John Davis first got the film-making bug when he bought a heavily discounted Agfa ‘Family’ camera and projector from Dixons. The ‘Family’ system was the last throw of the dice in super 8 film making by the Munich based giant and marked the end of an era as celluloid was overtaken in popularity by video, at least at consumer level.

The seeds of shooting film had been planted in John’s mind at a much earlier time as the Davis family had been a ‘forces’ family and movies had regularly been sent home to the UK to keep distant relatives up to date as the kids all grew up.

The first films shot on the Agfa Family were, looking back, unimpressive; having been used to 35mm stills, the grain on super 8 was very noticeable. However what the images lacked in clarity they more than made up for in movement. Suddenly everything had a feeling of depth.

Various cameras were to follow as the Agfa was replaced with more sophisticated equipment.

Even fully-fledged films were produced with beginnings, middles and ends. Titles such as ‘See Paris and Die’ and ‘The Flirt II’ had audiences sliding down in their seats at Dunfermline and Edinburgh Cine clubs. Avant Garde romantic comedy ‘Big Margaret versus Godzilla’ fared little better.

John joined Talisman Films in 1989 and, with Gordon Ellis and Bill Gourlay, started to produce much more ambitious dramas and documentaries.

Eventually super 8 sound film was discontinued and for a while the group had a quiet period, as the alternative, video was both cumbersome to edit and did not seem capable of good images

John had remained a member of Dunfermline Camcorder (formerly cine) club and had noticed that consumer camcorders were now starting to produce images up to the standard of super 8. This was instrumental in making him the first Talisman member to take the plunge and move from ‘reel’ film to video. Further advances in camcorder technology and the advent of computer editing have made film-making and editing at least as easy as it was in the days of Super 8 and have allowed very ambitious projects to be undertaken.

As well as an active member of Talisman Films, John is also the group treasurer and would like to confirm that the missing £500.00 was only ‘resting’ in his account.