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Press report: April 06 |
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On Friday 7th April 2006, the main event was the showing of eight of his own films, by John Astin, the President of Potters Bar Cine and Video Society. All the films were remarkable for their clarity and steadiness. The camera which John uses is a Sony TRV33, which he prefers he said, because of its small size and lightness. The steadiness he attributed to a heavy screw-on base plate, which could hold the camera steady on a table or could be opened up into a tripod, which also had the ability to be clamped on to the back of a chair The first film John showed was “The Lights”, which was about 3 minutes long and was the edited result of about 55 minutes photography in Blackpool. The illuminations themselves were attractive, but were especially so because of John’s skilful photography and editing to music. “The Marathon Show”, John’s next film was a refreshingly entertaining view of the London Marathon, not as seen on television, but the sideshows, massage stations etc off the course. John’s next film, ‘Paris Revisited,” which won the Gold award at the 2004 British International Amateur Film Festival (BIAFF), was a travelogue in which he compared Paris seen through the lens of his cine camera in the 1960’s with present day photography John was honest enough to give us the tip that some of his “1960’s” photography was achieved with a modem camera but put through a movie filter on his computer during editing. ‘Water Marks,” his next film, was researched by him and members of his U3A Group, about three streams, which start in the Hampstead area and flow under London into the Thames. A very educational film which was awarded a Silver Plus at BIAFE. Then he showed ‘The Big Break” a film he made in 2001, using editing effects skillfuly to show the story of a man who picked the right six numbers to win the lotto lottery - but inadvertently bought a Thunderball ticket! Next he showed “Are our bodies fit for the 21st Century?” which I thought was a very professional educational film. It was made for a local surgery and demonstrated how our bodies developed to satisfy the requirements of the ancient “hunter-gatherers,” and how they stand no chance with the food and drink of today. Yet another award winning film, a silver at BIAFF in 2003, was “Treasure Trove,” a travelogue of Florence. A feature of all John’s films is the way he can digress to the unusual and fascinating and then return to the main track again. Answering a question, he said that his technique was to fllm as much as he could of everything there was, list it out and select the clips he intends to use. Then he puts the clips on the timeline before writing his script which he records. He then lays the audio of the script on the timeline and stretches and squeezes it and the video until they fit. John’s final film won a Silver Plus at this year’s BIAFE Shot on 6th July2005, “Show of Remembrance” was a record of a day in London when the activities of the second world war were remembered. John Astin’s selection of films, all made by him, with very little outside help, showed what each of us should be aiming for with our holiday films. Having just become accustomed to travelling everywhere with my tripod, which I thought was essential, I must now learn to improvise, as John does, to create rock-steady films. Gordon, our Chairman, finished off the evening for us, by encouraging us to start getting to grips with our plans for the July Film-in-an-evening, - ie. sorting ourselves out into groups, brainstorming the theme” A dream come true,” organizing ourselves into production teams and practicing. He wound up an excellent evening by showing us two films of past Films-hi-an-evening to get us in the mood. The Ken Mackay classic “Double Trouble” certainly achieved that! Dixie Dean |