Following the introduction of amateur gauges 9.5mm and 16mm, in 1922 and 1923 respectively, reports on the activities of amateur filmmakers increased in Britain, as they did elsewhere in the world.1 Throughout the following decade, commentary on the burgeoning amateur movement was typically confined to the pages of commercial trade-focused publications such as The Era, Kinematograph Weekly or Picturegoer.2 These were accompanied by regional press reports primarily exploiting the novelty value associated with locally-produced films from amateur enthusiasts. The proliferation of amateur movie-makers was such that, by 1929, a series of dedicated amateur journals (of varying longevity) appeared in earnest. Unlike the aforementioned reports featured in trade journals and the local press, the amateur publications (including Amateur Cine World, Amateur Films, and Home Movies and Home Talkies) provided a forum for discussion and an opportunity to share ideas and technical knowhow with fellow enthusiasts.3
The introduction of these journals also coincided with various attempts to bring the amateur community together under one umbrella organisation, with the Amateur Cinematographer’s Association (ACA) and the British Association of Amateur Cinematographers (BAAC) both offering services to support and promote the activities of the movement. However, as a result of the BAAC’s relationship with trade publication The Era, which sought to pursue commercial endeavours along similar lines to the mainstream industry, a splinter group was formed, the Institute of Amateur Cinematographers (IAC). The IAC’s approach to organising the amateur community concerned maintaining the autonomy of the movement whilst simultaneously protecting the rights of the amateur filmmaker. As set-out within the pages of the IAC Bulletin, first published in 1932 for members of the organisation, founding members Stanley Bowler, William Chadwick, Norman Jenkins and George Sewell, established the Institute as “an organization which should be run by amateurs wholly and solely for the benefit of amateurs, and which should be free from every form of trade or professional control.”4 A key tenet to this philosophy was the formation of exhibition and distribution networks within the amateur community, through which amateur clubs and societies could share their own films for little or no expense. A significant contribution to this network was the introduction of the IAC’s film library for affiliated members. This library was largely comprised of award-winning titles from the numerous amateur competitions introduced from the late-1920s onward, representing the work of film clubs and lone workers from across the globe. Early examples of these competitions include The Era’s Challenge Trophy, the Scottish Amateur Film Festival competition, and the IAC’s Amateur Film Contest.5
Festivals and contests such as these, and numerous others established outside Britain during this period, provided an opportunity to demonstrate the value of an independent amateur movement distinct from the mainstream industry. While these awards offered recognition for filmmakers working at a level deemed to be the epitome of amateur achievement, they also provided other like-minded enthusiasts an opportunity to engage with the range of filmmaking styles and techniques open to the amateur. Distribution and exhibition practices stemming from these film contests echo what Ryan Shand refers to as the community mode, which “acknowledges the limited public exhibition context enjoyed by these filmmakers, without implying that they are simply home moviemakers, or attempting entry into the mass mode.”6Unlike the mainstream industry, the competition winners were typically shown to amateur enthusiasts and clubs involved in making their own films. These screenings, therefore, represented both an opportunity to engage with the work of fellow amateurs and to reflect upon their own filmmaking technique. Perhaps of most significance here are the distribution and exhibition practices of amateur films established in Britain following the introduction of the IAC Contest in 1933.
The inaugural IAC competition winners were announced following a banquet held at the Mayfair Hotel in London, 19 November 1933, during their first annual conference. This award show came shortly after the anniversary of the Institute’s formation and the contest remains a regular fixture in the IAC calendar up to the present day. Winners at the first competition were as follows: Class A – Best Films of Holiday, Trip Cruise or Aeroplane Flight awarded to An Austrian Village (Matthew L. Nathan); Class C – Best General Interest Film awarded to To Egypt and Back with Imperial Airways (Ruth Stuart Rodger); Second Prize in Class C awarded to Westminster in Winter (Matthew L. Nathan); Class D – Best Abstract Film awarded to I Bequeath (James A. Sherlock); Class E – Best Family Interest Film awarded to Her Second Birthday (Agnes and John Thubron); Class G – Best Colour Film awarded to Nature in Colours (Dr Maksmillian Paspa). The grand prize, the International Challenge Trophy, was awarded jointly award to An Austrian Village and To Egypt and Back with Imperial Airways. Following the announcement of winning titles in the IAC Bulletin, copies of the films were subsequently made available to members of clubs and societies throughout the country, with multiple screenings held at club meeting rooms and other suitable venues. The demand for these films was such that screenings took place throughout the 12-month period leading up to subsequent year’s competition.
The announcement of competition winners was accompanied by a series of articles written by the filmmakers themselves, published in the pages of the IAC Bulletin, detailing their experience of making the film and creative choices employed. A similar approach was also taken up by other organisations and journals, including ‘The Ten Best’ competition introduced by Amateur Cine World which ran a series of features on the winning films written by the filmmakers and the judges. Readers of the journals also contributed to these debates, offering their own critique and recommendations for how certain technical aspects might be improved or even adopted by fellow enthusiasts. The award-winning films, therefore, became a focal point for discussions surrounding the continued development of the amateur movement. Though technical knowhow and technological developments played a key part in these discussions, so too did larger debates surrounding the types of films amateurs should be making, acknowledging both the limitations and creative freedoms characteristic of amateur modes of filmmaking.7
While these practices tailed-off towards the end of the 1930s and throughout the 1940s, primarily due to the restrictions imposed on the purchase of motion picture film and other related amateur activities during the war, the relationship established between the award-winners and fellow enthusiasts engaging with the amateur publications remained a key aspect of the community throughout the latter half of the 20th century. The texts included here are representative of this ongoing relationship, with extracts taken from reports written by award-winners at the inaugural IAC competition printed in the IAC Bulletin under the title “How I Made It.” Written by Matthew L. Nathan, Ruth Stuart Rodger, and Agnes K. Thubron, each of these examples offers some insight to how these films were made, their technical and creative choices, and the contribution of the wider amateur community to their work. For example, Ruth Stuart Rodger discusses the historical and cultural research conducted in preparation for the her trip to Cairo and the advice sought from the IAC regarding lighting conditions in Egypt. Matthew L. Nathan considers the importance of carefully planning each shot before picking up the camera and how this approach translates to the editing stages. Finally, Agnes K. Thubron introduces a subject familiar to many amateur enthusiasts from this period concerning the re-working of ‘home movies’ for entry into the amateur competitions through the introduction of a suitable narrative framing – in this instance, with the aid of stop-motion animation.
1. For perspectives on the development of the amateur movement in Britain see: Movies on Home Ground: Explorations in Amateur Cinema, ed. Ian Craven (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009); Heather Norris Nicholson, Amateur Film: Meaning and Practice c.1927-77 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012).↩
2. Amateur filmmaker Peter Le Neve Foster, who co-founded both the Cambridge University Kinema Club in 1923 and the Manchester Film Society in 1927, wrote regular columns for Kinematograph Weekly and Picturegoer throughout this period. Foster’s reports on the amateur movement were some of the first to appear in Britain.↩
3. For more on the relationship between filmmakers and the amateur journals, see: Ian Goode, “Locating the Family Film: The Critics, the Competition and the Archive,” in Movies on Home Ground, 182-207.↩
4. George H. Sewell, “Two Years’ Hard Labour,” The IAC Bulletin 2, no. 10 (July 1934), 5.↩
5. The Scottish Amateur Film Festival and amateur competitions are covered in: Ruth Washbrook, “Innovation on a Shoestring: The Films and Filmmakers of the Scottish Amateur Film Festival,” in Movies on Home Ground, 36-64. ↩
6. Ryan Shand, “Theorizing Amateur Cinema: Limitations and Possibilities,” The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists, no. 8 (2008), 53.↩
7. A key feature of the IAC Bulletin were regular columns advising on what type of films amateurs should be making. This typically included a warning against any attempt to ape the mainstream industry and to utilise the skills and technologies available to every amateur. For example, see: Andrew Buchanan, “What the Amateur Should Do,” IAC Bulletin 3, no. 10 (August 1935), 32-33, 35.↩