Surrey Border Film and Video Makers press report for May 2008 tri-annual festival

The May meeting of Surrey Border Film & Video Makers was a special tri-annual celebration of its filmmaking. In that time Club members had made a total of 128 films/videos!

The meeting was the second of what looks set to be a regular celebration of the best acting, directing and script writing over a three-year period. Introduced by a previous club chairman Brian Harrison, it represented the consolidation of a move towards recognition of artistic merit

The evening started with a composite video made of extracts from the 25 videos on the short list. Members were then shown excerpts from the five films short listed for the drama scriptwriting prize. Guest speaker Norman Holden followed with insightful comments on the five, drawing on his wide experience in commercial films. Then followed excerpts from four films short listed for a new

Gordon and Pam Sutton, Norman Holden

Gordon Sutton, Jo Jones, Derek Watts

Val Hitchman, Harry Page

category of non-drama scriptwriting, which Norman also
commented on.

Harry Page, a guest speaker from Portsmouth, then attacked the seven nominations for the directing award with his individualistic views on what qualities he was looking for under the umbrella of direction. Finally Derek Watts, an experienced actor, gave his supportive views on the four nominations for the acting award.

After the interval, during which there was much speculation as to which videos would be winners, the actual awards were made. Josephine Jones took the acting award for her part in 'Judgement Day'; Jacky Wilson the drama scriptwriting award for 'A Bright Thread' and Val Hitchman the directing award for 'My Passion?. Club Chairman, Gordon Sutton, was presented with the non-drama scriptwriting award for '24 inch Boys'.