Camcorder Club celebrates a decade by launching Sitting Room Cinema
Kenneth Speirs
A decade of filmmaking is to be celebrated by the opening of a window into the golden age of home movies.
Paisley Camcorder Club has been working with professional filmmaker Kevin Cameron to edit members’ films to tell the story Renfrewshire in the last century at the first-ever Sitting Room Cinema.
This will be set up at Paisley Arts Centre next month and everyone is invited along.
Renfrewshire Council’s Richard Weeks is the organiser of the event.
He said: “It’s 10 years of the Paisley Camcorder Club and we’ve been working with local filmmaker Kevin Cameron to bring local films up to a polished state so that we can show them in the arts centre.
“So it’s been great to have this opportunity to work with a professional to bring amateur films up to a high standard.”
One of the club members is David Fulton, 73, from Houston, and his film work will be part of Sitting Room Cinema.
He said: “I’ve been a member for four years, and when I first started I was looking for the ability to convert old video tape to DVD, to digitise it. “So I went along. “I had some old family videos. “Richard had the equipment there and showed us how to do it.
“I was then able to take these back home and have all the family memories.”
That was the start of a great interest for Mr Fulton.
“I actually bought myself a digital video camera and I learned how to improve my photography and then download the stuff and edit it.”
Sixty- eight- year- old Nancy Gallacher, from Gockston, is a veteran of the club with eight years of membership.
She too wanted to convert old videos onto DVD and also bought a camcorder so that she could film family trips and footage of her grandchildren.
“I wanted them so that I could look back and have all these memories,” she said. “I’m not an expert but I’m learning. “Bit by bit, there’s so much to take in and I’m just learning as I go along.
“There’s quite a lot of interesting people that go with interesting films, so you watch their films.”
There is no need to be technically minded to be a member of the club, Mrs Gallacher added. “You get good help,” she said. “And Richard shows us other members films that are so old, and it’s so interesting to see the old ferries, transport the clothes that people used to wear years ago.”
May Fernie, 74, from Ralston, has been with the club from the beginning, and she too enjoys filming her life.
“I use small films to show them at clubs that I’m in,” she said. “People love to see themselves. “I also had an uncle who had a box of 8mm films that are all family ones that he taken over the years.
“He’d of course down through