Tag: films

OVFM Autumn Show 2014

Posted on by Lee Relph

OVFM_autumn_14_banner

OVFM Autumn Show 2014

 

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.

We are pleased to announce that the film Cakes and Onions about the Homesdale Road Allotments charity event for St Christopher’s Bromley (formerly Harris HospisCare) will be screened as a part of this show, after we regretfully were unable to screen it back in March.

There will also be a very special announcement made at this show regarding a new initiative from OVFM for anyone who wishes to improve their filmmaking skills.

This year’s event will take place on  FRIDAY 24th OCTOBER at 7:00 for 7.30 pm

VENUE –  Methodist Church, 19 Sevenoaks Road, Orpington BR6 9JH

DIRECTIONS – GOOGLE MAP

WEBSITE – http://www.orpingtonmethodist.org.uk/welcome.htm

Club members get in free but for guests and non-members the tickets are £5 – which includes refreshments – and are available from our secretary Freddy Beard on 01689 813616 or by e-mail at beardfreddy@gmail.com Don’t leave it too late as they tend to get snapped up very quickly!

If any OVFM club members or our external friends wish to help publicise this event please download a printable version of the poster HERE

And if you want sample of what to expect at our shows then please take  a look at our showreel on our YouTube page HERE

For an entertaining and sociable evening do join us on October 24th and bring along your friends and family!

See you then!

OVFM Club Meeting September 2nd 2014

Posted on by Lee Relph

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You may recall that the original plan for this week’s club meeting was to have a guest speaker in Graham Kirkman but unfortunately, due to work commitments Graham had to pull out. So we’ve had to resort to “Plan B” but don’t worry as we have something rather fun line up for you.

Because we have yet to make an official film for this year’s North vs South competition (and I apologise personally for not being able to progress with my film submission) we will be endeavouring to rectify this with something similar to our “Meet the Members” evening a few weeks back.

The idea is simple: we will be exploring the “What if..?” theme and will be asking club members to think of a humorous idea to both ask and answer that question – eg: “What if dogs could fly?” “What if I had two heads?” “What if my hoover could work by itself?”… I’m sure you can come up with better ideas than that which is the main thrust of this evening.

We will set up a camera and green screen and if you could provide some props or costumes apropos to your idea, we will do our best to make these light hearted scenarios into a visual reality.

So please get your thinking caps on and remember the emphasis is on humour so be afraid to abstract or esoteric in your choices – creativity and fun are the key elements in this project (that and winning the N vs S of course! 😉 ). We want to get as many people in front of the camera as possible so don’t be shy in stepping up and joining in.

Hope to see you on Tuesday brimming with ideas! 🙂

OVFM In The News

Posted on by Lee Relph
Picture courtesy of John Epton

Our club members have been busy in between club meetings as ever covering local events for posterity and the club annual newsreel. Thanks to our press officer, Professor Mike Shaw these filming sessions have been publicised  by local media.

Two recent events have been covered by a good friend of OVFM, Margot Rohan, webmaster of the Orpington Community website:

Orpington Hospital Memorial Re-dedication

Petts Wood Memorial Service

Thanks to Mike for spreading the word, to our intrepid filmmakers for their time and work in keeping the OFM name out there and to Margot at Orpington Community website for the articles.

OVFM Club Meeting August 19th 2014

Posted on by Lee Relph

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And so we come to round three of the annual Top Ten competition aka the “Barbara Darby Hands Off That’s Mine” award!

In both Round One and Round Two we received just THREE entries each so we are still looking for an improvement on that front although the standard of the films has been high thus far! You can find the results of those rounds HERE!

As ever you asked to bring in your best film to be judged by your peers in OVFM and the ten films that receives the highest votes over the course of the five rounds that will take place between now and November (see this post for the full list of dates).

The members who have been drafted to provide a film for this opening round are as follows:

 

Tony Faller

Bob Vine

Jenny Tucker

Roger & Brenda Wheatley

Tony Keable

Nellie Caseley

Freddy Beard

Reg Lancaster

Cherie Hamlet-Smith

Chris Coulson

 

As ever if you can’t make your designated round be sure to either reply to this post below saying so or let Brenda or reply to this post 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.

And if you are bringing a film this week then can you 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.

OVFM Club Meeting August 5th 2014

Posted on by Lee Relph

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MEET THE MEMBERS!

 

You’re probably thinking  “but we’ve already met!” So what is this all about? Well it’s a long story so I hope you are sitting comfortably.

At a recent committee meeting when we were brainstorming ideas for our club meetings to get everyone interested and involved I suggested a practical evening based on the Radio 4 show “Chain Reaction” . For those of you who have not heard it before, the concept is simple: one week a celeb will interview another celeb then the following week the one being interviewed will now interview a new celeb who will then go on be the interviewer the next week and so on.

The idea I had was similar in that we set up the club equipment (camera, lights, boom, etc.) and have a two person interview set-up then we swap the roles around so everyone gets a go at at least one role on the production side or in front of the camera.

Then – inspired by the recent archive film from 1963 in which the OCS (Orpington Cine Society) club members were being interviewed – our chairman Simon” Snapper” Earwicker thought it would be a great idea if we used this project to make an updated version of this film – hence this week’s special one night club project “Meet the Members”! Simon also thought that we could possibly incorporate this into our official North vs South entry with questions concerning the topic “If”.

Got all that? Good. So please do all show up on Tuesday and be preserved on camera in the OVFM archives for generations to come when they look back to see who was keeping the OVFM name alive in 2014!

OVFM Top 10 Competition 2014 Results

Posted on by Lee Relph

topten14

 

OVFM Top 10 Competition 2014 Results

 

Here are the ongoing results of the 2014 Top Ten Competition!

 

Round One – Held May 27th 2014

1. “The Bells Of St. Barthomolew’s” by Barbara Darby       53.63

2. “Anti-Gravity” by Hugh Darrington      49.26

3. “High Street Fun” by Ann & John Epton      45.83

 

Round Two – Held July 8th 2014

1. “Illusions” by Mike Shaw     59.21

2.  “Hamilton Landscapes” by Mike & Jo Coad     51.03

3. “Arctic Adventure” by Tony Keable    41.43

 

Round Three – To be held August 19th 2014

1. “Census ” by Bob Vine     53.19

2. “Round The Horn” by David Laker    50.25

3. “A Day Out At Beamish” by Richard Pugh     49.85

4. “Carmen’s Pylon”  by John Bunce    49.32

= “Olympic Winner” by Ian Menage    49.32

6. “Croxy” by Bob Wyeth    36.81

 

Round Four – Held September 16th 2014

1. “RAIN” by Simon Earwicker    56.00

2. “One Small Job” by Colin Jones   55.44

3.  “OCD” by Lee Relph    48.22

 

Round Five – Held on October 14th 2014

1. “Streaming Back To Metroland” by Sam Brown    57.16

2. “Lakeside Weekend” by Reg & Annabelle Lancaster   53.74

3.  “Ship Ahoy” by Pat Palmer    48.22

4. “Ski Fun Day” by Andy Watson   46.10

5. “Sue’s Sheep” by Jim Morton-Robertson   40.68

 

So, lest my calculations have failed me, the final top ten are thus:

 

1. “Illusions” by Mike Shaw     59.21

2. “Streaming Back To Metroland” by Sam Brown    57.16

3. “RAIN” by Simon Earwicker    56.00

4. “One Small Job” by Colin Jones   55.44

5. “Lakeside Weekend” by Reg & Annabelle Lancaster   53.74

6.  “The Bells Of St. Barthomolew’s” by Barbara Darby       53.63

7. “Census ” by Bob Vine     53.19

8.  “Hamilton Landscapes” by Mike & Jo Coad     51.03

9.  “Round The Horn” by David Laker    50.25

10.  “A Day Out At Beamish” by Richard Pugh     49.85

 

Congratulations to those ten. The final takes place on January 6th 2015 and the winner will be announced at the Oscars on March 17th.

My Top Ten entry ‘Census’

Posted on 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.

 

Computer Generated external shot
Computer Generated external shot

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
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.

 

Cast and crew from first shoot
Cast and crew from first shoot

 

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

OVFM Club Meeting Tuesday June 24th 2014

Posted on by Lee Relph

ovfmarchives

Once again we devote an evening to the wonders that lay tucked away in the club archive.

Hopefully you’ve all had a look through the current archive lists (in the members’ only section) and sent your request to Andy “Elementary My Dear” Watson and picked the films made by OVFM members past and present that you wish to see again.

I personally have nominated our North vs South entry from last year “Power Corrupts” since it has never been shown to the club before. Since most of us all sweated away a few stone during its making last summer I think we should see the fruits of our labours, don’t you (even if it didn’t win)? 😉

Andy won’t be with us on Tuesday as he’l be watching the World Cup instead but he has agreed to compile a programme for us based on our requests so if you haven’t done so already please, have a quick trawl through the archive lists and send Andy your choice to him ASAP! *

OVFM archive evenings are always a rich source of interest from both a technical and historical point of view, so I hope you will forgo watching a bunch of overpaid, illiterate, thuggish prima donnas kicking a bit of leather about to join us for what promises to be an entertaining evening!

**EDIT**

As you can see from Andy’s reply below the deadline has now expired for making requests so if you missed out, please don’t contact Andy but do keep it in mind for our next archive session! Thanks!

OVFM Club Meeting Tuesday June 10th 2014

Posted on by Lee Relph

nvs14

 

One of the many annual traditions for OVFM is the North vs South competition where film clubs from this side of the river do (friendly) battle with film clubs from the other side. While the organising of the event in the north is handled by Altrincham Movie Makers, OVFM are responsible for the south end, mostly through the hard work of Mike Coad thus we are somewhat duty bound to have an entry every year.

Over the past two years it has befallen to David “Offshore Account” Laker to provide and oversee the OVFM entries with his films “Disastermind” and “Power Corrupts”. This year David understandably wants to step back and let someone else have a go – which brings us to this week’s club meeting.

OVFM hasn’t won the competition in a good few years now – the last time was with a film called “Attack Of The Killer Tripod” by a then 17 year old Reg “Bomber” Lancaster – so we really need to up our game for this year.

The theme is “If” which covers a multitude of possibilities. The announcement of this was made to the club after the conclusion of the 2013 final so there has been plenty of time to think of something. The purpose therefore of this meeting is to see what ideas you may have, be there a germination of a concept, a story outline, a treatment or even a full script. You may even have a film completed or in production (either as a group effort or individually; they can be entered on behalf of the club – see rule 2 via the link below) in which case bring it along and we’ll have a look at it.

Of course if no-one has any ideas or prepared scripts we can also brainstorm to see if we can’t come up with an idea or two to get the ball rolling. Then if you wish you can either set about making it in individual groups or by enlisting the help of the club as a whole (or however many are willing to help).

All the relevant information including the rules can be found HERE but I can tell you now that the entry deadline is Friday 31st October with the final to be held on Sunday December 7th !

So get your thinking caps on and we’ll see you on Tuesday with your ideas so we can make sure OVFM has their hands raised in victory at the end of North vs South 2014!

air max 180

British Film Council Comp – Then & Now

Posted on by Lee Relph

then_now

Hello all

This BBC news story about how archived footage of Britain from the 30’s and 40’s has been updated for online use caught my eye along with the link to a competition being held by the British Film Council which you can read about HERE.

The idea is to make a film (no more than 3 minuets) using their archive footage to create a “then and now” look at Britain.

I figured this might be a fun opportunity for OVFM members who are able, to participate in. If not how about adopting the theme for your own film for the Top 10 or as a general film project?

Over to you! 🙂

Cheers