Press Release March 2003 80th Birthday celebrations for Sir Paul Holden

At their March 2003 meeting Surrey Border Film & Video Makers had drinks all round to celebrate the 80^th birthday of their founder. It was 19 years since Paul Holden got together a small band of cine camera enthusiasts to form a film club to view and make new movies. Those were the days when hand held cine cameras were the preserve of the few and films had to be sent off to be processed, there was no instant playback as on modern camcorders. Editing had to be done with razor blades and film cement rather than on computer.

In line with the club’s focus on film making, a previous chairman showed the members a 5 minute video interview with founder, Paul. This was very evocative with reminiscences back to the war years when Paul was in the RAF and had flown Spitfires, Hurricanes and Tempests. He recounted having to fly at only 500 feet in a dead straight line simulating the flight of a doodle-bug while the ATS aimed anti-aircraft guns at him for practice in shooting down these flying bombs. He went on to recount other dramatic events and, relevant to this meeting, the formation of the film club and its eventual change from film to video. The club membership has grown during its 19 years from 5 members to over 70. Interests at the club have continued to focus on all aspects of video making with much current interest in encouraging more drama

productions and general creativity. This is reflected in the talk amongst the membership of co-operations with drama groups. Although, technical issues will continue to be important, they are just a step on the way to the fundamental process of video making which relies on good scripts, good acting and good directing
The evening finished with a talk by Don Mouatt on holiday films. He concentrated on ways of getting more excitement and interest into films. He showed various examples starting with a film of Iceland where he had introduced humour, followed by one of Flamingos where he painted a ballet of pink beaks and legs. Then he showed a marvellously entertaining documentary of a man producing a sculpture in butter! Possibly the most memorable film was one called ‘The Infiorata of Genzano’ which was an intimate close up of the work of the locals of Genzano in Italy as they prepared huge pavement pictures entirely in flowers for an annual religious festival. It was full of detailed close ups of people working to prepare the flowers, mark the pictures on the streets and then fill them with densely packed flowers. The culmination was a religious procession down the centre of all the flowers. Most club members ruefully admitted that they would probably merely have taken pictures of the procession and in doing so would have missed the riveting fascination of the preparation.