Chat GPT generates idea for film shown in Bristol

On May 21, the Bristol Film & Video Society celebrated its 90th anniversary with a special screening to an invited audience. Among the films on offer were the premiere of The Crossing, of which we can tell you little except that it’s “the story of a rock band who turn up for a gig in a most unusual venue.” And that the idea for the story was generated by artificial intelligence.

There are some clubs and societies around Bristol which have been going as long as, or longer, than the Bristol Film & Video Society (BFVS), but few, if any, have seen so much technological and social change. In their time, members have made documentaries, some of them on heavyweight, serious issues, as well as dramas, comedies, animated films and more. Many were silent long after the talkies had arrived at your local cinema, but a lot were shot in colour from surprisingly early on.

Some have been lost, though many are in safe hands at Bristol Archives. And you can watch many of them via the BFVS website. Here you can find footage of Bristol celebrating the golden jubilee of George V and Queen Mary in 1935, visit the Long Ashton agricultural research station in 1936, watch a shocking drama-doc about a nuclear attack on Bristol from 1954, and much, much more, all the way to more recent projects.

Read next: Bristol Refugee Festival is back – programme of events

The pleasure in watching them will, for many readers, be in seeing film footage of Bristol in former times. Two might be of particular interest; Western Gateway, made in 1956 and which is a potted history of Bristol, used to get shown in local schools, while Bristol Through a Lens is a wonderful 24-minute compilation of clips from various BFVS films simply showing Bristol scenes from down the ages, including the spectacular demolition of the Canons Marsh tobacco warehouses in 1988. But don’t take our word for it. Go to bfvs.org.uk, click on ‘Film Database’ and see for yourself.

Nowadays, thanks to digital technology, we can all be filmmakers, but it was all very different in 1934 when the Bristol Fellowship of Amateur Cinematographers (Western Area Branch), as it was originally called, was established at a meeting at the Royal Hotel, attended by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress.

“Yes, they were all male, I imagine,” Tim Smart, the Society’s current chair, tells us. “It was a gentlemen’s film club, and I suspect that they had more influence than we do now. In one old photo we can see the police are involved, for instance. Can you imagine that happening today?”

It’s not just that these were well-to-do citizens who had friends who could pull a few strings to get the local constabulary to help out. It’s that they all had healthy bank-balances.

“Filmmaking was so much more expensive in those days,” says Tim. Apparently one member in 1959 had £1,200 worth of cameras and equipment – about half the price of a semi-detached house at the time.

“You had to be reasonably comfortably-off to be able to afford to do it. You couldn’t just point a digital camera, and just take a shot and if you didn’t like it just delete it, like you can now.”

You had to buy all the gear, buy your 8mm or 16mm film, make sure you got your settings and exposure right, then get it developed. Early members included Canon Percy Gay, the popular vicar of St George’s, Brandon Hill, a man who seems to pop up in every corner of the life of Bristol from the 1930s to the 70s. There was also Herbert Postlethwaite, a very talented still photographer, who also, unusually for the time, took colour photos as well. (If you have your back copies of BT to hand, see the July 2 and July 9 2019 editions.)

You can get an idea of the sort of folks they were from a short film called Visit to Wookey. Shot in June of 1946 we see Society members and their families on a day-trip to the village and its famous caves. They go in a fleet of cars (petrol-rationing evidently no problem) and all are smartly-dressed. Canon Gay is larking about, inserting himself into several shots. And it’s in colour – very unusual for amateurs in 1946.

It was calling itself Bristol Amateur Cinematographers not long after the war’s end. Then in the 1960s it was Bristol Cine Society. It became the Bristol Film & Video Society in 1989, and has been through several changes of meeting venue. You don’t have to be wealthy to be a filmmaker these days. Filmmaking has become a lot more democratic.

Tim Smart: “Ten years ago I’m guessing that mobile phone cameras weren’t of anything like the same calibre they are now. You can make a perfectly good film with your phone.

“For the future, AI will play an increasingly bigger part,” he says, adding that the script for The Crossing was based on an idea generated by ChatGPT.

“The time isn’t far off when we’ll be able to make films starring people who don’t exist … and we’ll be able to do that as amateurs with zero budget. Already we amateurs can use professional standard editing software which has been an industrial standard for a long time, and we can get it free.”

If that’s the case, if we can all access this amazing technology, why join a filmmaking society at all?

“Because there’s a lot more to making movies than pointing a camera. If you’re going to make a drama, it has to be written, it has to be written correctly, there are points where the plot has to hit certain highs and lows … You need to write a storyboard, and you need to find locations … you can’t learn the craft of filmmaking just through social media, you have to just go and do it and that’s what our club does.”

There’s another advantage in being amateurs, something even the Society’s earliest members understood. If you’re local, and you’re not big business, and if you know certain people and ask nicely, you can get a lot of favours. Tim cites the example of Uncertain Proof, one of his personal favourite BFVS productions.

The film is a feature-length drama about King Edward II and how he might not have died at Berkeley Castle. It involved a cast of about 50 and took four years to make. They managed to get the use of Berkeley Castle as a location and the only major expense was insurance.

“The BBC I think at the time told us it would have cost half a million quid to make … There’s an almighty power to people doing stuff for nothing.”

Bristol Film & Video Society is always on the lookout for new members, and you definitely don’t need to be a wealthy gentleman anymore. “We’re totally inclusive and people need absolutely no experience to join,” says Tim. Find out more at bfvs.org.uk

Want the latest Bristol breaking news and top stories first? Click here to join our WhatsApp group. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don’t like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you’re curious, you can read our Privacy Notice.