2014-2015 NEWSLETTER
06/05/2015 Karen was re-elected as Chair along with most of the existing committee members plus two new ones. Various ideas for the programme and summer projects were discussed as part of the standard AGM business. A short film of highlights of the season was screened along with some Easter Egg advert films and a promo for the IAC AGM in Bournmouth hosted by SoCo.
29/04/2015 Two more trophies were presented to winners who could not attend the premiere evening. Photos have been added to the gallery. One Easter Egg practical film was screened while another on a memory stick was finally screened after considerable technical difficulties, but the audio failed. Various scripts were outlined and discussed, including two from a potential new member Jamie. Some more Doncaster showreel films were also screened and discussed.
25/04/2015 A very pleasant evening dinner with film show and trophy presentations at the Reading Golf Club, coordinated by Marion. The film show used the Golf Club's projection facilities, but a lack of suitable audio cables meant the screening was from a DVD played on a laptop. See more gallery photos
22/04/2015 Anne gave an overview of editing using Sony Vegas by filming some edits with a commentary. The results of each edit were also screened. She used a one-minute film, some greenscreening and a family version of Come Dine With Me. Techniques described included picture in picture with a border, key framing. text and chroma keying, and adding audio.
15/04/2015 Sadly only two entries for the Fiction competition. Thanks to Brian for operating the peojector. Summary stills are now available. Tony screened The Making of the winning entry. Chas screened his The Tall, The short and the Awkward clip from an earlier practical challenge and David screen his Jaws and Psycho clips with explanations of how the effects were achieved. With time to spare the audience commented on several more films from the Doncaster showreel
08/04/2015 Ten entries for the Open competition with an external judge Geoff Harmer. Geoff Addis assisted him with deliberations for any Stan Olman nomination. There were a few technical problems with screening some of the media, but all but one were eventaully screened, after sorting out technology in the tea break. The two Geoffs gave there critiques, and finally decided on a winner which also merited a nomination. Summary stills are now available.
01/04/2015 Only two groups were involved with filming so there was less contention for the different areas in Wokingham Theatre. The challenge is to complete the edit for the club fiction competition in a fortnight.
25/03/2015 An interesting prctical challenge to capture footage for a 1 minute advert for an Easter Egg. Four enthuiastic teams planned and shot their respective adverts to be screened before the end of season after editing. Oh Mother film received a Highly Commended certificate from the judges at the Penny Cup competition.
23/03/2015 Tony, David and Roger filmed a Brass for Africa concert in a Wokingham church on Sunday which was a success. The link to Uganda worked and there were two webcams streaming images of the concert to Kampala. The RFVM team captured footage for a DVD independant of the streaming images.
18/03/2015 There were enough visitors to justify using the big hall. Philip Bloom outlined his career and illustrated his use of a drone with relevant clips. His recent visit to Vanuatu and clips were poignient in the light of the cylonic damage since. He also showed clips taken at night on Brighton beach using low light camera facilities allowing us to clearly see perhaps what was not meant to be seen! He finally screened a very personal film about his Dad. Tim Stannard thanked RFVM on behalf of visitors for the invitation and show.
11/03/2015 Unfortunately due to family illness our guest speaker could not attend so Karen screened several of the film projects she had been involved in recently, some of which won competitions. The training projector was used as the main projector had suffered damage in transport, and it was decided that the image quality was adequate even for next week's special guest speaker. There was only time to view one of Docaster's club showreel. Comments were recorded on a zoom for feedback to Doncaster.
04/03/2015 Various members experimented with some high class equipment to try and reproduce some clips from famous movies, including Psycho shower scene and The Good The Bad and The Ugly shootout. It was also a good opportunity to socialise.
28/02/2015 Roger, Tony and Krzysztof attended the Staines inter-club competition last night. Eight films from various clubs competed and Bourne End won the silver salver with The Big One which we had seen at the Gateway competition.
25//02/2015 Three film crews were established for the filming of Wokingham Theatre scripts. These teams then discuussed their plans. One camera man uses a 4K camera which will provide a challenge to merge it with footage from lesser cameras! There are still a few acting roles to be filled.
18/02/2015 With eight entries there was no time for the showreel screening. Karen and Jonathan were the Stan Olman gurus with a critique of each entry, but decided none meritted a nomination. The meeting began with a successful showing of the local 1910s film by Anne which failed last week which tested the BluRay player. Summary stills are available.
11/02/2015 An interesting evening where some members screened the results of some experimentation. Chas screened some footage captured from his drone and edited by Anne. He also screened his animation of his chess game. Mark screened footage captured using Jonathan's 4K camera after an edit by Mark, who explained the difficulties he had with aspect ratios. Mike screened an advert of an apartment in Turkey. Anne and Rob tried screening some films which failed to be read by the BluRay player. Lawrence and Pete discussed some scripts for the Wokingham theatre event. There was no time to screen the standby showreel from Doncaster.
04/02/2015 A good attendance for our guest speaker Matt who gave members an interesting practical talk about DSLR cameras, his likes and dislikes. The audio he hates so uses a Beach box audio adapter to control audio from microphones and feed into his DSLR. Recording time, slow auto focus and battery life were among other hates. He likes depth of field despite being difficult to control. He handled questions from the audience, several members had brought in their cameras for practical advice from Matt, who also demonstrated his steadycam, slider and other gadgets.
28/01/2015 A good enthusiastic turnout for the animation practical. Bernard explained how he use to do his animation with his drawiings and a film camera. After tea members formed groups to try and capture their own animations using model toys or a chess set, and time lapse of queue for tea. Other members took the opportunity to socialise. Earlier Karen announced the filming of another Reading School music concert with their array of LED lights, and a challenge in March to film a band concert and stream the event to Uganda.
21/01/2015 Peter Lang screened various animated films he had made as well as others made in Canada which caused considerable amusement. He outlined his career in animation and handled the many questions well. He also gave some tips about what we could do in our practical animation next week. In Rogers absence, David manned the projector.
14/01/2015 Some interesting entries for the two competitions. David and Brian were the Stan Olman gurus and gave a critique for each film screened. They decided none of the entries meritted a nomination. Summary stills are available for Novice and 1-min. Karen announced that she had been helping a TV company recently who are planning to move to Reading which might give rise to some interesting collaborations in the future. Finally an interesting special effects video was screened with unnatural holes in people
10/01/2015 A small number of members and their guests enjoyed a pleasant dinner at the golf club. Tony had a DVD of some historic cabaret acts from 2005/6 which were projected using the golf club's new facilities. They have yet to get audio working but fortunately David had some speakers and a suitable stand to make the trailing cable safe so that the audience could witness colleagues making fools of themselves for some light entertainment. It proved a useful test if we want to use those facilities again for the premiere evening.
07/01/2015 The New Year welcomed a good attendance for our guest speaker Matt who gave a very enthusiastic and technical presentation in such a way that it meant something to lesser knowledgeable members, especially tips about using a green screen.
17/12/2014 Members had fun with Simon's quiz and plenty of food and drink on the last meeting of the year. The zombie film and Arina's scary film were screened. Best wishes to everyone for Christmas and a Happy New Year.
10/12/2014 Seven entries for the holiday competition - Sicily was a popular place. David and Karen were the Stan Olman gurus and each gave an interesting critique of the films and nominated Bens cycling trip in Burma for his creativity. Summary Stills are available.
03/12/2014 Laurie and Bernard outlined Don's early life with a few amusing anecdotes before screening a film he made in 1967 on HMS Eagle about the Fleet Air Arm, and another about the Miles aircaft and Woodley aerodrome. A more recent film about Holmes preceded the tea break. Then films about his private cinema and the live lottery show concluded the evening.
26/11/2014 Six entries for the summer project competition, mainly concerned with recording music events. Pete and Jonathan were the Stan Olman gurus and did not nominate any of them. None of the scary films captured on Nov. 4th were available for screening, hopefully in two weeks time. Summary stills are available.
19/11/2014 Lawrence described script writing techniques as applied to full length cinema films but argued that they are equally applicable to short 10 minute films. He illustrated key points using The Great Escape and Touching the Void. The Teign Competition trophy was presented to Audrey.
12/11/2014 Our first club competition had 8 varied entries, one failed to play and two were fictional. Summary stills are available. Laurie and Brian were the Stan Olman gurus and critiqued each film before the results of the audience vote was announced and decided none of the films merited a nomination. The mini shield was overlooked so will be presented next week. The current points table details for the season are now available.
05/11/2014 A fun evening filming two "scary" scripts, one with several zombies at one point clawing at the outside of the window. When there was banging on the door, it was assumed it was part of the script, but it had started raining and actors and crew wanted to get in before their makeup was washed off!
29/10/2014 Michael screened several of his documentary films some of which were a lot longer than the 15 minute maximum for our club films. The first was a 1969 film with the only audio being the noise of the sails of a windmill as they turned. A Zoo film was shots of people and animals cut to music. The last was about Hounds and the Huntsman which covered pupies, puppy shows, training and finally some trail hunting after fox scent.
22/10/2014 Course members screened their introduction films to all members in the audience. A high standard had been achieved. Rob and Vijay then screened some horror clips for inspiration for the challenge on Nov 4th. Karen presented each course participant with a certificate. Photographs of the recipients were captured.
16/10/2014 Members watched a short film about a professional foley sound studio, and then split into 3 teams. Each team had a different short animated film to work with to make up appropriate foley sounds. During the first half of the evening the teams rehearsed, then performed with the films on the big screen, with no sound other than the foley sounds. All sorts of household objects were used to great effect including salad servers, biscuit tin, cardboard box, a jar of pills, scrunched up tin foil and many others. A great fun evening organised by Rob and Vijay.
The 5th week of the course continued in the large hall, with Laurie and Roger demonstrating green screen techniques.
11/10/2014 Anne and Tony travelled to Staines for the Gateway competition. RFVM came equal 2nd. With the judges aggreement, the storyline films were shown last to put the interval with food and tea not too late. The results are below:
| CATEGORY | CLUB | MOVIE TITLE | BOURNE END | READING | STAINES | TOTAL |
| STORYLINE | BOURNE END | THE BIG ONE (10mins) |
3 | 3 | 6 | |
| READING | OH MOTHER! (8mins) |
2 | 2 | 4 | ||
| STAINES | THE CLOUD (15mins) |
3 | 2 | 5 | ||
| DOCUMENTARY | READING | IT'S ALL ABOUT THE LIGHT (9mins) |
2 | 3 | 5 | |
| STAINES | WALK ON THE WILD SIDE (15mins) |
3 | 3 | 6 | ||
| BOURNE END | CHARTWELL (5mins) |
2 | 2 | 4 | ||
| OPEN | STAINES | TUDOR RAP! (5mins) |
3 | 3 | 6 | |
| BOURNE END | DAY AT THE SEASIDE (3mins) |
2 | 2 | 4 | ||
| READING | HEADACHE (2mins) |
2 | 3 | 5 |
| BOURNE END | READING | STAINES | |
| STORYLINE | 6 | 4 | 5 |
| DOCUMENTARY | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| OPEN | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| TOTALS | 14 | 14 | 17 |
| JUDGES | Anne Massey Tony Colvile |
08/10/2014 The audience formed 3 groups which watched various films and then discussed and reported their collective opinions, The first film Unemployed was created for a 48 hour challenge and was unintelligible, and the next could only get better. The final film called The Ridge about a stunt cyclist in the Isle of Skye filmed using GoPros and a quadcopter and was excellent
04/10/2014 Laurie, Brian, Anne and Tony attended the Surrey Border Interclub competition on Friday. The judges took a very time deciding on the winner, and eventually announced the South Downs entry Life is a Circus as the winner with RFVM's Oh Mother! in seciond place. Orpington and Chichester were the other clubs competing. Tony was asked to say a few words about the film and there were some nice comments from the audience like "Audrey should write some more scripts". Each club had a non competitive short film which was screened while the judges deliberated. One comment about RFVM's Funny Face was that it was too short - wanting more of the humour!
30/09/2014 Geoff talked about his experiences with making various films some of which he screened for the audience including Overtime with a lot of sabre fighting. His preferred genre is horror/mystery and he enters his films in numerous festivals, as well as uploading for online viewing. He gets many of his actors using various websites and makes all his films for very little money.
24/09/2014 David demonstrated his quadcopter for 15 minutes and then screened some footage he had captured of the February floods, Woodley Carnival after explaining the accessories and operating rules. He also screened some professionally produced films of Thailand, Utah and flying through fireworks.
Rob then screened three short films made by students under 18.
17/09/2014 A good turnout for the opening meeting of the new season and about a dozen new people for the training course. While Laurie instructed the course people, members watched a showreel from Wimborne Moviemakers and contributed to a lighthearted critique. The usual coffee break included various food for nibbles and soft drinks and wine. Karen had numerous announcements, among them were:
She and Mark got 3rd prize in a 48 hour challenge competition and won the best story:
The heritage concert had been filmed on Sunday:
Don had past away in August with a good attendance by club members at the funeral, and our longest serving member Bernard had accepted the post of club President:
Someone with a black belt in Kung Fu etc had offered to help making a film with us;
and Reading Football club wanted our help with filming an event.
