As a member of The Colchester Film Makers Club, I am currently archiving all members’ old films to hard drive. The early material is actually film but members have now graduated to the digital era, filming in HD and Blu-ray, with some stunning results I must say. One of the original members of CFMC, a gentleman in his 80s and a prolific film maker has documented the development of Colchester over the years. His films include The Building of the Mercury Theatre, The Tramway System, Colchester into the 80s, Colchester into the 90s, Moving to 2000, The Culver Precinct and many more.

His early transfers to DVD were poor, so I have just re-mastered them for him. Watching the films and seeing all the changes that happened over the years, I thought because I was away a lot during the 80s, making films and sports programmes for TV, if you blindfolded me, put me in Culver Square, took off the blindfold and asked me where I was, I wouldn’t have said Colchester and I was born in and went to school there.

In the process of mastering the films, originally telecined badly to VHS and then burned to DVD, I am trying to source the original films to telecine again and improve the quality, which these films deserve. To date, including all the latest material, I have mastered over 100 to hard drive as ISO files, which can be burned to DVD when needed… the quest continues!