N A VG M a rch M eeting at Snod ’ s Edge
AV News 201 - August 2015
Howard Wilson
Regular readers will know that the format of our meetings consists of a morning of members ' own sequences followed by comments / assessments and then a specialist speaker in the afternoon .
This time was no different except that members ' sequences were gathered in earlier in the month and then sent to 3 people for detailed assessment . The idea was to enable more measured and in depth comments rather than ' on the hoof ' comments given after just one showing , from either our guest speaker or others in the audience .
We saw eight pieces of work - fewer than usual - but this allowed a balance between our ' formal assessor ' s ' and the audience who then had their turn . On the whole the idea proved worthwhile . All assessors ( or as someone said ' assassins ') had written notes , which they read out with the copy to member concerned .
There can be no doubt that the quality of sequences has , in general , vastly improved over the last few years and it was certainly the case at this meeting . We saw , among others , a documentary relating to the Ripon Workhouse , Lake District , Gardens of Heligan , Arctic Scenery , Gibside and the Shildon Rail Museum Gathering of six A4 Class locomotives ( Mallard etc ).
One sequence in particular stood out however . ' Coming Shortly - Satan in High Heels ' by Jack Gilmore . A take-off of the days of B / W cinema and the trailers for films . We saw all that could go wrong - frame slippage , double takes , blank screen , repeat of what had gone before etc etc . It was humorous , really well executed and the subject of lots of chat during the break . Jack had worked in cinema in his younger days .
At the end of the morning there was much discussion on our new format . Some said it was more daunting to enter a sequence knowing it would be pawed over , time and again ( hence the fewer entries ?) but the overwhelming majority thought was to do it again with a little tweeking .
The afternoon was handed over to our good friend and member , Ron Henry whose theme for the afternoon was ' Audio Visual My Way '.
Having hosted presenters from the top flight of audio visual grandees , it was a bit of a change to stage a home-grown exponent of the ' art '. Ron Henry , however , has been around the ' circuit ' since 1970 and , having made his living by staging conferences , the Chairman considered that it was a fair bet that Ron could pass on some of his vast knowledge .
Right from the start Ron insisted that audio visual was a personal expression and anything he was about to say was his own personal opinion and by no means the definitive method of AV production , merely his way of making interesting programmes .
The session began by outlining a method of producing , what Ron called , a ' Frontispiece '. A one slide AV from which a presentation of several AV ' s can be chosen by clicking on buttons . This system is frequently used by many presenters but , judging by the haste to pick up the typed instruction sheet which Ron had prepared , was of interest to our members .
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