MEETINGS   2010

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23rd  FEBRUARY  MEETING

Tonight's meeting was held at Shoalhaven Heads "airport' & was attended by about a dozen members & their spouses. ( spices ?) After doing a bit of filming & photography of the quite prodigious bird life we heard a very entertaining presenter telling us of the migratorary habits of the birds which  we'd seen & others that visit this area annually.  Good to see Max remembered the cooking lesson I gave him last year. I told Jeanette you'd be O.K. on your own.

9th  MARCH 

Tonight we  had David, Margaret & Lyndon back from their various trips away. The cheque for our  new projector & screen has been authorised by the committee & members. Kevin's movie "Barra" was announced as the winner of the last assessment evening. Quite a few movies were shown by Fran & Mark & David showed how to do a title page using different photos coming in at random on the title page . Our filming of this year's Y Quest has begun & Trevor reports that filming of the mental health video has now finished & the serious job of editing is well under way.     

27th  JULY  

I have to start this entry into our website journal by apologising for not having kept up with the news & events of the past few months.  Wish I had a plausible excuse but there isn't one. In the preceding meetings we've acquired our new projector & screen. The difference in picture quality is stupendous & really can't be compared to our former equipment. Let me take this opportunity though to thank Tracy for letting us use the Art Centre's projector over the past few years . Without it our members' efforts wouldn't have come up so well but technology moves on & we must try & move with it.

 We've had some very interesting presentations over the last 4 months with Col doing one on using transitions & also using the features on our cameras.  David did another workshop about burning DVDs & backing up files. Trevor showed the benefits of using audio & microphones to enhance our movies. Gwenda Webber from the PC Users Group did a very good demonstration about using  photoshop.

Most recently was our AGM where a few changes to the committee were made. Lyndon & Trevor resigned as treasurer & vice president, respectively.Special thanks have to be extended to these two gentlemen who have put in more than their pound of flesh to help keep the club alive & viable.

 Col was voted in as the new Vice President & Kevin takes over as Treasurer.

 Welcome to new members Barbera & Dennis, Bev & Max  

10TH  AUGUST

Tonight's members discussed our choice of movie for the October combined clubs' scripted moviie to be shown at Milton. David has supplied a script based on a video shown by Dennis & Barbera on a scit between a hobo & lady on a park bench. Some fine tuning had to be done to the script when Fran took umbrage at the dialogue of the "Lady's" part. Bev ( The Younger ) & Col have been voted in as directors. Mark & the other Bev are to be the actors.

After supper Col showed a video of a choir in Bombala. It was pointed out & appreciated that what could have been just another choir was really enhanced by the many camera angles & settings used in the making of it. Bev counted 53 different angles during a rendition of John Lennon's "Yesterday" .Congratulations have to go to the choir conductor who also  produced the video for a truly wonderful job. Next meeting is to be on & around a park bench in Harry Sawkins Park next Saturday.

24TH  AUGUST

Tonight's group of 14 members & guests started the evening by watching a presentation given by Lou Glover from ABC Open. A new idea is being introduced at the ABC giving more input by multimedia groups like ours. After Lou's presentation the first half of the evening was taken over by Mark giving a very informative demonstration of the "Magix" video editing suite . After supper followed Kevin's demonstration of "I Movie" on his Mac computer. Most of us are still impressed with his Mac but converting to it seems to be getting put into the "To Do One Day" basket. Before the night ended Col handed out DVD copies of all the footage we'd taken in the park for our interclub project. Each member can then do their own edit & the best one will be shown at the October combined clubs' meeting.

14TH SEPTEMBER

Tonight was an extremely cold, wet & miserable one. The 8 members who braved the elements & brought along their cameras  though had a very informative evening hosted by Col. During the evening we were asked to use our cameras to perform a dozen different tasks. Some of these tasks were video your feet while walking, use an improvised dolly & video something moving & make it look to be going faster. When Col figures out how to do the last one I hope he'll show us as well. I'm sure, although there was a little dissent among most of the other participants, that our instructor didn't use theses scenarios for his own education. However if the next "Ben Hur" is filmed by Col then we all expect to share in the profits

28TH  SEPTEMBER

Rainer Listing from the Canberra club was our guest speaker tonight.  The 11 members who were there were given a very informative presentation on animation. This is a subject which interests quite a few of our members but noone knew much about it. Rainer appears to be quite an expert at it & certainly gave us a thought provoking evening on the topic. At the end of the night Rainer lent us a video with some very interesting information which has now been copied onto the club's laptop & is available to members

12th  OCTOBER

Tonight's meeting of about a dozen members watched DVDs of our skit "FLEA'S A CROWD" which we're entering in the combined meeting at Molltmook in a week's time. Seven members put in their edited versions of the scripted movie & it was quite interesting to see the different interpretations of what is basically the same script. Col & Chris's movies were chosen to be shown at Mollymook but the standard of all the movies was very high. David & Fran showed quite a different view of the movie whilst most of the others stuck pretty much to the script but editing differently from the same footage taken by the four cameras. The meeting closed at 9pm with us looing forward to meeting our fellow movie makers at the combined meeting in a few weeks time.

26th  OCTOBER

Tonight most definitely belonged to Fran. I can't remember the last time a presenter got so many laughs & gave such an informative & appealing presentation. Her subject for the evening was the software "CRAZY  TALK" & it certainly lives up to it's name. The software is used to animate inanimate objects by adding facial features & voice. All seems straightforward until you realise the types of eyes, mouths ,faces & head movements that are possible. Fran had us well entertained whilst imparting lots of knowledge. After supper it was Col's turn & he showed us how to splice two pieces of music together so that they become a continous piece. It worked very well with two short pieces of piano music being turned into one long consecutive piece with only mimimal distortion at the join.

9TH  NOVEMBER

Tonight started off with the dozen members present deciding to buy a new green screen & lights for the club. David has made a screen in the past which we've used both at the club & at movie shoots. This new screen is larger,     6x3 mtrs, & packs up neatly for easy transporting. It also comes with lights . Col was tonight's presenter & used his "Premier Pro" software to do a multi camera edit. Up to 4 cameras can be edited at the one time to make a very professionally finished job. The ease with which Col seemed to do this editing was an eye-opener for those of us present. After supper we viewed some of Wollongong's movies which are entered for their end of year competition. Col & Trevor will probably judge them but it's always inteesting to see what our peers are doing. Our last meeting is a B.Y.O. drinks & a plate with David & Chris giving a few tips about using scanners.

23RD  NOVEMBER

We started tonight by having a lok at the club's newest purchase. It's a green screen with lights & is quite large, 6x3 metres but very easy to pack & transport. Afterwards the dozen members who were there watched Chris & David show us what their scanners can do. Chris's is a flatbed which can also do negatives. The real advantage of ut is that it will do multiscans which it automatically crops & saves as separate files, cutting down time when doing a lot of photos etc. David's is a slide scanner which does up to 4 slides at a time & also stores them as separate files.   This being our last meeting of 2010 it was also a social evening where we all brought a plate & sat round to have a bit of a chat. Fran's recipe was well received ( it was profiteroles but I can't spell that ) but I can't condone Col's use of a well-known company's packaging to wrap the pizzas that he made.

Tonight being our last meeting for the year,  the club wishes all it's members & guests to both our meetings & this site a very safe & festive season