Journal of Film Preservation - FIAF

FIAF 53rd General Meeting will be held in Cartagena (Columbia) from April 20 to 26,
1997. It will include an international symposium on the Amateur Film: the present Open
Forum is proposed as an introduction to this important symposium.
Experiences of an Amateur
Filmmaker
W.N. McLaren
At the meeting of the Royal Photographic Society, held at 35, Russell Square,
W.C.1. on December 8th, 1936, Mr W.N. McLaren, of the G.P.O. Film Unit,
gave the following interesting account of his experiences as an amateur, and
showed two films made when he was a student of the Glasgow School of Art.
The President, Dr. D.A. Spencer, was in the chair.
The meeting was held in connection with the Exhibition of Kinematography,
and was arranged by the Association of Cine-Technicians.
I was an amateur for about four years before becoming a professional,
and in my spare time I still carry on amateur work, on substandard film,
because, although an amateur is limited in technical equipment, he has a
freedom in certain respects which is not possessed by a professional. He
has a freedom of choice of subject matter and treatment of subject matter,
and there is no censorship of 16mm film. The only dictatorship that
exists in the case of the amateur is the dictatorship of limitation of technical
means: but that in itself is not a bad thing. Often limited resources
call forth greater ingenuity in the amateur; circumstances encourage him
to think of fresh ways of doing things which, if he had more resources,
he would not consider.
I am going to show you two of the films that I had a part in making and
to describe very briefly my experiences as an amateur with an amateur
group. When I was a student at the Glasgow School of Art there was an
amateur group composed of about four people, who were very enthusiastic
and willing to devote all their spare time to making films, and there
were about a dozen people who were interested and anxious to help. We
had one Cine-Kodak, a B.B. Junior model, with a 50ft capacity and a 1.9
Kodak anastigmat lens. We had for lighting equipment two 1.000 watt
lamps in stands and reflectors. We had to work within £10.
The first question we had to decide was the subject matter of our film.
There were a hundred and one suggestions made, because like all amateurs
who are about to make a first film, we did not realise the difficulties.
After much discussion, I managed to convince the rest of the group
that we should treat the material at our own doorstep, for the very good
reason that we knew this subject matter well, it would be easy and
cheap to film, and we should be working amongst people who we knew
and could rely on for co-operation. There were about four hundred stu-
31 Journal of Film Preservation / 53 / 1996
Open Forum:
Le Cinéma amateur
The Amateur Film
La 53e Assemblée générale de la
FIAF se tiendra à Cartagena
(Colombie) du 20 au 26 avril
1997. Un symposium international
sur le cinéma amateur viendra
compléter les travaux de
l’Assemblée; le présent Open
Forum constitute en quelque sorte
une introduction aux travaux de ce
symposium.