Press release September 2002

This month we were given a fascinating talk about ‘creative film making’ by Tom Hardwick of Wansfell College. He started the evening with a reference to making films for television broadcast where any film has to capture attention within the first seven seconds otherwise the viewer will channel hop to another station. He emphasised the importance of filming with imagination with the aim of giving the viewer ‘surprise and delight’.

Tom discussed solutions to problems we all have when using our camcorder at weddings and other family events, particularly when indoors with bright sunlight streaming through a window. Anyone in such a situation must have noticed when the camera sees the bright window, everything else in the room is suddenly plunged into darkness as the camera sees the sunlight.

Another aspect of camera work which Tom obviously felt passionately about was the tendency of all of us to just stand and put the camera to our eye and start shooting. No, no he says, use imagination! Perhaps lie on the floor or climb on a chair, or hold the camera as high as possible, or give a view over some ones shoulder - anything for a more unusual perspective. Let the perspective add extra excitement to what you are about to record. Of course, this is much easier with modern cameras with their pivoting side screen which can be twisted to allow viewing whatever the unusual position of the camera. He also pointed out that people seem to be much less intimidated and less likely to pull funny faces if the camera is held at waist height with the operator standing naturally rather than with a great camera held up to the eye in threatening fashion.

Tom then showed some clips starting with the opening sequence from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He used them to illustrate that the camera doesn’t need to keep switching person to person to follow who is speaking. In the sequence he showed, the camera stayed fixed on a close up of the face of the Sundance Kid in a stand off. The tension was heightened by the lack of any blinking while he held a tense exchange with his opponent who was out of shot.

Perhaps the most dramatic and surprising of the films Tom showed was one he had made when asked to edit a friend’s video. The subject was a children’s fireworks party. He gave it a strong musical background and showed plenty of dramatic moving shots of fireworks going off, inter-cut to the beat of the music, with still pictures of the children’s faces. This may sound quite odd but was very effective indeed. He didn’t say what made him use only still pictures for the children but one would guess that the rest of the material he had been given was not of the standard he wanted and this was an artistic ‘way out’!

The evening ended with an emphasis that films were very much about editing, not filming. What you see is what the editor has produced, you don’t see most of what the camera person shot.