Frome Five Minute Festival 2014

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Frome Five Minute Festival 2014

Report by

Mike Coad

 

On Saturday, Jo and I went down to Somerset for the annual Frome Five Minute Festival organised by Frome Film & Video Makers. It is now almost as old as I am, being in its 23rd year and is an annual pilgrimage for us.
It began as an internal club competition but soon grew into the ‘open to all’ Festival it has now become. This year, there were even two entries from Australia. There were a total of 29 entries and, no matter how many are entered, they are always all shown.
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The entries were projected using ‘Media Player’ and the resulting films looked stunning on the screen.
There are winners and runners up for each category of film as well as an overall winner and runner up. The overall winner was, believe it or not, a Western, and very well done it was too. In the 30 years I have been involved in this hobby, I only remember seeing 2 other Westerns by amateur film makers.
As always, excellent refreshments were provided and we were made to feel very welcome by the Frome club members.
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Last Friday was our own Spring Show, next weekend is SERIAC and the weekend after that is BIAFF. The film season has well and truly begun.

OVFM 2014 Spring Show a huge success!

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Thanks to our press officer Mike Shaw, the world (well in Orpington at least) has heard the good news about the success of our Spring Show:

Orpington Video & Film Makers Spring Show – held at the Methodist Hall Orpington on Friday 21st March – attracted close on 200 people – one of their largest crowds ever!”

Link to the complete story: http://orpingtoncommunity.weebly.com/1/post/2014/03/orpington-video-film-makers-springshow-attracts-huge-crowd.html

With thanks to Orpington Community website for posting the story and Mike for writing it!

50/50 Evening with Spring Park

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with Spring Park

Sharing can be a good thing. A rewarding thing. it can help us out of a sticky situation by helping carry the load of a problem or it can lead to the widening of the horizons. If we don’t share things like information and knowledge then we as people and a society won’t grow. It’s also nice to share the fruits of our labours which brings us to this film show evening OVFM will be having with our rivals   friends at Spring Park Film Makers!

On Thursday 6th March Spring Park will welcome us to their Club  at Emmanuel Church, The Grove, West Wickham BR4 9JS (map can be found HERE) – 7:45pm for an 8:00pm start – for an evening of the finest film making our region has to offer. And Spring Park will show some of their films too!

Both clubs will be screening a 45 minute selection of their films to show but remember, this is not a competition, just a chance to get together with fellow film makers and indulge in a civil and hopefully rewarding night of amateur film making.

If you are interested in attending then please let our Duracell driven secretary Freddy Beard know ASAP as Spring Park need to know how many cakes to provide!!

Thanks in advance to Spring Park for their hospitality and here’s to a good night!
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SERIAC Film Festival 2014

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The annual SERIAC film festival is soon upon us with this year’s event taking place on April 5th 2014 at Oast Theatre Tonbridge!

The closing date for entries is January 31st and the entry form can be downloaded from HERE!

For further information on SERIAC and other film festivals visit their website : http://www.seriac.org.uk/festivals.html

Good luck to all who enter a film!

North vs South 2013 Grand Final Report

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North vs South 2013 Grand Final Report

by

Mike Coad

The Grand Final of the North v South Competition took place on Sunday 24th November in the South at its usual venue of the Village Hall in Farnborough, Kent.

A 5 hour show which included all 25 films entered into the competition were shown to an appreciative audience. Several people commented after the show about the high standard of the finalists this year.

Around 75 people attended the event and we were particularly delighted to welcome Jill Lampert and Gordon Hunt of Sutton Coldfield Movie Makers and John Gibb of Nuneaton Moviemakers who all made the journey down from the Midlands.

Our judges for the Southern entries were Scarlett Mills and Khalid Nasser of the University of Sussex Film Appreciation Society and for the final judging, Garth Hope, Editor of ‘Film & Video Maker’ magazine.

Following the showing of the films, the audience were asked to fill in their voting slips. ‘On the Rails’ by Bourne End Video Makers won the audience vote although it didn’t feature in the judges top 3. Some things never change!

Audience Vote

1st                   On the Rails                                                  Bourne End Video Makers

2nd                   Revolution                                                    Chesterfield Film Makers

3rd                   Revolution                                                    Nuneaton Moviemakers

Official Result

1st                   Revolution                                                    Chesterfield Film Makers

2nd                   The Turning of the Screw                         Reading Film & Video Makers

3rd                   Frequency Hertz                                        Surrey Border Movie Makers

Needless to say, nobody in the audience matched the judge’s decision but Graham Sinden of Shooters Hill Camcorder Club was closest and took the ‘Audience Vote’ prize. He obviously has the knack as he also won it last year.

Our ‘Guess the Theme’ competition was won by Gordon Hunt of Sutton Coldfield Movie Makers who correctly guessed that the theme for 2014 is………

                                                                                    ‘IF’

Thanks to everyone who attended for their support.

Mike Coad

on behalf of Orpington Video & Film Makers

OVFM Club Meeting Tuesday October 15th 2013

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This is it folks – the final qualifying round of the annual Top Ten competition!

It has to be said that the response to this year’s competition has been disappointing with just twelve, yes TWELVE entries over the past four rounds. We know some people leave it to the last minute but we didn’t expect most of you to leave it to the last minute! To that end we hope to have a last minute surge of contributions to boost the entry total (otherwise the final will be a short one)  but not too many or we’ll never be able to view and judge them all.

Members who have been drawn to provide entries for this round are:

 

Charlie & Nellie Caseley

Richard & Jess Pugh

Ian Menage

Freddy Beard

Simon Earwicker

Hugh Darrington

Peggy Parmenter

John Ransley

Colin Jones

 

Please reply to this post if you will be providing a film at this week’s session, along with the running time, picture ratio (16:9 or 4:3) and media format (DVD, Mini DV, etc). This is a tremendous help in planning out the time allotment of the meeting.

If you don’t then have a film ready please let Brenda Wheatley know so that she can try to find someone else to fill the gap in the evening. If you missed your given round please bring your film along to this session, but it will only be shown after those drawn for that round, if there is time.

The results from the previous rounds can be found HERE.

Good luck to everyone who enters a film!

OVFM Conquers Kent Film Festival 2013!!

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OVFM Conquers Kent Film Festival 2013!!

by

Mike Shaw

Members of Orpington Video & Film Makers collected three major trophies and a commendation at the prestigious Kent Film Festival (held Saturday 28th September, in Canterbury).  The winning films were ‘Steam and Smoke’ (Best Photography) by Sam Brown, ‘Village Mosaic’ (Kent Award) by Barbara Darby,  ‘Enid Blyton – the Beckenham Years’ (Best Documentary) by Mike Shaw and Footprint Productions, and ‘Eastbourne ‘ (Commendation) by Mike & Jo Coad.

And the winners are....
And the winners are….

 

Congratulations to all the winners!

OVFM Autumn Show 2013

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OVFM Autumn Show 2013

 

When the members of OVFM work so hard at producing films it seems only fair that they should get the best showing possible. At club meetings their work is projected onto a large screen, but when we put on a show at an outside venue we’re also able to attract a much larger audience.

Since the success of our annual Spring events we have been able to include this annual Autumn event to our social calendar.

This year’s Autumn Show will take place on  FRIDAY 1st NOVEMBER at 7:00 for 7.30 pm

VENUE –  Methodist Church, 19 Sevenoaks Road, Orpington BR6 9JH

DIRECTIONS – GOOGLE MAP

WEBSITE – http://www.orpingtonmethodist.org.uk/welcome.htm

Club members get in free but for others the tickets are £5 – which includes refreshments – and are available from our secretary Freddy Beard on 01689 813616 or by e-mail at beardfreddy@gmail.com

If you wish to help publicise this event please download this PDF version of the poster HERE

And if you want sample of what to expect at our shows then please take  a look at our showreel on our YouTube page HERE

For an entertaining and sociable evening get your tickets a.s.a.p. and bring along your friends and family!

See you then!

OVFM Club Meeting Tuesday August 20th 2013

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Our annual Top Ten competition continues at this week’s club meeting with round number three.

So far we’ve had a total of eight entries in the competition – four each for the first two rounds – which isn’t bad but could be better.

Can we add to the total with a higher number of entries in this round? Let’s look and see who has been chosen to participate in round three:

 

Reg Lancaster

Malcolm Goodwin

Lee Relph

Sylvia Snipp

Basil Doody

Cherie Hamlet-Smith

Frank Hyde

Ann and John Epton

Peter Mitchell

Chris Coulson

 

Please reply to this post if you will be providing a film at this week’s session, along with the running time, picture ratio (16:9 or 4:3) and media format (DVD, Mini DV, etc). This is a tremendous help in planning out the time allotment of the meeting.

If you don’t then have a film ready please let Brenda Wheatley know so that she can try to find someone else to fill the gap in the evening. If your film is ready early please feel free to bring it along to any Top Ten night and if there is time we will show it.

If you miss your given round you can bring your film along to a later one, but it will only be shown after those drawn for that round, if there is time.

The results from the previous round can be found HERE.

Good luck to everyone who enters a film!

I Wished The Long Hot Night Goodbye…

…And pushed the thick air away like it was a limp, damp blanket heavy on my skin. I downed the last dregs of my drink, there was no ice in the glass, the ice had long since gone south along with the air con and my last clean shirt. Marlowe get off your sorry butt, it’s Tuesday the 16th July and there’s work to be done. I flung the unfinished Sudoku onto the desk, that was one puzzle I wouldn’t crack, and peeled myself off the leather seat. The effort made me sweat. Summer in the city you had to love it !

The tyres squealed in protest on the sticky blacktop as I stuck the old Ford in drive and cruised uptown. The streets were empty, nobody but a fool PI would be out in heat like this, so I chewed a little on what the night ahead might bring, maybe I’d see the dame, the redhead in that red dress. I checked the glove box for my 45, Dancing Queen by Abba, a little scratched but still servicable, it would do if things got lively.

I swung the car into the lot. A big beemer squatted out front. The engine smelt hot, somebody had gunned this Bavarian beast without mercy. They had to be plumb crazy or desperately short of time, or maybe a little of both. I set my hat brim low and wrestled my way into the joint.

It struck me hard. Something was wrong. My nose itched. I looked around, once, quickly. I took it all in. You could cut the hopelessness with a knife, the sort of knife you’d give a kindergarten kid. There’d been a happening here, that much was obvious, but now it was quiet…too quiet, the lull before the storm you might say. I tapped my jacket for my hip flask and took a swig. The nip felt good, comforting. I was ready now…

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So anyway the gist is it’s film shoot night for ‘Power Corrupts’, one of the club entries for the annual North V South competition. David has brought together all the ingredients for a really great production and all he needs now is a bit of luck, a following wind and enough ‘support artists’ to make up a decent crowd scene. We wait and wait, the tension is like a coiled spring that’s close to breaking. But one by one they trickle in and gradually they gather, the friends the neighbours and the club stalwarts. We have our crowd!

With crowd, crew and our leading ladies all assembled the shoot begins. David takes masterful control of the situation and with him in the director’s stool the filming ticks along with assured efficiency until ALL the scenes are in the can and the ambitious schedule completed.

To the cast and crew I take my hat off to you all. In fact I take off everything that decency will allow to salute your patience, fortitude, good grace and good humour especially in the teeth of what was a long and very muggy night. Well done and lets kick the North’s bottom!