From Megan McCooley:
Location: The National Media Museum, Bradford, UK
Time: 10am – 5pm
Organizers: Megan McCooley (Yorkshire Film Archive) and Fozia Bano (National Media Museum)
Additional film examiners, projectionists, filmmakers, and special guest speakers: Sue Howard, Alex Southern, Rachel Smith, Binny Baker, Andrew Knight, Michael Harvey, Joe Hepworth.
Publicity: The YFA was able to have articles go out in local newspapers throughout the region prior to the event. Additionally, we were able to get two promotional pieces on BBC Radio Leeds and York as well as a short promotional piece on BBC Look North on Friday, 16th October. Information was also posted on archivist, film, culture, and tourist sites including Screen Research, Film Archive Forum, DigYorkshire, YFA and NMM websites. Additionally, the YFA organized a joint press release with the organizers of HMD London. A few people saw Look North that night and came to see us on Saturday which was great. Finally we had a flyer which was distributed to partnership organizations throughout the region.
Total number of guests: about 40 + 6 families for the Family Filmmaking Workshop
Total number of films brought in: 1 x 16mm, 6 x 8mm, 2 x VHS, 2 x DVD This was the first HMD event in Yorkshire, and one of two in the UK this year. The Yorkshire Film Archive and National Media Museum have worked closely on other projects in the past and felt this would be the perfect location for this year’s HMD event.
A film clinic was open all day and had the capacity for 16mm, 8/super8mm, 9.5mm, DVD and VHS. Just a little bit about the audience – most of them were amateur filmmakers themselves bringing in home movies that they have made or come to see films others like them have made. Many were also members of cine clubs whose collections we hold at the YFA. We had a few people who had not brought in home movies but had wondered up to the Film Clinic just to see what was going on and/or get advice about their own collections. Many stayed to watch the footage from the YFA collection that was being screened. Some of them had collections of their own and were very interested to see the footage being screened upstairs. We also had people mention they saw the Look North piece that went out on Friday and had come to the museum that day as a result. The age range varied of participants as well as the type of collections which came in. We had mostly 8mm films, 6 films in all, 2 vhs tapes, and 2 dvds. Many people were also interested on getting information about how to transfer their own home movies to DVD. The highlight of the day for us was a VHS collection which featured XCLUSIVE, a night club in Batley, in 1984.
HMD Bradford also included other events throughout the museum including two sessions with Michael Harvey, Curator of Cinematography at the NMM, focusing on the technology used to create home movies and highlighting pieces from the Museum’s collection. There were also two presentations by YFA’s Binny Baker and series producer Andrew Knight taking a closer look at the highly successful television series “The Way We Were”, a series completely designed around home movies and amateur filmmakers. Plus there was screenings throughout the day of home movies, and an afternoon screening of films made during the Family Filmmaking Workshop run by Joe Hepworth.We were also able to get a bit of funding through Screen Yorkshire, to whom we’re extremely grateful. This helped to cover staff and travel costs and especially digitization costs of home movies already held at the YFA and screened on the day. Films screened included family Christmas celebrations during WWII, Kelly’s Eye, a comical film about an amateur filmmaker and the lengths he’ll go to in order to make the perfect film, the National Hairdressing Competition at Alexandria Hall, Halifax 1963, Archbishop Holgate School 1932, and underwater footage from the British Sub Aqua Club in 1956.
For our first event, I would say it went well. We certainly learned a lot and will build on those lessons for next year. Having the event in Bradford also gave us the opportunity to reach a larger audience who may not get the opportunity to travel to the Archive in York. It was great to see some familiar faces from local cine clubs who share the same enthusiasm for filmmaking and were also able to contribute greatly to the day. Unfortunately there was a lot going on that weekend in the region, and much of our publicity only went out the week before, so we weren’t able to reach as many newcomers as we would’ve liked. On the upside, we have had people contacting the YFA within the last week looking to deposit collections or seek advice on preservation of their film and video collections as a result of the event.