Who?

[TimStannard]

AI Chatbots are hitting the headlines.
I've just been playing with ChatGPT which is really impressive in many ways. Whilst it is not designed to be a search engine (indeed it's not designed to be anything except a research project) I thought I'd ask it about our world. It didn't know of any IAC in the UK, so taking another approach I asked about amatateur film making in the UK. Part of what it came back with:

Amateur film making in the UK has a rich history and a vibrant community. There are many organizations and groups that support amateur film making in the UK, such as the Amateur Cine World (ACW), the British Federation of Film Societies (BFFS), and the British Amateur Film-makers Association (BAFA). These organizations provide resources, training, and networking opportunities for amateur film makers, and often host film festivals and screenings for their members.

This was far more innaccurate than I was expecting. A few Googles tell me ACW was a magazine, the BFFS is for societies showing commercial films and I cannot find a trace of the BAFA!

So, the IAC doesn't appear to have competition, but has anyone heard of the BAFA?

I should add that as I understand it, the big data involved in CharGPT is not from Google, rather it's from books and reddit (apparently responses with at least three positives). Just a shame they haven't heard of us.

[Michael Slowe]

Tim, if you google the IAC you can get them. That site you mention is so out of date it isn't true! I well remember Amateur Cine World and I seem to remember that it then morphed into Movie Maker. The demise of this magazine, along with the world's premier non commercial film competition, the Ten Best was really damaging to amateur film making. The IAC never really managed to step in where Tony Rose and Movie Maker left off.

[Albert Noble]

And the Ten Best winners not only had a showing at the BFI cinema but they were copied onto 16mm and clubs could hire them.
In this way the Best was seen all over the country.
I wonder where those copies are now, if they still exist?

Maybe Talking Picture TV would like to show them? After all they are in cans.

[John Simpson]

First a reply to Tim: I have been playing with ChatGPT, as well, great fun. I have been generating a poem for our Parish Mag. It will be useful for writing scripts and making YouTube vids. We are at the beginning of something!

The subject of the Ten Best has come up again!! There are web pages about the Ten Best with listings and some links to films. Also some of the films are in the IAC library, in the index it says what awards each fim got and many of the films are winners in the Ten Best.
http://www.pathefilm.uk/amateurfilm/tenbest.htm

Oooh! Those years must have been a Goden age of film making!

[Michael Slowe]

They certainly were John. Some of my proudest moments were going up on to the NFT stage to receive a Ten Best, I was lucky enough to do that six times, I think that Albert was also there a few times. I think the films are still in the BFI library, I know that a number of mine are anyway.
The thing about this competition was its promotion by a wide circulation magazine, Movie Maker, which attracted some great films from America, including some film schools. BIAFF is not getting many from this source, but, on the other hand, I think that we are getting more continental entries, thanks to Dave Watterson's good work.

[John Simpson]

They say: "History is a foreign land" and sadly The 10 Best is now history.

It seems Google has a certain amount of AI generated content now often the first entry after a search is a summary of the subject which could have been created by AI. I put Amateur Film Making in UK into Google and although there was summary but it did take me to an interesting site called "Into Film" a film making site for young people.

https://www.intofilm.org/films/filmmaki ... made-films

[TimStannard]

That site you mention is so out of date it isn't true!

Just to be clear the "site" is not a repository of information. It uses artificial intelligence to create conversations but draws on lots of other resources. As these resources include books and sites such as reddit (but apparently not Google searches) it would appear that it could do with some sort of va;lidation as to the currency of the information.