I was one of the trainees during the first year of what was then called the Film Resource Centre. I was involved in the production of the first Film West, a photocopy stone-age cut and paste affair involving scalpels and gum. I also worked closely with Aisling Prior on the short, Lottery which I’d forgotten about until I saw some stills on this site, and foostered around on Declan Gibbons’ short about a Beethoven bust coming alive. (A difficult effect to make convincing. I thought Declan was possibly mad.)
I wanted to be a writer, and the first thing I learned was that writers didn’t have a whole lot of prestige in film. I also learned that the expectation for produced work was something like once every ten years. So I took the rocky road to Theatre instead, encouraged by fair words from Bob Quinn on a short script I’d written.
I now regard my short time in the Film Resource Centre with fondness, but also with a small degree of regret that I wasn’t more appreciative of the opportunities on offer. I was a teenager of ’76, and still retained a bit of a punk mentality which manifested itself by challenging the ‘system’ and resenting ‘structures’, which, in my particular revolution, turned out to be the fledgling Film Centre, rather than say the Church or the Banks or the Government… or even RTE.
But that’s youth for you: you may be mistaken, but at least you are definitely mistaken. So, happy anniversary Film Centre, I knew you when you were little more than a gleam in Lelia’s eye, and now look at you with all your frills and glamour.
All the best to students past, present and future.
Eamonn Kelly
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