5th April Meeting Details

Although there were less ‘bums on seats’ than usual, the evening was as entertaining as ever.
Only two members were brave enough to tackle the main ‘shorts’ topic, Up Yours, but the backup topic, City Life, received good support.  Eight shorts in all gave us viewing from politics (American) to tranquility, birds eye views, strength training and world cities to gymnastics (a cockie, not June!)
Our first speaker was Albert Goikhman. We’d seen Albert before, acting in member’s movies. He explained that his day job was nursing but his passion was acting.
Albert was born in Russia and came to Australia via Israel.  During his question and answer session he stressed the importance of casting in movie making.  Best performances come when the actor matches, as near as possible, the roll he or she is playing.  Nowadays, auditioning is carried out by the hopefuls submitting videos of themselves acting out a section of the script up for grabs.
Good planning is essential, including convenience of shooting rather than order of shooting.  Directors should never tell actors what to do, they should talk the actor into feeling the way the director does about a particular scene or situation.
Albert finished by showing two movies he has acted in, both dramas but one with a sting in the tail that shows how easy it is to overlook an obvious and essential prop.
Our own MikeScully then gave us an insight into the director, Stanley Kubrick.  It’s hard to believe that it is twenty years since he died. It is also hard to believe that he directed so many major films.  Mike pointed out that Kubrick was a technician, an artist and a philosopher. He believed that, ‘If it can be written it can be filmed.’  His epic, 2001 A Space Odyssey proved this.
Kubrick was interested in photography from an early age and started work as a still photographer.  Mike played a clip where he talked about his early life.
One of Kubrick’s ‘things’ was collecting lenses.  If he needed a particular lens for shooting a particular film, he never sold it afterwards.  The result was an impressive, and presumably valuable, collection.  He was also known as a ‘Gear Head’ – he liked collecting ‘gear’ and would often rejuvenate cameras that were past their ‘use by date’.
Mike expressed his admiration for the way Kubrick used music and showed a clip to illustrate the point.  In another clip we were reminded of uncomfortable feelings in Clockwork Orange.
To both speakers, many thanks for giving us such an entertaining club night.
Topics for next meeting’s shorts are, Slow and No we have not! 
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