AV News 174 - November 2008
Peter Dobing FACI
BIAFF Harrogate
My interest in projected images was aroused a great many years ago when
I was about 8 and my Gran took me to see ' Lantern Lectures' on a sheet
slung between two posts in the nave of our local church. I cannot remember
now how I came to own a projector, but I recall a smelly oil fired device with
many three and a quarter inch Victorian slides, (wish I still had them!)
probably donated by a benevolent uncle who was glad to get rid of them.
Three of them had a handle to revolve one of the glasses making
kaleidoscopic moving images. The moving image satisfied me more than the
stills and I saved up to buy a 9.5mm cinematograph and I was given a simple
camera, by the same uncle, and did much animation. At 12, I was going to
be the next Walt Disney. I was hooked on cine: now, of course, video.
And this is where we meet. The best AV presentation (ever!) I attended
was a few years ago at IMAX. I know, I know, that they had more than two
projectors working together! There was one which just did the little light
blinking on an instrument panel, but it impressed me with what could be
done. I attended some presentations at IAC events but was put off by the
slow dissolves and the subject matter, which always seemed to be sombre
and there was usually one about the Holocaust. Nothing light, humorous or
snappy although the images were ravishing and the sound systems
magnificent. The presentations also went on a bit too long, like some videos
I have seen!
But the productions at BIAFF 2008 quite took my breath away. I was the
projectionist for the videos in the Duchy Room and the Presentation of the
Winners in the Geoffrey Round AV Competition was in the same room so I
stayed on to watch and am very glad I did.
The arrival of digital editing has added something really profound to the art
of AV presentations. There was not a duff (pardon the phrase) entry. Some
even achieved a tingle in the spine.
The Audience in the Duchy Room
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