Press release August 2002

Four films, all ‘hot off the press’, were brought along for showing at the August club meeting of Surrey Border Film & Video Makers. One had only just been completed an hour before the meeting started. Such last minute finishes were perhaps inevitable considering that each film had been produced by a group of members who had started work only two months previously when the club visited the Hollycombe Steam Collection at Liphook for a Summer outing. Considering the common starting point, it was surprising how different each of the films were. One outlined the history of the collection revealing careful research and detailed planning, another showed interviews with members of staff about the exhibits, another was a general description, while the fourth, perhaps the most memorable, was “A horse’s lament” presented as a horse’s eye view of steam power, complete with narration in rhyme by a talking horse! All the films made use of background music from the various steam organs on the site, and all certainly made one wish to go back and see more of the collection.

The second half of the evening was given to watching some award winning short films from the Film and Video Institute, the central organisation that coordinates many of the more major competitions between clubs. Although the emphasis was on the opportunity to see the work of outsiders who had won competitions, this was an opportunity for members to openly discuss what they saw as the good and bad points of each. Some films showed spoof adverts mimicking those seen on television. Plenty of discussion resulted, no doubt spurred on by the thought of the competition planned for next February to advertise an imaginary product.

The last two films of the evening were remarkably different. The first was a holiday movie showing a motoring holiday in the Canadian Rockies and the second was of a characterful craftsman explaining how he made violins. This film brought out all the charming aspects of the old fashioned loving care people put into painstakingly labour-intensive woodwork. By the end of the evening members had plenty to think about to help with their own movie making. The club meets in St. Martins Church Hall, Dene Lane, Lower Bourne, Farnham at 7.30 p.m. on the first Friday of each month. The next meeting on 6th September is a talk called 'Creative Film Making' given by Tom Hardwick who is an IAC tutor at Wansfell College.