue was beginning to set in and spirits were on the wane (elsewhere Wayne was on the spirits) but we all felt it was a very productive day. We were well fed courtesy of Freddy and Annabelle and everyone contributed something and fulfilled their roles as promised. We were all glad to be getting home I am sure but I hope everyone felt the effort was worth it.
Despite the weather plunging deeper into the coldness of winter this year;’s North vs South final at Farnborough Village Hall on Sunday December 4th welcomed a very healthy turn out (in fact two extra rows of chairs were needed) to find out which side of the river would prove victorious!
An impressive count of 27 entries (including five from OVFM) from 16 clubs nationwide made the final programme with two unfortunately being jettisoned at the last minute due to time constraints and the usual 45 minute tea break reduced to 30 minutes. The films – all conceived under the theme of Out Of The Blue – took in comedy, drama, documentary, animation, surrealism, and even someone showing off their new camera drone. A wide variety of ideas and concepts all conjured up from one simple phrase.
Before we get to the results, there were two people who correctly guessed the order of the decision of winner and runner-up from this year’s assigned judge John Sharp. Also the theme for next year’s competition was not correctly guessed by anyone either more on that in a moment.
So, who won?
Well, the runner up film was:
Don’t Give Up from AVS Movie Makers representing the North.
This was a docu-drama based on real events of a former sportsman turned company director who suffered a stroke aged 42 yet managed to come back from it and establish his own stroke support charity. This was awarded the Harry Adams Trophy.
And the winner is:
Ties That Bind from Sutton Coldfield Movie Makers representing the South.
Scooping the top prize of the John Wright Trophy was a drama about a retired married woman who reveals she had a child as teenager whom she gave up for adoption and the surprising reaction from her husband.
That means for the first time in a while the South was victorious so congratulations to Sutton Coldfield to making that happen!
EDIT:
And here is the final Top 10 rankings according to judge John Sharp:
1st Sutton Coldfield Movie Makers – Ties That Bind (John Wright Trophy)
2nd AVS Movie Makers – Don’t Give Up (Harry Adams Trophy)
3rd Spring Park Film Makers – Where Time Stood Still (Highly Commended)
4th OVFM – Meet Dexter (Highly Commended)
5th Cheadle & Gateley Film Makers – The Prodigal (Commended)
6th Pendle Movie Makers – Out of the Blue (Commended)
7th Bristol Film & Video Society – Don’t Call Me Baby (Commended)
8th OVFM – Reaching for the Skies
9th Cheadle & Gateley Film Makers – Out of the Blue
10th Tynemouth Video Film Making Group – Lost in Translation
And the theme chosen for the 2017 competition is MOVING.
This is an ironic topic since this will be OVFM’s last time hosting this event and we hope to hand over the reins to another southern club to carry on the work and mantle of Mike Coad and OVFM. To that we should extend of heartfelt thanks to the OVFM members who stepped up and organised this year’s show, as well as those who made sure everything ran smoothly on the day, from setting out the hall seats to supplying of the refreshments, from selling the raffle tickets to the actual screening of the films, and of course to Sam Brown for acting as MC.
So, that is the North vs South for 2016. Well done to the winners and to everyone who entered a film and here’s to next year’s event!
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!
