Press report: November 2007
At their November meeting Sir Paul Holden enthralled members of Surrey Border Film & Video Makers with a talk entitled “70 years of film making”. In 1934, as a schoolboy of just 11 years, he was given a hand cranked cine camera. Films in those days were very short, very expensive, only black and white and with no sound! Editing had to be done with scissors and film cement. These difficult conditions were not to put off the young lad who made many films and even built a cinema in his attic. When in 1940 his school was evacuated from Cambridge to the Scottish highlands he and three other school friends made a film record of the move called “The Leys goes North” of which he showed a few excerpts. From school he joined the RAF where he flew some of the first jet planes. Even then he was still keen on filming and we saw views from the cockpit. We heard how he progressed from silent films to the use of a tape recorder and all the trouble that involved trying to get the sound synchronised with the pictures. All far from the convenience of digital cameras today with simple computer editing! As a member of Round Table, he joined other members in forming a film-making Club using silent Standard 8mm cine cameras to make films with synchronised sound-tracks for Round Table Competitions in the 1960s. One of these came second in the National Competition and won an International Competition. We were privileged to see this very film authentically projected by a real film projector. The picture quality fell far short of modern standards, but the content justified the prizes. We saw some truly amazing film, shot by Sir Paul while in India with Sight Savers International. We saw mobile treatment centres at eye camps curing people’s blindness by cataract operations. It was called “Five Fingers” representing the answers given by patients, after the operations, when the surgeons held up their hand and asked how many fingers they could see! Sir Paul successfully used this and other films he made after this Indian visit to raise money for the charity and also entered them into competitions where he won many awards. We then saw a collection of films made since Sir Paul’s retirement including “A Travellers Prayer” made just after his retirement and a promotional film for the Farnham Lions Club. This was followed by a very moving film made in 1993 called “Each Precious Moment” showing the work of a new Lions Hospice in Kent. Here club member Vicky Jackson held our attention, performing some superb interviews. Sir Paul ended with an interesting further insight into his bubbling, non-stop, character as we saw excerpts from a newsreel that he regularly puts on for the residents of the Clare Park retirement home, where he now lives. |
