RPS EAST MIDLANDS AUDIO VISUAL DAY
(In conjunction with Leicestershire Forest A/V Group Sun.Oct. 28th 1990)
By Eric Weatherill (Area 11)
Doesn`t sound very exiting, does it? It was TERRIFIC!
As a beiginner at A/V and a none-member of the RSPI I hadn`t even heard of Leicester Forest, so how did I get there? Read on.
Trying to be an honest man, when I started A/V work I joined the Institution of Amateur Cinematographers to obtain the licence for using copyright music and to get advice and help with my efforts.
John Ruffell is the I.A.C. A/V adviser (His article on Slide-Mounting appeared in the Oct. 90 Newsletter). I wrote to him for help and received a most comprehensive and useful reply to my questions. He mentioned this meeting and suggested that it would be useful for me to go. How right he was.
After coffee at 10am just over 60 people nicely filled the projection room for the Workshop Spot by local expert, Pete Brown ARPS, on producing titles without using Lith film. He gave lots of useful suggestions from plastic letters, through postcards and clandars to newspaper headlines.
More coffee followed before Colin Stvens ARPS of Louth took over. His dry humour kept everyone hooting with laughter. His artistry ranged from a delightful sequence on `Glass Horses`, through a Concord trip to Lapland, to an illustration of Ogdon Nash`s verses on `The Distaff Side`.
Lunch was as good as the A/V presentations. Four tastey courses and coffee for £2.25 is a pretty good bargain.
Presentations by several comparatives beginners received kind and constructive suggestions from the experts, before an advanced professional production demonstrated the qualities acheivable with expertise and a large budget.
Tea and cakes came next, followed by Linda Davies ARPS and her husband Ron FRPS, from manchester. This was definitely the highlight of an excellent day. A humerous sequence told the story of their progress from a simple Voiglander camera and a GAF projector to an almost professional sound laboratory and a Royale integrated projector.
Each presentation followed was sheer delight in both content and quality production.
`Requiem` - in Liverpool R C Cathedral.
`A Spinners Story` - a Victorian child cotton-mill worker`s short life illustrated vividly, yet so simply by her gravestone, two old portraits and pictures of a re-furbished cotton-mill. Not a person in sight, yet the pathos affected everyone present. (I believe this won an International Award last year).
`Mission Iceland` - a pseudo-Jams Bond presentation well suited to the wierd scenery of an Icelandic holiday.
`Dark Persuit` - required 26 pieces of music and effects for less than five minutes.
`Heireith` and `Rough Justice` were Ron Davies`s submissions for his FRPS, recently granted. To me they were flawless.
The fascination of so may of the presentations was the beautiful combination of visual images and emotive words and music.
I was spell bound. I look forward eagerly to 1991.
FootnotesA Royale projector was used throughout. Both vision and sound were excellent. The atmosphere was informal and friendly. No-one felt an outvast because they were not RPS memebrs.
Other regional meetings are held in different parts of the country. The RPS will tell you where they are.