3rd May 2024
This meeting was broadcast on zoom using a different system from what has been used before. But
there was no equipment on view! A tripod was standing at the front of the hall with a funny little
box thing on top. Not a sign of a camera anywhere – except, that funny little box thing was IT!
Helmut’s 360 °, 5K camera. Amazing!
Friday’s club night just goes to show what unforeseen circumstances can do to meetings. Only
eleven members were in attendance. But I must stress the low numbers did nothing to affect the
quality of the meeting content! Apologies kept coming and coming. Unfortunately, one of the
apologies came from Joe, who has Covid. We all send our best wishes to you, Joe, and hope to see
you back and firing on all pixels next meeting.
John M started the evening with a history lesson on how all this internet business started. I suspect
that not many (any?) members were aware that it was started by the wife an Arabic trader named
Abraham Com. His wife’s name was Dot. Dot was a formidable woman and was often referred to as
Amazon; Amazon Dot Com. It’s amazing how her idea caught on.
Norm then resumed control of the meeting and announced the one and only Short for the evening.
Garry Dusting’s entry was titled, In the Realm of Inconceivability. Surely it was inconceivable that
Garry had bought himself a Ferrari? But there he was, examining it in fine detail. We were all
correct, it was inconceivable, and just goes to prove we can’t believe what we see with our own eyes
these days.
Norm’s off topic contribution was a truly impressive movie. It had been made in remembrance of a
person who had died in the Gaza war. Scenes depicting the anguish his loved ones had gone through
were added to by them all being shown in a continuous zoom out. The story was told from a Jewish
point of view, was completely apolitical and could equally have been applied to those on the other
side of the conflict. It generated quite a bit of comment afterwards.
Elizabeth then took on the challenging task of presenting something that, later, turned out to be no
big deal among us movie makers. Lighting.
Elizabeth used two short videos to show how the Big Boys light scenes from the warm to the
intimate. The language of lighting was explained and also the technology of light sources. I suspect
most of us found it rather overwhelming. We were then given the opportunity to describe our own
lighting equipment. It turned out that we all have lights – of one kind or another – but they all
varied, from old fashioned globes to L.E.Ds and others. A common comment was “I don’t use lights
very often”. All agreed that the most unreliable lighting was the natural kind. Garry described how
the colours changed while he was making his Short as the sunshine varied with occasional, partial
cloud cover.
Thanks, Elizabeth, for forcing us to get our grey matter working. Remember, the topic for the next Short is, NO EXIT.
The following one is AUTUMN. Good shooting.
John M
there was no equipment on view! A tripod was standing at the front of the hall with a funny little
box thing on top. Not a sign of a camera anywhere – except, that funny little box thing was IT!
Helmut’s 360 °, 5K camera. Amazing!
Friday’s club night just goes to show what unforeseen circumstances can do to meetings. Only
eleven members were in attendance. But I must stress the low numbers did nothing to affect the
quality of the meeting content! Apologies kept coming and coming. Unfortunately, one of the
apologies came from Joe, who has Covid. We all send our best wishes to you, Joe, and hope to see
you back and firing on all pixels next meeting.
John M started the evening with a history lesson on how all this internet business started. I suspect
that not many (any?) members were aware that it was started by the wife an Arabic trader named
Abraham Com. His wife’s name was Dot. Dot was a formidable woman and was often referred to as
Amazon; Amazon Dot Com. It’s amazing how her idea caught on.
Norm then resumed control of the meeting and announced the one and only Short for the evening.
Garry Dusting’s entry was titled, In the Realm of Inconceivability. Surely it was inconceivable that
Garry had bought himself a Ferrari? But there he was, examining it in fine detail. We were all
correct, it was inconceivable, and just goes to prove we can’t believe what we see with our own eyes
these days.
Norm’s off topic contribution was a truly impressive movie. It had been made in remembrance of a
person who had died in the Gaza war. Scenes depicting the anguish his loved ones had gone through
were added to by them all being shown in a continuous zoom out. The story was told from a Jewish
point of view, was completely apolitical and could equally have been applied to those on the other
side of the conflict. It generated quite a bit of comment afterwards.
Elizabeth then took on the challenging task of presenting something that, later, turned out to be no
big deal among us movie makers. Lighting.
Elizabeth used two short videos to show how the Big Boys light scenes from the warm to the
intimate. The language of lighting was explained and also the technology of light sources. I suspect
most of us found it rather overwhelming. We were then given the opportunity to describe our own
lighting equipment. It turned out that we all have lights – of one kind or another – but they all
varied, from old fashioned globes to L.E.Ds and others. A common comment was “I don’t use lights
very often”. All agreed that the most unreliable lighting was the natural kind. Garry described how
the colours changed while he was making his Short as the sunshine varied with occasional, partial
cloud cover.
Thanks, Elizabeth, for forcing us to get our grey matter working. Remember, the topic for the next Short is, NO EXIT.
The following one is AUTUMN. Good shooting.
John M
