50th Anniversary DVD released

It's taken us a while, but we've finally made it: the first DVD of films from OFU's archive. We've called it the Gold Anthology, in celebration of the golden anniversary of OFU's earliest documented film.

Highlights of the DVD include:

• Rag '67 (Battersea)
• Rag '69 (Guildford)
• The Famous OFU Sex Film
• Peter The Cow
• Jaws In The Library

Are you an ex-OFUer? We'd be delighted to send you a copy of the DVD. With more than a dozen films spanning the last four decades, it's sure to evoke a great sense of nostalgia. All we ask in return is that you write to us (via email, or leave a message here on the Blog) with your memories of your time in the society. Don't forget to include your postal address so that we can send you your DVD.

andy at ofu dot org dot uk

david at ofu dot org dot uk

Problems with your DVD? The DVD is in DVD-R format. If you require a disc in DVD+R format, simply return the old disc to wherever you obtained it for a replacement. Also, on some television sets, the DVD menu buttons may be off the edge of the screen. There will be a modified disc available in the new year to fix this problem - again, if you would like a copy, simply return your old disc for a replacement.

What's OFU up to these days?

It's suddenly become clear, in the wake of a veritable deluge of responses about the proposed Christmas lunch, that many OFU alumni haven't got the faintest idea what's going on with the society these days, nor how it got there.

"With more than 400 members, OFU is surely one of the biggest and most exciting societies on campus."

That's what I had to say in a Barefacts article celebrating OFU's breathtaking 2000-2001 season. Then I quickly and quietly left the university before I had a chance to be proven wrong.

What follows is a distillation of OFU history in easy-to-digest nuggets. If you have any information that can help fill in the blanks, please leave a comment on this blog or email us.

1955: OFU's earliest documented film - for the BBC, no less.
1967: OFU's earliest surviving film - Rag '67.
1969-1974ish: OFU's golden era of filmmaking under Robert Lenk et al: Enter The Newt and Boy With A Moon And Star On His Head.
1972ish: OFU logo designed by Gail Edwards. Still in use today.
1970s: OFU showing films in LT-D.
1980s: OFU showing films in parallel with Stag Hill Film Club. OFU helps bail out SHFC financially.
1990s: OFU showing arts films to the public in association with the university (trading as University Arts Cinema). By now, OFU has moved out of LT-D and calls LT-G home instead.
Early 1990s: First serious attempt to move to 35mm abandoned.
Early 1990s: Some films produced on video. No true filmmaking capability at this time.
1995ish: First year that OFU fails to make an operating profit. Latenighters etc. stop around this time.
1998: Union strongly advocating moving OFU to video projection in the Helyn Rose (Lower) Bar. Rejected.
1999: OFU acquires 16mm, Super-8 and 8mm cameras and resumes film production.
2000: Faced with growing competition from USSU (which shows its own video-projected films - for free - every week), OFU promotes itself by projecting South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut against the side of the Duke Of Kent (EIHMS) Building. Air Traffic Control phones to complain.
2001: Filmbank ceases 16mm distribution. OFU launches second serious attempt to move to 35mm.
2001: OFU acquires Vic8 35mm/70mm projector from the Millennium Dome sale and swaps it with Union Films Southampton's Vic5 35mm projector.
2001: OFU demerges into filmmaking society and a new amenity, Surrey Student Cinema. Film exhibition outside of the main Union building ceases.
2002-????: OFU making films on DV.
2003: USSU effectively kills SSC by refusing to support its 35mm proposal, as laid out in 2001.
2005: USSU reportedly commences disposal of OFU's assets, such as its 16mm Fumeo studio projector.

For old times' sake

There is still plenty of Oscar Film Unit documentation and information on the Web. Here are a few places you might like to look, for old times' sake:

• The entire original OFU website - now 95% broken-link free!


• USSU's Surrey Student Cinema document [PDF] (warning: strong stomach required, provokes righteous outrage), the 35mm document [PDF] that sparked it and the original Film Society Guide [PDF] on which it was based.


• Barefacts articles The Lion's Final Roar and I Can't Talk, I'm In The Library (the latter detailing the shooting of Jaws In The Library).


• A set of OFU and more general UniS-related Barefacts articles by alumni of the 1950s to 1970s, published in 2001/2 - hosted by UoSSnaps.