Info on IAC competition 1976 a film called Commuter Route

[Christina]

Hi I am doing a heritage project in a school in Wallasey and we have found information about a film made by the school entered into the I.A.C. competition in 1976 I wondered if anybody had any information on this or a copy, it was called 'Commuter Route' and was about travel in Merseyside made by I. M. Beggs and D. P. Hearn amongst others. Or any information about the event held in London in 1976 or how the junior section of the event was started and when. Thank you in advance Christina

[Dave Watterson]

Hi Christina,

I hope some of the forum readers can help. I have put out a few feelers to people who might just know some of the answers.

The film has not been copied onto video for our video library and I do not think it is in our cine archive either. Cine film was expensive to copy so only a few top award winners were copied for the archive in those days. Most of them were returned to the film makers after the festival. In the video age it is much easier to make copies.

If the original film is still in the school it will probably be in a plastic box not much larger than a normal CD case - usually black or pale grey in colour. Very short films might even be in disc shaped plastic boxes about the size of the top of a cup-cake. If the school has an archive of old reel-to-reel tape recordings the films might be stored with them since the containers often looked similar. (That's how it was in my old school back then anyway.)

Dave

[Christina]

Thank you so much for your quick response, I knew it would be a long shot but thought I'd ask. That is really helpful information about the format of the film and colour case it may have, we will continue to look for a disc of that size within the school I will let you know if we find it. if you or anybody has any more information about what the event would have been specifically the Junior Section or anything in your archives on the Wallacre Cine Club or the film 'Commuter Route 1975/76' that would be a great help. Thank you very much Christina

[Brian Saberton]

I don't know about the Wallasey area but In the 1970's some local authorities provided some of their schools with 16mm film cameras. It is also possible that if the school didn't have a camera of their own that they might have borrowed one from a central resource. This would probably have been some kind of library or museum service within the Education Department and could well have been in the 16mm format. So, the three possible formats you could be looking for would be Standard 8mm, Super 8mm or 16mm.

[Christina]

Hi I am doing a heritage project in a school in Wallasey and we have found information about a film made by the school entered into the I.A.C. competition in 1976 I wondered if anybody had any information on this or a copy, it was called 'Commuter Route' and was about travel in Merseyside made by I. M. Beggs and D. P. Hearn amongst others. Or any information about the event held in London in 1976 or how the junior section of the event was started and when. Thank you in advance Christina

Hi I am still looking for this film 'Commuter Route' which was entered into the 1976 I.A.C. competition if anyone can help or any films or members of Wallacre Cine Club during the 1970's Thanks Christina