A FILM made here in Pendle about Wallace Hartley and the Titanic has been given a national amateur film award.
The film called “Nearer My God to Thee: Wallace Hartley Remembered” was a joint venture between Pendle Hippodrome Theatre in Colne and Pendle Movie Makers.
And it was hosted by Pendle’s BBC television and radio star Tony Livesey.
When the film was launched at the Pendle Hippodrome Theatre, it went down well.
And David Newman, competition manager for the IAC British International Amateur Theatre Film Competition, was delighted to inform the team it has been given a Four Stars Award.
The film will be shown at the British International Amateur Film Festivall in Chesterfield on Saturday, April 20th. To get more details about the festival visit www.theiac.org.uk or see the “Film and Video Maker” Magazine.
Mr Newman said: “Thank you for entering the competition and sharing your work with us. Best of luck with future productions.”
In their report, judges Tom Harwick, Paul Kittel and Peter Holdroyd said: “This was a moving tribute to Wallace Hartley and, its progress and structure were highly predictable, ordained by the order of his career as a musician from childhood until his dramatic death as the Titanic sank.”
They did suggest the start of the film was more about the Titanic than Wallace Hartley but said: “Many people are familiar with the story of the ship: this film was about another matter – the man from Colne who became its bandmaster and, as such, the early part of the film was off-topic. As an attention-grabber, thought, it certainly worked!”
It suggests the voice used was “very good”. And it says: “There were, perhaps inevitably, many still images – old photographs, newspaper pages, etc – which had to be used simply because there was a paucity of moving images of the time.
“Nevertheless, they were carefully chosen and exhibited for just the right amount of time. An impressive amount of research was evident from all the source material incorporated, all of which was relevant to the subject.”
The judges add: “The audio was well balanced, between music, voice-over and live sound. Modern-day photography was competent and the editing was very well done.” And they concluded: “This telling of a tragic story was very well handled by the film-makers and much credit is due to them for the effort put in.”