Hello forum viewers

A warm welcome to all. Here we talk about films, which people put onto YouTube or Vimeo and embed here. The idea is to allow useful, friendly discussion.
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pete phillips
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Feb 05, 2010 1:30 pm
Location: cannock, staffordshire

Hello forum viewers

Post by pete phillips »

I've been reading the Forums and enjoying the IAC website for a while and finally taken the plunge and registered. As a member of an affiliated photographic society I also now get to see the excellent "Film and Video Maker" and the regional Cemriac magazine. My wife bought me a basic handycam some time ago which I've not really used. My grandson borrowed it to shoot his snowboarding exploits and looking at the wobbly, underexposed results, straight from camera, whetted my appetite a little. Isn't it always the same when you lend something - you immediately think of reasons why you must have it back A.S.A.P ! So Ithought it was about time I had a little dabble with it.
I was surprised to find that although there were a dozen or more still photography mags on the W.H.Smith shelves I couldn't find anything on film/video making. I did order the only title that looked promising and after a wait of four weeks received "Camcorder Buyer" which seems to be published every three months. Not impressed. They tested ten cameras with four pages devoted to each. Page filling pictures of the cameras and very little text. I won't go into my many other criticisms. (Still trying track down a ND ("Natural Density") filter !). What a pity A.P. don't have a film/video section every month.
I did make some films years ago and joined my local cine society which unfortunately no longer exists. I graduated from a Standard 8 Kodak Brownie Movie 1.9 and Brownie 8/58 projector in about 1960 via an Admira 811A and Noris Synchroner projector to a Bolex H16 Reflex which was replaced with a Beaulieu R16. The film gauge got bigger but I don't know that the films improved any.
After a complete absence from the movie scene for 40 years I appreciated Dave's posting last August that a section of the Forum " designed to help the complete beginner " would be good. That's me now. I also thought ADBest from Spennymoor, Arthur's suggestions, posted last August were just what I need. Not being a technical guy I'm lost in the "Equipment and Technical Issues" Forum. Viewing the Standard 8 film on my Minette editor, hanging the separate shots up onto the 60-odd pins hammered into a strip of wood, shuffling and trimming them (editing?) and glueing them back together I could understand, but today's editing programmes looks daunting.
So please be ready for some dumb questions,
Best wishes . Pete
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Dave Watterson
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Re: Hello forum viewers

Post by Dave Watterson »

A warm welcome to you, Pete.

You are a fine guinea-pig for the "beginners" forum ... a label I regard as slightly misleading but the best I could come up with. Please do jot down any and every puzzle about the hobby which comes your way, even if you have a shrewd idea of the answer. It may turn out to be a point which is frustrating another newcomer.

The lack of print magazines is a tragedy for us. Something similar has happened in the computing world, where some of the most respected magazines have now ceased publication. The problem is that it leaves us in the hands of the marketing people. We can see plenty of press-releases about kit but little objective reviewing by people who know the subject and can make comparisons with competing equipment.

No one quite know why the photography world has retained so many good magazines. There may be some hope there. More and more new "still" cameras can also shoot digital video, so they may be forced into more coverage of moviemaking. One of the top films at BIAFF in 2009 (The Bedwetter) was shot by a couple of art students using a couple of Sony DSC-W17 still cameras in "movie mode".

Many a modern video editor would be as baffled by strips of film on pins, splicing cement and so on as you are by video editing programs! A good place to start are the video editors which are free with the major operating systems. If you are an Apple computer user "iMovie" comes with the machine. Windows users have "Windows Moviemaker" with older versions or "Windows Live Movie Maker" for Vista and Windows7.

Both of those offer good, basic editing tools. They are not buried in a mountain of bells and whistles. There are online tutorials for them and plenty of books about them on the market.

- Dave
ned c
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Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 3:39 pm
Location: Dammeron Valley USA

Re: Hello forum viewers

Post by ned c »

Add my welcome. There are lots of resources on the web, after the IAC website I suggest www.ampsvideo.com we still have one magazine alive here in the USA, Videomaker, although it seems to angle increasingly towards the "wannabe" professional. Yes, I too remember those days of strips of film hanging from the nails down into the pillow case, but you will find modern computer editing a huge improvement.

best wishes

ned c
tom hardwick
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Joined: Mon Jan 29, 2007 9:59 am

Re: Hello forum viewers

Post by tom hardwick »

I think the demise of the mag has all to do with the rise of the web, and websites such as dvdoctor and DVi can give you answers to questions that would take weeks to get from a mag, when the latter would have you off buying a long wait, a wide zoom iris or a natural density filter.

This forum and the associated email round-robin are also excellent places to post your questions and add your helpful hints. There's a wealth of film-making knowledge stored out there in the collective IAC mind, and the members' generosity and invention of the web has allowed each and every one of us access to it.

In some ways forums such as this one (populated, if I may say so, by the older generation) are more trustworthy than the lads that gush on DVi, who tend to blurt without much experience to back them up. Many youngsters of today (bless) haven't a clue as to the interplay on exposure brought by gain. shutter speeds, apertures, ND filters and ramping zooms. Mind you, they know their codecs and bios settings, so listen carefully.

tom.
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leif
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Re: Hello forum viewers

Post by leif »

[quote="ned c"]
. . . we still have one magazine alive here in the USA, Videomaker, although it seems to angle increasingly towards the "wannabe" professional. . . . [/quote]

And the good message about "Videomaker" is, that they now offer subscriptions to their e-version at about 1 USD per issue.. As far as I remeber i paid about 22 USD for a 2 year subscription.

I agree, that much of the stuff is aimed at wannabe's, but at that cost per issue it is ok . You may still find some good hints.

By the way. Videomaker also issue a free newsletter with main topics from the magazine. Just register on the frontpage http://www.videomaker.com/

They also have excellent videotutorials on many topcs: http://www.videomaker.com/video/
Last edited by leif on Wed Feb 10, 2010 9:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
Mike Shaw

Re: Hello forum viewers

Post by Mike Shaw »

The thing that really gets my goat is that there are magazines in Smiths for the most obscure subjects (the ubiquitous 'Muck Spreaders Weekly') - which surely have far far fewer people going for than any video magazine would. But obviously sales/advertising meant they couldn't continue publishing. I'm sure there's a market for the right type of magazine though - there seems to be quite a few for the stills photographer.

Very odd.
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Stephen
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Re: Hello forum viewers

Post by Stephen »

Mike: I feel exactly the same way!!

How on earth has the situation arisen in that
we are left with no magazine support in the UK???

The amount we spend on equipment and software etc
Must run into the 100's of millions just in the UK???
yet no mag support but I can easily find a mag in the local
newsagents on the psycology of my goldfish??

Must be a lot of goldfish the....

I would jump at the chance of a well put together mag
how to and more importantly what's heppening in areas
With regard to lectures, group training etc

Maybe the peeps that used to write in previous mags are as
Confused and frustrated as some of us!!!??
Stephen

Film making is not a matter of Life and Death
It's much more important than that.
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Dave Watterson
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Re: Hello forum viewers

Post by Dave Watterson »

I can only comment that IAC's Film & Video Maker magazine has had problems gathering major advertisers. I suppose from their point of view our couple of thousand members is a very small readership and not that many of us buy new kit each year. We have a few members who are always up-to-date but most of us plow on with whatever camcorders, computers and so on that we can manage until they fall apart.

How adverisers reach the mass market buyers I don't know. The cost of adverts in national newspapers and magazines must be stratospheric and I imagine the take-up percentage will be tiny.

-Dave
Brian Saberton
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Re: Hello forum viewers

Post by Brian Saberton »

I don't have any figures to back this up but I guess that the market for stills cameras is much bigger than for video. Here in Scotland the camera club scene is vastly bigger (and thriving at the moment) and I know quite a few people who are members of two clubs. Off the top of my head I can think of at least six camera clubs within a 7 mile radius of where I live and there are many many more in the greater Glasgow area. As an example of the level of interest, last Friday one of the clubs in the area had a guest speaker from the South and an invitation to other local clubs resulted in a packed hall of over 100 people.

There have always been more photographic magazines than for cine/video. I know that when Making Better Movies hit the newstands after the demise of Movie Maker they also had difficulty in attracting sufficient advertisers and eventually that folded so the problem isn't really a new one. There was a time when Amateur Photographer magazine had a cine section (this was in the pre video days) but I don't know if any other photo mags did. A ray of hope? Well it could be, as Dave suggests, that the increasing availability of movie facilities on digital SLR cameras might prompt the photo mags to do something but, if so, lets hope they do so in a sensible way and from a position of knowledge! Luckily we have the IAC magazine to keep us going, even though it is every other month but I have all of my copies carefully filed in the nice blue binders so that I can refer back from time to time whenever I get withdrawal symptoms in beween issues.
Brian Saberton
pete phillips
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Joined: Fri Feb 05, 2010 1:30 pm
Location: cannock, staffordshire

Re: Hello forum viewers

Post by pete phillips »

I sent an e-mail to "Amateur Photographer" yesterday saying I was pleased they were on the list of exhibitors at next month's "Focus on Imaging" show at Birmingham's N.E.C. They haven't been represented there for a number of years. I asked who they were sending and which days. I planned to go on the final day, Wednesday, but I had a reply telling me their three representatives were only going from Monday to Tuesday, including editor Damien Demolder. I'm now going to go on the Tuesday to ask them why on earth they don't start a video section of, say, four pages perhaps just once a month - weekly would be too much to expect - as so many new still cameras, including high level Single Lens Reflex models are including video capabilities in their specification. I'll take the "Camcorder Buyer" I was moaning about in my first forum post and point out the many advertisers that would surely be pleased to place ads. in the prestigious "A.P". They'll probably not pay much attention but at least I can make the point.

Yes, Brian, you are right, A.P did carry a film making section pre-video days. The editor was Gordon Malthouse, who asked me to write two pages for them every month or so. It was a fairly non-technical series covering my film making activities and those of Walsall Cine Society of which I was a committee member and Newsletter editor. This would have been about 1970 - ish
ned c
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Re: Hello forum viewers

Post by ned c »

A stills camera club in S California has just closed it doors to new members until further notice at 270 members!! I believe that it is possible to take very good still photographs with very little skill and even by accident, no-one ever made a good film by accident or with very little skill. (my wife is a keen still photographer, don't let her read this).

ned c
pete phillips
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Joined: Fri Feb 05, 2010 1:30 pm
Location: cannock, staffordshire

Re: Hello forum viewers

Post by pete phillips »

ned,
yes, I'm living proof that you can take the occasional good still shot with little skill ! Even though I'm currently President of Cannock Photographic Society, with 70+ members, film making was always my first love and the excitement and can't sleep when you've thought of a brilliant idea for a film can never be equalled by anything in the still photographic world.
Pete
tom hardwick
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Re: Hello forum viewers

Post by tom hardwick »

no-one ever made a good film by accident or with very little skill

That's a very good line Ned, and an accurate observation.
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