Submitted by John Davis 05 March 2008
A recent addition to the club resources has been a video projector.
John Cullen has sourced a very good machine and the images from it are excellent.
It will certainly show most films off in all their glory; so you better make sure they are
up to the task. I watched one of my productions, our club entry in the 'Choice of the
Clubs' competition, on the projector recently and was horrified to see how shaky my
camerawork was. What had been passable on the editing monitor, would have just
about passed muster on a regular TV. But on the 'Big Screen' it looked, for all the
world, like I was filming whilst standing on a trampoline. I appreciate that a tripod is
not always practical, but using other methods such as 'steady shot' or keeping the
filming on a slightly wider lens setting will hopefully keep pictures steady enough to
avoid detracting from the production. HD and video projectors mean the gulf between
steady and shaky shots has increased massively; if you want people to enjoy
watching your films make sure that you're on the right side of this gulf. As a footnote,
the film bombed, my poor camerawork didn't distract enough people's attention from
the fact that the sound and general production were also well off the pace
; 'The Eden Project' garnered just 9 points (thank you Dundee for the 4 points) and
came second last. The most surprising thing was that it got points at all; I anticipated
that the film would be one of three in the competition that would score 'nil point'.