AV News 174 - November 2008
There was something quite magical, and I mean magical about Jill Bunting’s
The Colour Thief. If I nitpick, it was a tad too long, but it had me wide eyed in
admiration at the animation. I understand that the butterfly’s wings took many
hours of dedication and it paid off. All too often have I seen videos containing
excellent material thrown away for lack of tender loving care in the editing.
I am known in video clubs exhorting all the film makers to “Keep It Short”
To me a good time is between 6 and 9 minutes. Anything straying up into the
15+ minute bracket needs to be shortened, because it is not often possible
for an amateur producer to hold an audience for longer than that - due in no
small part to the chair one is sitting on!
Now then, did my mind add something to The Forest of Tane Mahuta by
Erhard Hobrecker? There seemed to be some incredibly subtle changes in
parts of the screen and faces imagined into the background? Riveting stuff
here, such delicacy could not have been achieved on video.
The picture quality was staggering on all the entries, but the Forest
triggered something from my childhood, when living in the country, I often
wandered through woodlands by moonlight. As a child I had not been fed on
fairy stories, so fear of the dark had not been imbued .
With a colleague I made a video of Lake Katrine in Scotland. It had been
a windless day and the surface of the water was like a mirror and with mists
hanging around I made a successful ‘mood’ movie, but a judge (cruelly) said
“It should have been a slide show - nothing moved” He didn’t see the small
insects flying around, nor the slow pan and tilts to the music of Vaughan
Williams. (Thomas Tallis)
It was the inference that film should show movement that irked me. The
same applied to AV “Doesn’t Move” is the film buff’s cry. Why should it? Mona
Lisa doesn’t suddenly scratch her nose and it is the most famous still picture
in the world.
I am now convinced that AV should be included in IAC shows and
competitions on their own merit and not as a separate section. The
presentations at BIAFF 2008 would open the eyes of many film makers
because of the glorious photography, composition and production.
With computer editing and the ease of video projection and DVD entry to
competitions, Audio Visual could be a completely new experience for movie
makers and can rival anything that IMAX did!
You may gather that I am now a fan!
Peter Edits 'Nor Easter' the area magazine for the IAC's North East Region
NERIAC. He is keen to encourage an exchange of ideas between AV
workers and