Press Report - Geoff and Ann Clark describe their 40 years of films

At its June meeting Surrey Border Film & Video Makers were enthralled by a talk by Geoff and Ann Clark from the Staines video club who were enthusiastically celebrating 40 years of film making. The evening started with an absorbing archival film showing Kingston through the ages. Of particular interest was valuable footage shot by Eadweard Muybridge, born in Kingston and who in 1872 used photography to prove that there was a moment in a horse's gallop when all four hooves came off the ground together.

Geoff and Ann are experts in the superimposition of one picture on another allowing the filming of completely impossible but hilarious antics, one apparently showing Geoff hanging precariously to the television aerial high up on his roof. The club's September meeting plans to give members the opportunity to use these techniques to similarly attempt the impossible.

The evening ended with a comedy based on the antics of a couple on a charter flight sitting in the cramped seats at the rear of an aircraft. The brilliance here was the clever combination of shots taken when boarding a real holiday flight with the main 'action' shot in a mock up in their living room. A superbly successful example of the filmmaker's art of mixing the real with the staged to fool the audience into believing all is real.