Film secrets revealed by Philip Brown

Surrey Borders Film & Video Makers November meeting featured films and a talk by Philip Brown from the Portsdown Camcorder Users Club. This was followed by a presentation of prize-winning films by Penny Johnson, a long-standing club member.

Philip Brown (Portsmouth)

We were all fascinated as Philip Brown described his club’s experiences while making two very ambitious films. He enthusiastically divulged secrets of the meticulous and exacting techniques they had used. The first had been made especially for a competition whose theme that year had been ‘Reflections’. The film was called ‘Delayed Reactions’ and featured a man, slightly worse for drink, seeing a reflection of himself in a mirror with a significant delay between his movements and that of the reflected image. Although sounding simple, it required techniques which were quite complex. Philip clearly explained the exacting geometry and positioning involved, and how one image had to be superimposed on another. The resulting video was entirely convincing.

The second film was ‘Scoop’, a splendid story of alien abduction. Philip pointed out the attention to detail required to make a convincing visual story using simple props. He explained how the story came from a fortuitous meeting with a young writer, and he went on to outline the problem of converting from a story to a shooting script and getting dialogue to flow and sound natural.

After a refreshment break, Penny Johnson showed some wonderful films revealing her particular speciality of amazing close-ups of insects and birds, a subject which required significant patience and persistence.

The club welcomes visitors when it 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 is on 1st December when members compete in an annual film competition.