The Surrey Film-Video Festival once again took place in the excellent surroundings of Guildford's Electric Theatre on Sunday 20 January 2008. A larger than usual and appreciative audience enjoyed a full and varied programme of videos. The theatre catering and bar was well patronised during the tea and supper intervals. 31 entries were received, slightly fewer than last year. There were very few club entries and indeed some local clubs were not represented even by entries from members. Neither were there any Junior, Youth and Student entries which were so welcome last year. Nearly all the entries in the general section were from IAC members, even though the public at large are welcomed.
Whilst we still call ourselves the Film-Video Festival it is several years since we had anything entered on film and this year saw another landmark with no entries on VHS. All but two entries were on mini-DV and entrants seem to have noted our advice last year about DVD .with only two entries in this format.
This year the entries had a total running time of nearly 6 hours so inevitably a number could not be shown. 19 movies were included in the Public Show which ran from 2.30 pm to 9.00 pm. The organisers understand the disappointment of those whose movies are not shown. As a Committee we feel we have two commitments. Our first to every entrant to ensure that each entry gets a sympathetic and constructive assessment and secondly, to ensure we have a well balanced and entertaining Public Show..
We have always made considerable efforts to persuade and cajole known judges of high repute and experience to review the movies and once again we are delighted with the willing acceptances we got and the hours of work they all put in. This year the number and length of the movies gave us a bit of a problem; there were not enough to justify a prejudging session - something else we avoid where possible - so our judges were faced with a very demanding day. Reg Lancaster, Colin Jones and Charlie Caseley - all from Kent had nobly agreed to do the judging and started work at 10 o'clock on a beautiful mild, sunny morning when I think we would all have liked to be outside. The last screening ended at about 6.30 and at 8.00 p.m. the judges announced their decisions. They then set to work to write up their notes against a challenging timetable so they could be issued to entrants at the end of the Public Show.
Once again the projection 'A’ Team of Maurice Barham, John Myall and Terence Patrick and the back projection system produced the stunning pictures we have come to take almost for granted. The theatre's sound system was conquered last year but the quality of the sound was still very variable, entry by entry with some sections being virtually unintelligible, largely due to the variable quality of the sound tracks.
On behalf of the judges, Colin Jones made some general comments about the movies they had seen. There were some films of a very high standard indeed, but maybe the overall quality was not as strong as some previous years. Unfortunately they had to withhold a couple of the awards including the Comedy Cup. They would have liked to see more attempts at comedy and suggested that 'The Surrey' might adopt the 60 second category which is so popular in other festivals
On the technical side, as sometimes happens, films by different authors suffered from a similar weakness, as if a bug were going around at the time entries for this year were being shot. A scene would be lit one way, but then include shots of say, an individual actor speaking. This shot would have an extra lighting element which changed the skin tones to a noticeable degree, but no effort had been made at the editing stage to balance up the shots to match the rest.
Major awards included The Messenger by Norman Lilley and Circle 8 Film Group – the third in the trilogy about the teddy bear in WW2. This movie was awarded the Leonard Robinson Cup for best in Festival and it also carried off the animated award. Monica from Heron Productions was Runner Up and The Fiction Cup went to WriteAngle Group for The Gingerbread Man. The Documentary Cup was awarded to Laurance Miller for Weir Here. Val Hitchman accepted The Other Cup for her sensitive movie My Passion about Jamie - a most engaging young man with learning problems and a passion for trains.
A list of entries shown [PDF - 12kbytes]
Click here for the Award winners
Thanks to all those entrants who have provided 31 entries.
Some facts and figures on the entries are listed below. All winners and selected others, were given a big-screen presentation, and every entrant received copies of the comments by each of an experienced panel of judges. There were no restrictions on the subject matter or running time of the entries.
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total running time: 9.9 hours |
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Last revised: 11 July 2010 © Surrey Film-Video Festival