8mm Forum: 50 Yrs Of Movie Maker

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Topic: 50 Yrs Of Movie Maker

Graham Ritchie
Film God

Posts: 4001
From: New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2006

posted October 31, 2007 10:08 PM

I have just finished reading the April 1984 issue, it was interesting to read that it started back in April 1934 and it was called "Amateur Cine World", here is a quote from Movie Maker editor.... "It was to become the most successful amateur film making magazine on Earth, and was to be the watershed for much talent and invention. "The Ten Best" competition, was the biggest contest of its kind, was to be born from its influence, and its appearance was to have a radical effect on the face of amateur - and to a lesser degree professional - movie making. Movie Maker is the child of ACW, and we are still here today, trying to continue in the tradition originated in 1934.

ACW survived as a weekly until the advent of Movie Maker in March 1967

So what happened, [Roll Eyes]

myself I stopped subsciribing in 1981, when did "Movie Maker" finish, and why, in fact reading this issue is quite sad, its a shame such a good magazine would soon disappear.

One very interesting article from Ivan Watson and I will quote from just a part of it regarding his views on film making "You can take it for granted that, sooner or later, lightweight and astonishingly inexpensive video equipment will be available to win back a large segment of the mass - market. Likewise, a lot of people will discover or re-discover film".

That was written in 1984 "how true"

Graham

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John Clancy
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1954
From: Cornwall
Registered: Jun 2003

posted November 01, 2007 03:54 AM

I believe some of the regular columnists to Movie Maker started up their own A5 magazine called 'International Movie Maker'. Ignacio Beneditti from Spain made me aware of this recently and sent me a few of the articles he has submitted over the years. Some very interesting reading and looks like a good successor to Movie Maker. Personally though I'm more interested in film collecting and therefore never subscribed. It could be worth a look though.

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British Film Collectors Convention home page www.bfcc.biz. The site is for the whole of the film collecting hobby and not just the BFCC.

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Maurice Leakey
Film God

Posts: 5895
From: Bristol. United Kingdom
Registered: Oct 2007

posted November 01, 2007 06:36 AM

Amateur Cine World was a monthly magazine for many years, except the war years when it was quarterly. Due to many requests it eventually came out in large format as a fortnightly issue, alternating with the new Amateur Movie Maker which also came out fortnightly, i.e. if you subscribed to both you got a mag every week!

I cannot be sure of dates but when the mags fininished publication a new quarterly A5 mag called Amateur Cine Enthusiast came out somewhere around 1989, this continued the annual "Ten Best" film competition.

A few years later the quarterly International Movie Making was introduced and is still going strong today.

Unfortunately the computer which was used by the editor of ACE (as it was nick-named) crashed and he lost his entire database of subscribers. This led to the close of the magazine.

International Movie Making is a worthwhile magazine, whilst it is geared to film-making it also includes film projection and film collecting with a regular film review by Phil Sheard of Classic Home Cinema.

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Maurice

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Graham Ritchie
Film God

Posts: 4001
From: New Zealand
Registered: Feb 2006

posted November 01, 2007 08:19 PM

Thanks for that, I will inquire into its availabilty out here, looking through that April 1984 issue there seemed to be quite a bit on video in fact there is little said on films for sale, but instead {VHS and Beta} which is a pity. I feel that the backbone of the Super8 industry back then, relied mainly on people shooting Super8 "baby on the lawn" films etc, more than buying digests, and when those people changed over to video that pretty much finished it, the mass market was gone, and soon magazines like "Movie Maker", so its always pleasing to read that somewhere out there film is still being used.

Graham.

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John Clancy
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1954
From: Cornwall
Registered: Jun 2003

posted November 02, 2007 03:31 AM

We haven't mentioned 'Movie Maker' being renamed 'Making Better Movies' and later still 'Video World' or something like that. Ol' Wilts was contributing right up to the end which came around 1991.

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British Film Collectors Convention home page www.bfcc.biz. The site is for the whole of the film collecting hobby and not just the BFCC.

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Mike Peckham
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1461
From: West Sussex, UK.
Registered: Jun 2003

posted November 02, 2007 06:28 AM

John

I don’t think “Movie Maker” actually became “Making Better Movies” as both were published side by side for a while. I think that the umbrella company that owned “Movie Maker” was sold and the title had a new editor appointed who made a few misguided attempts at bringing the magazine up to date in an attempt to increase the dwindling readership numbers. Reading between the lines there was a certain amount of unrest and a splinter group of the old guard at “Movie Maker” set up “Making Better Movies” as a rival publication, eventually all the old names defected to the new mag, including Uncle Ivan and Bill Davison.

“Movie Maker” struggled to find its way and went through a period of proudly proclaiming itself to be the magazine for film makers both on cine and video and then in a bold move on film only, I think it was forced to include video again before it finally disappeared. “Making Better Movies” however seemed to be a little more sure of it’s self, probably as it had the confidence and experience of the old Movie Maker team behind it, and it seems much of their old readership, but even so the sales declined to a point where it was no longer viable. The most recent copies I have I think are from about 1986/87.

Such a shame as they made such good reading and still do to this day. The light at the end of the tunnel though is that we now have “Small Format” being published which many see as a worthy successor to Movie Maker. Hopefully the members of this forum are all aware of this publication and subscribe to it, as it would be a shame to see such an excellent magazine have to go the way of the old Movie Maker through lack of support…

Mike

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Auntie Em must have stopped wondering where I am by now...

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Claus Harding
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1149
From: Washington DC
Registered: Oct 2006

posted November 03, 2007 12:29 AM

Interesting posts,

I just signed up earlier tonight for my first issue of 'SmallFormat'; I hope to become a regular subscriber.

Claus.

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"Why are there shots of deserts in a scene that's supposed to take place in Belgium during the winter?" (Review of 'Battle of the Bulge'.)

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