A day in the life of Portsmouth 1983 Video showing
Director: Brian Imber
1983 video. Duration: 8’ 18’’
Co-guest: Dave Allen
A day in the life of Portsmouth is a short film which I made as part of my CSE media studies course and was entered into a national competition sponsored by JVC. It was selected as a winning finalist and shown at the National Film Theatre in London where I attended a presentation event with Dave. It was also entered into the Tokyo film festival Japan and BBC radio Solent broadcast a news feature of which I have a audio copy. So as a 13-year-old school pupil this was exciting and memorable and still regard this as a special time.
I would describe the style as a social documentary observational film featuring images of people across all ages going about their everyday activity at various locations within a working-class city. The film is constructed using basic equipment following a timeline going from morning to nighttime stating with younger people and moving up the age range. Visually it has captured some truthful and spontaneous human moments which adds to the appeal combined with the local Radio Victory soundtrack of time checks, music, topical news items and presenter comment that add interaction and humor. It’s construction and style following that of Humphrey Jennings Listen To Britain as a piece of social history.
The film was made over a short period of weeks during the autumn of 1983, shot at weekends and during school holidays with a crash edit as time was limited with the JVC presentation event following in December.
As a small time capsule of everyday life in Portsmouth as it was 40 years ago , we believe that
Our local patrons will enjoy this special screening part of our Portsmouth archive films presentation
On 15th June 1pm at Southsea Cinema and Arts Centre.