50 years of filmmaking by Alex Dove

Alex Dove filmmaking - Press report: March 05

At the March meeting of Surrey Border Film & Video Makers, club member Alex Dove celebrated 50 years of his own film and video making by showing and talking about the films and videos he has made over the half century. Of great surprise to the audience was his first film. Most of us are rather embarrassed by the poor quality of our first efforts which wobble, pan and zoom in a fashion likely to make an audience quite giddy. Well, Alex’s first effort had remarkably steady, well framed and interesting shots. When questioned he admitted that he wasn’t the first of his contemporaries to have a cine camera so, when he came to buy and use his own, he was well aware of the horrors of poor quality films.

Alex talking about his 50 years filmmaking

Alex’s early films concentrated on London and were a remarkable archive of the 1950s, shot mainly in colour which was unusual for the time. Sound wasn’t recorded synchronously with filming and had to be added afterwards, and editing was by cutting out what was not wanted with a razor blade and then gluing the film back together. All so much more difficult than in our modern computer age.

Alex then moved on to the time when he joined the Surrey Border club and started to make videos with groups of other enthusiasts. He showed examples of himself performing in front of the camera as actor as well as in his previous roles as camera man and director.

Alex has always shown a masterful combination of a dry humour and an ability to observe the unusual – qualities exemplified in his holiday videos. Not for him the boring catalogue of places visited. In a film which he called Nautilus, we see a holiday involving a trip in a submersible with lovely shots of underwater wrecks and colourful fish – and with Alex snorkel swimming like a dolphin. Trust Alex, he forgets to take his wallet out of his pocket before going into the water and manages to loose it complete with all his holiday cash and credit cards. With gloom welling up across his day he reports the loss to the captain of the submersible and goes back to his hotel. Later that day a rather sodden wallet is handed in to his hotel complete with all its contents intact. Apparently a diver from the submersible had searched the sea bed and recovered the lost wallet. All this Alex recorded on video with that dry humour and sparkle that is just so much him. Only time will tell whether other members manage to absorb his brilliance in their holiday videos.