Michael has been making films for many years and has won many awards in international festivals. He specialises in documentaries and has also made “cut to music” impressionistic studies. This was his second visit to SAM to give a show of his films and such is the range of his output he was able to put on a completely different show, including one new film that has just been completed.

Michael started making films in 1964 using 8mm film but soon graduated to 16mm before converting to video tape and now HD digital recording onto capture cards. He contrasted the technical difficulties of working with film with the computerised editing and post production facilities now available to non commercial film makers which has made the movie making process much easier. He is committed to making documentary or impressionistic films as he feels that these are genres where non commercial film makers can work most effectively. As Michael put it, his films tend to fall into the category of entertainment, instruction or reminiscences.

Michael started the show with digital copies of three films from the early 80’s that had originally been shot on 16mm film.  Blades and Boaters was a superbly filmed essay showing how a rowing club trained for a race and combined natural sound and commentary with sections that were beautifully cut to music. Ski Break set out to show skiers in an alpine resort enjoying their lunch break and again there was some brilliant cutting to music. Michael’s favourite of the three, Bowls and Brass had been less successful in competition terms but was immensely entertaining and depicted a bowls match where the action was intercut with a brass band.

The first half concluded with It’s an Alpaca, a recent documentary showing the work of an Alpaca farm and breeding centre near London. Michael emphasised the need for good audio recording technique and explained that he used radio microphones to record the spoken word though he stressed the importance of not letting the subject wander away with the microphone still switched on!