The club editing exercise

Press report: May 06

Editing success

Surrey Borders Film & Video Makers met in May to view films produced during an editing competition where participants were given a tape of an hour’s worth of assorted video clips and asked to select some to make a short film from them lasting just a few minutes. New sound tracks were allowable, but no new video clips. There were 11 entries and the winner was selected by popular vote. In such an exercise the film shown first - however it is chosen – always has a certain advantage, in that the video material is new to the audience. In this competition, by the time the eleventh entry was screened, many of the clips had been seen many times before. Consequently the strength of the story line needed to become increasingly more important in order to maintain interest. We were not let down, and we all marvelled at the ingenuity of the competitors who came up with very diverse themes, quite surprising given the constraints of having to use the same starting material.

Rita and Josephine    receive editing cup

A new cup had been given to the club in memory of the late esteemed member and regular competitor, Ken McKay. This was presented to Rita Wheeler and Josephine Jones for their film called ‘Eternal Quest’ which was particularly noteworthy for its strong story line.

The evening continued with the premiere of a new club film made for the Brightwell Trust by Sally Maltby and Penny Johnson featuring the Victoria Garden in Farnham. The 3 minute film described the evolution of the once-derelict site of an outdoor swimming pool to a mature garden in the middle of Farnham.

After a refreshment break, friends from the Offenbach video club in Frankfurt, Germany showed travel Films made during their visits to Myanmar, Burma and Costa Rica. A printed translation from the German was provided but the films were so well made and visually explanatory that they were thoroughly enjoyable without the text.