It’s time to raise the curtain on OVFM Oscars night
Once again the biggest event in the OVFM calendar is upon us as we hold our very own Oscars! Over the past twelve months we’ve all (well some of us have) been hard at work making films and improving our skills and this is the night where that hard work is recognised and rewarded.
The many trophies and awards contested include the Ian Dunbar Cup, the Orpington trophy, the Jubilee Shield and the Mike Turner Plate and judging by the quality of the films entered these will all be tightly contested categories. We shall also be announcing the winner of the top 10 for 2012, one of the few awards based on club member votes.
Last year Simon “Snapper” Earwicker swept the board with four prizes. Can he do it again this year or will we crown a new King or Queen of OVFM?
As always the Oscar night is meant to be a fun time for the club as much as it is an evening of celebration so members are encouraged to either put on their gladrags or be a bit creative and indulge in a bit of fancy dress. Who can forget last year when our beloved vice chairman Mike Turner dressed up as a banana to help promote Anna Littler’s Blitz & Bananas?
So, let’s hope no-one trips up when going up to receive their award or we don’t have to endure any embarrassing skits or songs about seeing certain parts of the female body as those pretenders in Hollywood did last week. This is the OVFM Oscars – about a classy as you can get (for Orpington anyway…)!!
For this week’s club meeting we look forward to seeing the results of your hard labour in creating a film that fits the theme of “Surprise Surprise”. If you should still need a reminder or what this entails the details can be found HERE Since you are all a creative and devious bunch I am sure we can expect a few unique treats to savour in lieu of the broad spectrum of possibilities this topic suggests.
As always we ask that those you who will be submitting a film to please reply to this post below saying as much so we have a rough idea of how the time allotment for this session will play out.
Also could you please include the following information with your submission:
Film Title
Your Name
Running Time
Aspect Ratio (4:3 or 16:9)
This simple act of cooperation makes all the difference for our archivists and programme compilers and is greatly appreciated.
With Lee, our glorious webmaster and esteemed Keeper of the Records, suffering with a severe dose of ‘Oh deary me I’m not feeling awfully well’ and an acute case of ‘Wretched fiddlesticks, I appear to have a pain’, it was down to the A Team to step in and save the day.
Actually do I mean A Team or do I mean the B for Back-up Team? No wait! I really mean the C for C Class Celebrity Couple of Annabelle and Simon who like a well oiled (more of that later) machine utterly failed to fill Lee’s big black boots…but at least they tried!
So with Andy piloting the Archive Time Machine and Annabelle and Simon poised with pencils to keep scrupulous notes of the films shown, like what Lee does, we were off.
1. DIY by The Gremlins. A gloriously funny short with a hint of gallows humour! Thanks to Annabelle for correctly noting the name.
2. Magical Moments also by The Gremlins, Basil Doody, John Alford and Pete Greenway (sadly departed). The touching tear jerker starred the wonderful David Locke (also sadly departed) as the park keeper imagining himself as a magician.
3. Sperrymental by Basil Doody. Basil decides to make an ‘original’ film with help from Frank and Lynn Chanter. Hilarity ensues as the subjects of crisp eating, wine drinking, poetry reading and the techniques of filming upside down and in an experimental way (out of focus) are employed and exploited in a desperate and increasingly ‘well oiled’ attempt to make an award winning film.
4. The Grey Team by Annabelle Lancaster. An epic documentary examining the lives of the beautiful Whitbread shire horses. From pulling the Lord Mayor’s Coach one day and delivering beer around central London the next. To attending the numerous shows around the country to visiting the blacksmith for new shoes. The film concludes in exhilarating manner when the horses are seen enjoying their two week holiday in rural Kent and we watch them gallop excitedly in the open pastures.
5. Call of Duty by Colin Jones. This comedy finds our untidy hero Kevin desperate for help to clean the house before the imminent return of his parents. A comic mix up with telephone numbers means confusion all round…and no help for Kevin.
6. For Better For Worse by Basil Doody (he was the star of the evening and he missed it all!) Pity the poor couple at the centre of this calamity cursed wedding day. A vintage comedy with cameos from Reg, Annabelle and other youthful club members.
7. Problem With O by Bob Wyeth. A well observed humorous short with a little shepherd boy totally unable to keep his placard under control at the nativity service.
8. City Beat by Mike and Jo Coad. Punchy and pacey, this is quiet literally city scenes cut to music.
9. Pulling the Birds by Colin Jones. The Pheasant Pluckers Song lip synched for comedic effect with lots of rubber chickens thrown in for good effect.
10. Nimrod, directed by Colin Jones, filmed by Frank Hyde. A rhyming couplet spouting cocker spaniel called Nimrod dispairs of his human family and their odd behaviour.
And that concludes the show. A great evening for one and all.
“Can you come back when there are more neighbours coming out to sneak a peek?”
What an exciting month I’ve had!
It started with a call from Animal Planet TV on a Friday, saying that they’d seen my cat behaviour channel on YouTube, and they’d like to film and interview me and the cats for a series called “My Pets Gone Viral”. WOW! I hadn’t spoken to a TV company before, but I quickly answered “of course, when?”
“Oh, Wednesday” they replied, “We’re flying a crew over from Canada.” Blimey! A CREW… FROM CANADA! You can imagine my excitement! The only catch was the lounge would need a tidy before they arrived, so the next three days was spent sorting through the stuff in the lounge and ferrying it upstairs to the spare bedroom!
The tidiest Chez Coulson has ever looked!
Wednesday arrived, and the 5 of them arrived in a large people carrier car. I was expecting 4 of them – Director, Cameraman, Soundman, and Camera Assistant. The Camera Assistant sort of did the job of Runner, but to call him a runner isn’t fair – he had a pretty good knowledge of everyone’s job, and was always running around fixing stuff. And the 5th person – he was the driver, and just sat in his car all day, on his iPad and listening to the radio until lunchtime! But save your pity, he was on a very good day rate, plus taxi mileage!
“Just a little off the top and trim the back and sides please.”
The day started with the director interviewing myself and Anna, asking a variety of questions, to do with the cats, the YouTube Channel and its success. One of the questions was “What are your favourite comments on the films?” It was like they were feeding me a line – I replied “I like the comments that say that they love my documentary style and English accent so much, I should be on Animal Planet!” I wonder if they’ll use that line or not? It seemed a little funny to do the interview before we’d really settled in and got to know them but in fact it was a good idea, as the days filming was based on the answers we’d given in the interview.
Even the pros listen to Reg about using a tripod!!
Finally, at around 4PM, they wanted to do the intro and outro sequences – The intro was a shot of me walking out of the front door, saying “This is Freya, my spoilt Princess” or something like that.
They had a sort of dolly track on tripods so they could track into me while I said it. It took about 30 minutes to setup and would have produced about 5 seconds of finished footage!
Chris: “I wouldn’t have done it like that! Amateurs!”
Then came the outro! It required a sort of fake studio setup, with a bright yellow backdrop, a fake TV camera and a big light with reflective umbrella, and a director’s chair – The idea was that the cat would sit in the chair, and look right down the lens, as the camera moved toward it. Good luck with that! I thought.. Many times we tried to make Freya sit in the chair, and as soon as she settled, the cameraman would yell, “CLEAR!” – We’d dive out the way, and he’d start his track in, and Freya would jump down. Having taken an hour to setup this shot, failure was not an option.
Just setting up the pyro for the big finale.
Fortunately, the treats that we’d been using to persuade Freya to sit still hadn’t gone unnoticed by the other two cats, Teego and Chatzi, and not wishing to miss out, they jumped on the chair too. “CLEAR!” The cameraman suddenly yelled again, and we dived out – The camera tracked in, with all three cats looking right down the lens. We held our breath and the three cats sat still for the whole four seconds. The camera reached the end, and stopped, and almost on cue, Freya bit Chatzi’s neck, and he pushed her off, and in the squabble, Teego got pushed off the chair too! So then the shot was left with Chatzi sitting on his own, still looking down the lens, as if to say “THIS IS MY CHAIR!”
“This is taking far too long! Somebody call my agent!”
We held our breath waiting for the director to call “Cut!”, and we all gasped and looked at each other, waiting for the cameraman to rewind the shot and look if he’d got it all or not. HE HAD! The crew were all pretty amazed, and declared that was the best outro they’d got for the whole series, due to air in March/April!
While they were there, an episode of “D.I.Y SOS” was also filmed!
If the excitement of Wednesday wasn’t enough, I had an unrelated phone call two days later, from a production company in London, asking to license my Tyre Spotter video! (Made for our ‘My Other Hobby’ theme evening) They wanted to use it in a clip show with a comedian making fun of the films, so of course he won’t be mentioning it’s a spoof, but I don’t mind – if they pay, they can say what they like!
“You! Human slave! Tell that sneaky photographer to do one!”
