JERSEY CAMCORDER CLUB

VIDEO FILM-MAKERS

CHARLIE’S CHAT

TALKING POINTS -Spring 2010

 

CHARLIE’S CHAT

ARCHIVES 4

How time flies! In the last 12 months it seems I’ve done nothing. Yet never a day passes that I’m bored with nothing to do apart from helping club members to cover events and films.

 

Which reminds me, I must tell you about my acting career, and my part in a club project thought up by Wally Rowe and Alan English, called Charlie’s Wonderful World. The idea was to film me miming the song ’What a wonderful World’ and for members to film views to match the lyrics.

 

Well club members came up trumps  with the views on their camcorders—but I’m afraid I suffered from stage fright and just couldn’t relax. However after a few words of encouragement from Alan and a number of retakes, they called it a day. It seems we managed to get enough footage for Dieter to edit, but it was quite a problem for him as he had so many scenes submitted he didn’t know which to choose. I don’t know if it is the end of my acting career, but you never know, I might get another chance.

 

But back to filming matters. At last I have decided to move on a pace, and bought myself a computer! I got as far as learning how to switch it on, but then my teacher, son Philip, suddenly had to return to Australia, where he now lives. So it’s going to be quite a massive learning curve for me to manage to edit a video. Fortunately fellow club member Derek uses IMovie as well—after all, that’s why I bought it—so I’m hoping he will find time to help me.

 

So I think the next 12 months will be more than busy for me, because after all you can’t teach an old dog new tricks that easily.

NEVER TOO OLD TO LEARN - Autumn 2009

On to more of Charlie’s Chat

Charlie's Chat Archive 4.
One of the unwritten rules of discussion or conversation has always been not to get involved with politics or religion, yet without realising it these subjects are always crossing our normal everyday lives. Some people think ‘politics’ only            
applies to what politicians do or say , and these people usually don’t vote themselves – the excuses being that their vote won’t change anything and politicians don’t listen to the public anyway. They also won’t give an opinion on any political matter or discussion.
But mention the price of things – from cornflakes to petrol and beer, and the cost of living in general, and suddenly an outburst of opinion and advice are fully expressed. Somehow it is not considered that politics has any effect on the cost of living. Everyone looks for bargains and shops around to find the cheapest or best value purchase that they can locate, even though they also always seek to earn good wages and strive for jobs with good working conditions.

They tell friends where to buy cheap goods, and maintain that the other shops make too much profit without seeming to think that perhaps the cheaper shops pay low wages, or employ part time staff that pay no tax. These staff probably don’t even earn enough to pay the taxes that our political masters insist we should pay!
It’s a good thing there are plenty of other things to talk about – matters that don’t involve politics. And Personally I shop at places where staff are well trained to look after customers, which is most important to me. But I guess we shall still keep complaining about prices.