Every autumn film archives around the world place a spotlight on their home movie collections in a joint celebration of domestic filmmaking known as Home Movie Day. Now, a similar effort has designated a day in springtime to be known as Amateur Movie Day to focus attention on those forms of filmmaking which are still non-professional, but which nevertheless had public exhibition as a goal. These include films made by individuals, groups of friends or members of local amateur cine clubs. The cine club movement flourished in the mid twentieth century with increased access to the tools and knowledge of filmmaking and the development of organised leisure time activities.
In her 1932 book, Marjorie Burgess mentioned two such societies operating in Wales, the Llandudno Cine Society and the Rhos on Sea Amateur Film Club. Although films from these clubs are not known to survive, filmographic information on some of the Rhos films has been collected and published by the team behind Amateur Movie Day on the Amateur Cinema website.
Making films in groups spread the cost of materials and was an enjoyable communal activity. Such films could replicate any of the genres of professional filmmaking but, whether setting out to be a documentary or a work of fiction, films made in a participatory manner by groups of enthusiasts have a particular quality that deserves to be appreciated in its own terms. Although the temptation may be to judge them in relation to the professional film forms which they emulate, it makes more sense to see them as a record of community activity, albeit reflected in the mirror of mass media.
In 1964, ITV news featured an item on one such amateur movie group. It shows members making a James Bond style film, From Wrexham with Love, only a year after the second Bond film, From Russia with Love, had appeared. It was a local tribute to a global media phenomenon that had captured everyone’s imagination. While From Russia with Love is still widely available in numerous digital forms, the whereabouts of From Wrexham with Love are unknown. Were you part of filming From Wrexham with Love? Do you remember the Wrexham Amateur Cine Society? We'd love to hear from you! Get in touch.
Thankfully, many examples of amateur filmmaking are still extant, such as those that can be found in our own archive collections. One such example is Bureaucats. This mix of live action and animation by Brian Anderson was overall winner at the Welsh International Amateur Film Festival, organised by Cardiff Cine Society, in 1978. His friend, Bud Buzynski, provided the music and assisted with lighting. It was shot on Super 8mm film, which cost about £9, with the purchase of plasticine for the animation bringing the total cost of making the film to £10. Brian went on to become Animation Director of Fireman Sam at Bumper Films, Weston-Super-Mare.
The film, and many other amateur films, can be watched in full, for free, on the BFI Player.
We are not the only organisation that safeguards and celebrates such films. For example, The Institute of Amateur Cinematographers was a national club catering for amateurs and its collection is held at East Anglian Film Archive. The collection includes a Welsh travelogue and a story film.
These amateur movies are all that survive of a considerable investment of communal energy and are themselves a valuable record of a particular social moment. In Wales, they help to inform aspects of the local, regional and national culture. It would be great to gather more examples of Welsh amateur cine productions to add to the collection, to preserve these unique examples of national creativity and to share them on future Amateur Movie Days.
References
- Burgess, Marjorie Agnes Lovell. A Popular Account of the Development of the Amateur Ciné Movement in Great Britain / With an Introduction by G.A. Atkinson. London: S. Low, Marston, 1932.
- Nicholson, Heather Norris. “Local Lives and Communities.” Amateur Film. Manchester University Press, 2012.
- Motrescu-Mayes, A., & Aasman, S. (2019). Amateur Media and Participatory Cultures: Film, Video, and Digital Media (1st ed.). Routledge.
- Shand, Ryan, and Ian Craven, eds. Small-Gauge Storytelling : Discovering the Amateur Fiction Film / Edited by Ryan Shand and Ian Craven. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2013.
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