Thursday 12th January
So far this month we’ve rather been victims of forces beyond our control with no heating last week and the weather last night! The threatening weather kept a good few members at home but at least the heating had been sorted out, with a pressure valve to blame. Apologies once again to us from the Hall management.
Our speaker last night was somewhat delayed, travelling down from London is unpredictable at the best of times and that rare stuff in the south, snow, didn’t help. We took the opportunity to watch a DVD of images from the London Salon, a prestigious international exhibition which we were delighted to see included photographs by Club Members Ann McDonald and John Larry. A commentary by Leigh Preston enlivened the DVD no end, both in his analysis of the images and for simple amusement.
We were very pleased when Nick Eriksson reached us, hot foot from Pinewood. Nick, who was also with us last January, is an award winning independent Director of Photography who works across genres including music videos, narrative dramatic films and commercials. He once again entertained us with various examples of his work and his answers to our questions and explanations of some of the techniques and methods behind the work were illuminating. A real highlight was part of the reason for his lateness as he had been filming for his pet project Ellston Bay in the deep water tank at Pinewood. This is where most of the underwater film made in England is shot, including the Bond movies – most recently Skyfall. Nick had been working with Mike Valentine, foremost underwater cinematographer who worked on Skyfall. It was fascinating to see the stills from the day and the size of the team required for such work.
Nick also ran the rough shoot of Ellston Bay, again, to see work in progress gave a special perspective into its production. The evening ended with Patrick Pead’s vote of thanks and the presentation of a framed photograph Patrick had taken of Ellston Bay on location. Quite by chance, Patrick’s own project came across the working film makers in Devon and Nick’s shared connection with Chichester came up!
Nick at work