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Cemriac worcester march 1

Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2020 9:20 am
by Jon Pegg
Just a quick one I am going along to do a talk on filmmaking here, if anybody there who iv met before make sure you say hello and if we havnt met lets say hello anyway and talk film

Re: Cemriac worcester march 1

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2020 10:09 pm
by Jill Lampert
CEMRIAC laid on a terrific Seminar today. Jon Pegg was first on, and set the scene. Jon you were brilliant. Very inspiring. And you had VERY interesting points to make.

For all of you out there reading this who weren't there, Jon talked about the making of Making Friends as the World Ends, and he told us that it took him just TWO DAYS to film this, which is a 53 minute film. How did he manage that??? Well, Jon did an enormous amount of preparation. He planned every shot. He doesn't like wasting time taking an extra shot e.g. a close up 'just in case'...or 'to give more choices in the edit'. He has an image of the edit in his head, and he likes to stick to that. Close-ups have a purpose. And he shoots them when he thinks they're the right shot for that moment in the story. He doesn't film them as 'safety shots' to go to if extra cuts are needed in the edit.

Jon made many other valuable points in his presentation, including the importance of playing to the actors' strengths, making the most of actors who work together as a pair, making use of actors'/crew's input (before the final script is produced.)

AND he gave valuable information about how he went about the shoot...not only did he plan every shot, but he made a timetable for what every actor would be doing as each shot was being filmed. So that if actors A and B in a scene were being filmed, the timetable would indicate that actors C and D should rehearse their lines...and actors E and F should set up for the following scene and so on. No unofficial tea breaks. Everyone was occupied all the time so as to be efficient and to avoid anyone getting bored.

Jon was a wonderful speaker. Very modest about his extraordinary achievements. Very fluent in a completely down to earth way. Inspirational. Thank you, Jon!

There were three other speakers. David Johns talked about how to make the most of your YouTube channel. He was lovely and enthusiastic. He was completely on top of his subject. And I was gripped. For the future of the IAC, I was rather fascinated by the fact that the thrust of his talk was about how to maximise revenue from a YouTube Channel.

Why am I so interested in this? Well...because I believe that if the IAC is to survive, it must take on board FILM MAKERS. Not just 'amateurs'. (I await reactions this statement!)

David told us that he earns roughly the average annual English wage from his YouTube channel.

Later we had excellent presentations from Chad Higgins about timelapse and Alan Atkinson about Chromakey.

I would like to congratulate CEMRIAC for putting on a top notch seminar. I think this is the KEY thing that the IAC has to offer...education for film makers.

Re: Cemriac worcester march 1

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2020 11:13 pm
by Jon Pegg
Thanks for the nice words Jill and it was great chatting after lunch.Was a pleasure to chat to everybody and was quite odd to have peoples whos films iv watched and really enjoyed sitting in the audience listening to me talk,I'd have happily swapped places.

You have a really great set up and support and I have to thank Simon for inviting me along. Will see you all at BIAFF in Stratford hopefully MFATWE part two will be shown and you can see what happened to our heroes after the end of Ep 1.

Re: Cemriac worcester march 1

Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2020 6:55 pm
by TimStannard
Thanks Jill for your enthusiastic and detailed report, particularly of Jon's talk.

As for making money out of YouTube, great for the people who want to - but for me it has all the downsides of being a professional filmaker/cameraman/runner. That is you have to make & market what people want to pay money to see.

Again, I am not suggesting there is anything wrong with that. Most of us have jobs or careers which are driven by the need to make a living. I also have no issue with people being members of the IAC who want to make money out of their films

But I do think the IAC must exist and continue to exist for people who first and foremost have a love of or a desire to learn about film making. In other words they do it for the love of it. If only there was a word for that. Oh, hang on a minute, there is ....

(Sorry if I've gone off topic, but you said you'd await reaction!)