Armstrong, Douglas

So who am I?
I enjoyed a successful teaching career for thirty two years employed by the Department of Education in Tasmania.  Amongst my specialist subject areas I ended up teaching a video production course for students in years Eleven and Twelve at Elizabeth College; however, before that I introduced video as a media tool in a high school back in the early nineteen eighties realising its potential as an educational tool of the future.   I retired at the end of 2005 and was approached to produce a number of quality commercial training videos.  During that time I also ran professional development workshops on video production and editing for teachers at a number of colleges and high schools. Video and film making  was becoming a very popular part of the school  curriculum but many teachers  had the enthusiasm but not the experience or skills to teach the processes of video making and editing using the new digital software  now that computers were common place in schools. For me, this was becoming a bit of an adventure. I had no idea where the journey was leading me but I was enjoying it.  I continued making some commercial videos but quickly found I was losing interest in this part of the adventure.
Next, I joined a small group The Tasmanian Movie Makers   as I was looking for opportunities to work with others on video shoots and gain more knowledge of what was becoming quite a passionate hobby.    I realised my main interest is in the creative side of film making, the use of good camera work, sound and post editing techniques.  Through joining the Tasmanian Movie Makers I now do a lot of work with two club members, Stuart Hobson and Clive Brooks who both have a wide range of skills between them.   Clive is very good at writing scripts, directing sound and generally comes up with some good ideas, Stuart who was the club President has a keen eye for detail and is very good at camera work and editing, he also does a bit of computer animation.  The three of us work well together and have produced a variety of very interesting short films.  Between us we are quite active always with a project at the ready to involve and challenge us.  I still produce some of my own videos for the pleasure, challenge and of course competition with other amateur Movie Makers and clubs.