Surrey Border Film and Video Makers press report for August 2009
A critique for Valley Films plus premiere of a charity project for Step by Step

Trapped was the theme this year for Surrey Border Film & Video Makers’ Film in an Evening exercise. On Friday 3rd July a record six teams, all in different locations, began filming at 7.00pm. Their goal was to shoot and edit a short film on the above theme and then turn up at the club venue by 9.15 at the latest for a premier showing of the films.

The amateur film club has held this exercise for the past 15 years and has found that as well as generating film making groups within the club, it is a very good training exercise for it concentrates the mind and due to the time constraints involved, script writing has to be tight and the editing even tighter.

The groups are allowed several rehearsals before the night in order to work out camera angles. They are also allowed to generate the opening titles and

Mike playing the part of a burglar during filming

music and the closing credits, so that on the night the ‘filling’ can be slipped into the space between. The groups generate their own ideas and nominate someone in the group to write the script. This year we had: Double Trouble - a philanderer being given a hard time in a cemetery by ghosts; Trapped by Technology - a frustrated tourist trying to check in at an airport with a “Computer says ‘no’” situation, Zapped - four men in balaclavas robbing a jewelry store only to find two interfering women had removed the keys to their get-away car, A Sense of Security - a Mr Bean character forgetting his house keys, climbing over his gate to get the spare set and ending up locked in his own back garden, Bookworm - two friends being turned into worms and finally Jailbirds - two men breaking into a house only to be confronted by a clever speaking parrot and a rottweiler.