Surrey Border Film & Video Makers had their Summer garden party early in July. They met in the garden of one of their members who lives beside a river in a converted oast house with beautiful gardens. Plenty of good food and wine in such lovely surroundings made for a tranquil atmosphere. Some members relaxed watching trout swimming in leisurely shoals upstream, while others took to a boat to cross to an extension of the garden on the far side. A few had the energy for some croquet. All were conscious of the dramatic contrast in atmosphere compared with the intense filmmaking battle in which they had participated only two nights previously. This battle is a dramatic event in the club calendar, and is a competition between groups in the club to attempt the making of a complete film in just one evening! This year for the first time a group of amateur dramatic enthusiasts participated. Plenty of practice had been put in beforehand, but there were, nevertheless, the inevitable mishaps as members strained to complete their masterpieces before rushing to show the results to the club as a whole.

Surrey Border Success at the 37th Staines Inter-Club Competition!

On Friday 12th March, The Holdens and Suttons attended this wonderful, long-standing Annual Competition, run by the Staines Club, who are actually in the North Thames Region, but attract entries also from clubs within the South East (SERIAC) Region, including, of course Surrey Border, who had entered Val Hitchman’s The Trees are Back. The competition was very competently and amusingly judged by David Longley (of Heron Productions fame – a long serving competition officer of the SERIAC and Surrey Film Festivals, who has in his time reviewed over 600 competition entries alongside top-ranking judges) and David Moore (a professional audio practitioner for over 35 years, ending up as Head of Sound at Sky Television.)
Surrey Border’s The Trees are Back was one of nine entries: from Harrow The other side of Venice (a competently made documentary, exploring Venice in the early morning and late evening, away from the tourist crowds); from South Essex The Wind that blows the Barley (a gentle film with nicely varied views of a mother and two children in the barley fields, set to a specially composed song); from Orpington Consequence (a somewhat unbelievable but thought-provoking drama story, which the judges considered not helped by the script); from Shooters Hill When Duty Calls (another rather unbelievable secret service plot with somewhat wooden acting and not very good sound, which the judges – to me rather unfairly - thought should have been a one minute movie!); from Bourne End Rebellion, (a 2-part documentary about the history of a brewery, and the process of producing real ale); from Reading Sidewinder (a wonderful romp about a failed air to ground missile, rescued by two boys – with excellent acting but less believable sound – to get their own back on a river speedboat driver who had been bugging them – with superb computer animated action and a most satisfactory explosion!); from Hemel Hempstead Pargetting (a very enjoyable documentary with a real craftsman talking about his special form of art, created in relief on concrete walls – but where the quality of the live sound caused the judges to give much practical advice); and from Wanstead and Woodford Recycling (an instructive film, using one old lady trying to convince another about the need for recycling, using a script which the judges criticised on the grounds that people don’t talk to each other like that!)
At the end of the evening, the judges awarded 3rd place to Hemel Hempstead’s Pargetting; 2nd place to Reading’s Sidewinder; and the Challenge Salver to Val Hitchman’s The Trees are Back, despite commenting constructively that “the commentary could have been a little more authoritative” – “there could have been some sound effects to join it all together” – “they were slightly confused by the use of both scratchy sepia and black and white sequences” – one judge thought that “there were an awful lot of statistics” - but the other judge disagreed with that – but they both agreed that “it seemed to stop very suddenly after the wreaths – they weren’t really prepared for that!” Nevertheless, it was a very worthy winner – and well done Val, on behalf of Surrey Border! Gordon suspected that had the judges not been sitting at the back of the hall then they would have appreciated the considerable use of subtle war time sound effects in the background.
As the winning film it will be presented again at the prestige Staines Cine & Video Society Annual Movie Show at Laleham Village Hall, Broadway, Laleham TW18 1AT, starting at 8 pm on Friday 30th April, in front of the Mayor and other Civic Dignitaries – when the Salver will be presented again (after having “Surrey Border 2010” engraved upon it – the seventh time in the last 20 years!) Everyone welcome;

Lessons learned from our Albany Filming: In The Hot Seat

At the time of writing, our competition entry is still in the post-production phase – but the shooting was accomplished on three shooting days, which were hard work, but good fun – especially thanks to the very professional Am Dram cast which Val recruited for us. As Producer, I would like to record my sincere thanks to everybody who took part – Cast, Shooting Crew, and Editors – but also to suggest some lessons that I think we learned on the job, and should apply to future projects:
1) The use of Am Dram actors, capable of memorising and reproducing exactly their words and actions (as modified sometimes by the Director) in successive shoots from different camera angles, gave the Director and Editors a whole new freedom of action, which has never, in my experience, been possible with the average Film Club member pressed into service in front of the cameras!
2) As I should have realised, but didn’t sufficiently, actual experimentation and planning of the camera angles on site, before the shoot, is absolutely essential, if cast and crew are not to be kept hanging about whilst the Director and Cameraman try to work it out on the hoof. Our failure to do this, and record it in some sort of storyboard which can communicate these planning decisions to the crew, led directly to the need for three shooting days, instead of the planned two. BUT:
3) It is absolutely no use anybody else but the Director developing this storyboard, if the Director is going to ignore it completely on the day – that just leads to confusion all round, and is probably worse than not having a storyboard at all!
4) I think that, for our amateur productions at least, there is tremendous value in the Editor(s) being involved with the storyboarding, and being present during the filming. Would anybody else involved like to comment on, or add to these suggested lessons learned?                                  Paul Holden

Training session based on a Hollywood camera course

The maximum number that Mike can fit into his living room met to learn how to plan camera positioning, tracking and sequencing. A great deal of discussion took place and so the pace through the course was less than expected but everyone felt they had a very productive evening. This was originally to be the last session on this particular course series but the group will meet again on 9th February and looks likely to have a number of times after. Any member interested in another such course or indeed any other please email the webmaster whose email address is at the bottom of this page.

Training session for projectionists

The latest training session for 4 prospective projectionists for club meetings took place on Monday 25th January in Dick's film studio. It started with a Power Point presentation accompanied by 6 pages of detailed notes and diagrams. A practical session of wiring everything up was then followed by practice in techniques for projection and how to cope with various formats of tape and disk. The next stage will be for learner projectionists to operate in a real situation accompanied by someone with experience.

How to convert cine to video

A page on this website holds the outcomes of this project which was originally to produce an instructional video but it has since been decided that this web page is complete and gives ideal instructions for anyone wishing to convert film to video.

Filming of 'Trapped'

Details of the plot can't be released but it is fairly obvious from the photographs below that some rather incompetent robbers were involved! This was the club entry for the North v South competition. Unfortunately it didn't win.

Major $130 million budget blockbuster filmed close to the club!!!!

Kevin Durand and Alan Doyle were part of the cast of Ridley Scott’s latest film about Robin Hood and his merry men written by Brian Helgeland. The film is to be released by Universal in 2010. It stars Russell Crowe in the lead role. One wonders what new twist is possible for such a well known story. Cate Blanchett plays Maid Marian. Durand plays Friar Tuck, Scott Grimes plays Will Scarlet and Alan Doyle plays a roving minstrel.

When I walked the set in May 2009 the village scene below had been built and the castle well under way. The castle was built from a massive box of scaffolding which had large stone effect panels suspended on the outside. The small gap between each panel was then filled. The whole lot painted with a very effective stone finish. A second coat of paint was then painstakingly applied to give an extremely realistic aged effect.

The whole area was closed for the actual filming which took place in dribs and drabs over a period of many weeks. I spent some time during one of the attack scenes on the castle standing between the castle and the very extensive artists preparation/refreshment area and had some interesting conversations with actors walking back and forth. The area was patrolled by an army of assistants and security on quad bikes. I had a couple of my grandchildren with me and was able to persuade the security person for that area that we could keep quiet and not interfere!

As soon as the filming was complete the village was bulldozed flat and the castle dismantled. There is nothing left to give any indication that anything has ever happened there.

Who are we in this film/movie/video club? We make films, videos and movies and meet on the first Friday of the month to answer members questions and to discuss ongoing club projects. Well known film makers, judges and film professionals are often our speakers for the evening. We welcome visitors and new members interested in film and video, and there is no need to own digital cameras or camcorders and no need for previous experience, as we happily provide mentors for beginners. Surrey Border meetings start at 7:45pm and end just after 10:00pm with a refreshment break at around 9:00pm. Visitors and new members are warmly welcomed to the monthly meetings which are on the first Friday of each month (and the first visit is free). Our meetings are held in our new contemporary hall in St Joan's Centre which is in the grounds of St Joan's church in Tilford Road, near the station in Farnham. The hall has a large car park and is within easy reach of Guildford, Farnborough, Fleet, Bordon etc. In Surrey and Hampshire. Read more about us here.