Peter Coles, BSc, DipEd, FRPS, FIPF, EFIAP has a distinguished record on the British and International Audio-Visual scene. He is editor of AV World magazine and contributes an AV column to our own Film & Video Maker magazine. Mayor of Calderdale in West Yorkshire during 1999 - 2000, he is a thoughtful, cheerful man with a huge personality which audiences warm to immediately. We caught up with him at the Movie 2000 Festival in Buxton before the Geoffrey Round A-V Trophy presentation.

Q: Why should A-V people and movie makers get together?

P.C.: I have not seen many films made by IAC members but we are in the medium together and I imagine that our objectives are very similar. It is about one person (or groups of one or two people) trying to put together a communication with an audience. I guess that is why we've joined together apart, of course, from the copyright licences.

If you look at adverts on television that are supposed to be movies, they also contain quite a lot of slide-sound technique, working from still images.

Q: Do you think more film makers are beginning to see the possibilities of A-V?

P.C.: Yes, and sometimes the sequences we produce end up as videos, particularly if they have a commercial value, because that's the only sensible way of propagating them without taking two projectors or more around and all the heavy gear that goes with it. Particularly now that making video from tape-slide presentations is within the reach of normal AV people.

Q: Is there a trend toward A-V becoming more cinematic?

P.C.: We borrow techniques from each other, which is fine, so long as we don't try to copy each other. For me your hobby is about the moving image and ours is about the manipulation of still images. If we go into animation I think A-V becomes a bit like a joke, whereas your animation - if it's done really well, it IS a joke! We can only do poor attempts at proper animation using jumps.

Q: At last year's IAC Festival it was not possible to run the Geoffrey Round competition but Willerby Camera Club presented a slide-tape programme which was riotously funny compared with the serious, even sombre, nature of other shows.

P.C.: It quite often happens that the ones which have used techniques best have done so to get across serious messages. We have on occasion had sequences that have risen to the top of the heap and which have been funnies. I expect you will have seen some of Alan Green's work. He is very good with comedy.

There are not many comedies in tonight's programme, but to me the day we had in Leeds judging entries for the award, was probably the best one-day show that I have ever seen. The sequences, together as a show, were better than any I have seen anywhere in the world - including the major international events - in terms of interest to an English audience. I expect the French do a similar one that they would say is the best in the world but if I'm sitting through it I don't get all the messages that are coming across.

Q: What is the A-V scene internationally?

P.C.: FIAP organise recognition of festivals and gives awards for distinguished work rather as IAC and the Royal Photographic Society give their Associateships and Fellowships. We have had up to ten or a dozen major international festivals most years though the number reduced last year. Some FIAP rule changes might have prevented a few festivals going ahead. Ours is every other year and we are just moving it from Cheltenham to Cirencester.

Q: Are any A-V workers using digital imaging?

P.C.: Oh yes. You will see one tonight: Stanley Newton's Alice in Cyberland. If there were an audience vote this one would win. It's won every audience vote so far. Technically it might not be so good as some of the others. In terms of interest and amusement it certainly is. Most of the images are shot straight off the screen (Film & Video Maker November 1999 issue had an article about the creation of that sequence.) Colin Balls has one of those expensive machines where you put your digital image in one end and out comes a slide at the other end. He made one with that technique which won our national championships last time called This is a Town - about Wigan.

Q: So there is not a problem enlarging digital images to the size of a movie screen?

P.C.: I just had a photographic exhibition in Hebden Bridge to support the Calderdale Community Foundation. They were all digital images. Most were blown up to A3 size and you cannot tell the difference between them and traditional photographic enlargements. I've abandoned my wet darkroom now apart from E6 (slide) processing. I'm one of the few left who processes their own films.

Q: Finally: judging is a hot topic in the Institute: how is it organised in the A-V world? Do you ever have "lay" people as judges?

P.C.: It is organised by choosing those who have done well. You would be unlikely to have someone on a panel who had not got a fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society - if the event had anything to do with the RPS. Occasionally there are Associates or people from abroad with recognised distinctions. That's how they are chosen. How they operate is up to the organisation of the festival.

We have occasionally had IAC Life President, Gerald Mee, on panels. Internationally there are one or two places which make a point of including people who are outside the medium. Australia usually has related but different people like a radio broadcaster or an artist. Italy sometimes makes up a whole panel of artists.

Peter published a book called Chasing Shadows about the Calder Valley. (A5 size with 12 short stories by his friend Bill Marsden, 24 poems and over 40 pictures, many by Peter.) Proceeds go to the charity he adopted in his period as Mayor of Calderdale, Calderdale Community Foundation. Buy one now!
Write to Peter Coles, Sephton Enterprise Publications, Lacy House Farm, Charlestown, Hebden Bridge HX7 6PN enclosing a cheque for £5.00 which includes postage. Cheque payable to "Sephton Enterprise Publications".

Nip over the AV World web site and let Peter persuade you to subscribe.   Four issues a year, about 60 A5 pages - some in full colour, annual subscription £14 including UK postage.
Orders to Ron Davies, 15 Ladybridge Avenue, Worsley, Manchester M28 3BP (0161 799 4775) or email.

"That rainbow song's no good, take it out". - MGM management memo after the first showing of The Wizard of Oz.

Page updated on 21 March 2008

Authors' views are not necessarily those of The Institute of Amateur Cinematographers

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