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SURREY FILM-VIDEO FESTIVAL
18 January 2009 - The Electric Theatre
The Great and the Good converged on Guildford's Electric Theatre on Sunday
18 January for what many considered the best public show in many years. From
'Head Office' we were delighted to welcome Reg Lancaster - President, Alan
Atkinson - Chairman, John Gibbs - a past Chairman and Ron Prosser - Vice
Chairman (also one of our judges). From SERIAC, Charlie Caseley - Chairman
and Gwen Whippy - Secretary came to see us.
Running the Festival this year was not without its problems. Like many
organisations, cajoling people into actually doing things to help was not
for the faint hearted. The committee is now down to a hard core of five people
- just sufficient to organise the competition but with their other commitments
not enough to man Front of House. This challenge was eventually overcome
by a bit of out-of-county networking only to be replaced by another.
At the closing date (four weeks before the Public Show) only 15 entries had
been received. The closing date was extended to 2 January (two days before
judging) and more networking took place. The response was very gratifying.
At the revised closing date a total of 41 entries had been received - 10
more than in 2008.
We are resolute in our determination not to send the entries away to be judged.
This always gives our judges a very demanding day and they always respond
in very good spirit and enjoy the opportunity to compare opinions with their
fellows. This year, unusually, we organised a pre-judging session but even
so our final judges - Bob Hayward, Ron Prosser and Rod Willerton had 33 films
to look at. By the time they had seen the films and made their awards the
evening was well advanced and they set off home with about a week to write
up their notes so that we could give them to entrants at the end of the Public
Show. I calculate that between them the six judges wrote not far short of
25,000 words.
On the day a good audience enjoyed a varied programme of excellent films.
25 of the entries were shown. As ever it was not possible to show all the
entries.
Once again the projection 'A Team' of Maurice Barham, John Myall and Terence
Patrick coped superbly with the gauntlet thrown down by the Competition Officer
who allowed them only one minute between movies. Two media (mini-DV and DVD),
various screen ratios (4:3, 16:9 and Letterbox) and too many movies which
incorporated neither start nor finish indicators kept them at full stretch.
The theatre's sound system was conquered two years ago and this was demonstrated
by the crystal clarity of the sound in many of the films screened.
Before the awards were announced, Ron Prosser on behalf of the judges spoke
about their views on the overall standard. Against a background of an
exceptionally high overall standard, particularly for a county competition,
he said it was refreshing to see that fiction movies comprised the largest
category. They found this encouraging as, generally, narrative films are
rather thin on the ground in competitions. Although they were pleased to
see so many people having a go at dramas, it was evident that there is still
plenty of scope for improvement in acting. Acting is as much a skill as
photography, sound recording etc. It is well worth while to link up with
a good local amateur theatre company, or use the websites dedicated to
semi-professional actors who might perform for travel expenses and a 'sandwich'.
This, in their opinion, does not compromise amateur status as defined by
the IAC.
The judges felt that there is also room for improvement in scriptwriting
in all categories of movie but particularly in fiction and documentary. In
fiction it is important to write naturalistic dialogue that is designed to
be spoken not read and in documentaries far too many commentaries still fall
back on describing what we are seeing on the screen.
Music plays an important part in creating the right atmosphere and they saw
some movies where there was an imaginative choice of music and others where
music and pictures seemed to be locked in mortal combat.
Editing is a skill which combines the artistic and technical aspects of movie
making. In the good films it was unobtrusive, which is as it should be.
Then on to the awards announced by Bob Hayward for the judges. It was good
to see the average age of winners much lower than usual with a raft of
30-somethings winning top awards.
The Leonard Robinson Trophy for the best movie went to
Commitment by James Webber who also received The Comedy Cup
for Tent Boy.
Roger Cavallaro went home with The Roy Pullen Trophy for A Bad Day
at the Office and The Special Effects Cup for The
Storm.
Phil Martin was Runner Up with The Sleeper and also received
the Surrey Fiction Award for In the National Interest.
Stan Baker from Gosport, a very loyal supporter of the Festival for many
years and often in the winners list was commended for his gentle and delightful
documentary The River Meon. We all hope we'll still be making
films when we are 89.
So where do we go from here? It is clear that there is great support for
the festival but not a great deal from within Surrey. 29 of the entries came
from outside the county: similarly with the audience. We were delighted to
see contingents from Orpington and Shooters Hill and if we combine with them
our guests and out-of-county entrants (all but two of whom turned up) they
comfortably outnumbered 'locals'. In the words of the Prince of Wales (not
the present one) "Something will have to be done."
David Longley
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