OMF-Film

How many 'firsts' can you have in one film?
Tariro - or hope in an African language - was OMF's first feature, OMF's first film with a professional cast, and OMF's first multi award winner. The film was conceived after viewing a poor presentation about human trafficking at a Salvation Army church and OMF knew that they could do better. To do that a film school was set up to train a crew to industry standard and the film premiered on the big screen at the Plaza Cinema, Waterloo.

Titled after one of Tariro's three featured main characters, Zorina was a short version of the main film following just one trafficked victim. Cut from the main film at the request of the Salvation Army to kick-start their proposed Christian film festival, Zorina was a difficult edit due to the Army's required run time of a max 30 minutes.
However, all that work was subsequently wasted when with only weeks to go to the festival but few entries, in a somewhat desperate move, the Salvation Army changed their max run time to only 15 minutes. Zorina could not be re-cut but was screened in Cyprus as the Director's Choice in the Pervollywood festival.

Essentially a re-cut of Tariro, One Way Traffic addressed feedback issues where some viewers did not understand the title, found the opening scenes confusing or the overall runtime a little long. New location footage filmed on an update session in Cyprus for Marios and new studio sequences in the studio using OMF's Chromakey skills solved the confusion issues. The new title was easier to understand and even with the extra footage, the new cut actually reduced runtime. And One Way Traffic gained even more international awards.

OMF's coverage of Motorfest led to the creation of several friendships, notably with a group of bubble car owners - the Messerschmitt Owners Club - who approached OMF with a request for a film of their annual rally, being held that year at a horse racing circuit. OMF devised an out of the ordinary concept that was part documentary, part animation and part fun.

Those same enthusiasts later made another approach. Would OMF make an updated film of the 1959 pop song by the American group the Playmates entitled The Bubble Car Song? Initially declining the request on grounds of music copyright of the song, lack of charity funding and impracticality of filming before the roads were busy, Beep Beep became a reality when bubble car drivers and crew all agreed to meet at 5:00am on a Sunday morning to film, the copyright owner agreed to waive fees and the shortest film ever made by OMF actually raised the highest charity donation.

OMF remained with the motoring theme for an in depth documentary covering the 90th anniversary of Sir Henry Segrave setting the world land speed record on Southport Beach. 152 (the speed achieved) at 90 (the anniversary) was another in-depth production with footage of the actual car being driven on the same beach by Norman Page compared to archival footage of Segrave at the time of the record braking runs almost a century before
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Simulated in-car footage added impact with clips of the car on display in a town centre arts centre and several interviews adding to the realism.

Where most people these days shoot many images and video's on their phones when on holiday, with most destined to gather digital dust before eventually being deleted, OMF's senior director usually takes a 'proper' camcorder, sometimes with a rig, and does the job properly.

Brought together under the umbrella of Ian's Travelogues, these are all available on the OMF YouTube channel and include shorts filmed in the UK and also Cyprus.

UK travelogues include a trip in the north from Carlisle to Berwick on Tweed and Lindisfarne, while Cyprus shorts included an atmospheric look at the Festival of the Flood in Larnaca.

These shorts have often provided clips or stock for OMF's main projects such as the revised intro morphing Tariro into One Way Traffic and charismatic images within Carlisle Cathedral for chroma sequences in Ssounds first music video of Knowing You, Jesus.

Originally produced and released in 2018 (and successfully streaming on Amazon's Prime Video since that date), AfterAffects was another OMF feature movie that benefitted from a later re-cut. Requested by an OMF crew member, AfterAffects followed three families where children born to mothers who had drunk alcohol during pregnancy had subsequently been afflicted by FASD. A harrowing narrative drama based on actual case histories, AfterAffects included explosive arguments, subtle sentimentality and every emotion thinkable, gaining a Director's Award for Ian Bennett.

In 2018, movie director Danny Boyle conceived a plan for sand artists to create massive artworks on beaches around the UK to remember lives lost in WW1, 100 years after the end of that war. The nearest to Southport being at the National Trust managed Formby Beach. This OMF short film showed the creation of the artwork.

Also in 2018, OMF filmed the Southport Airshow, featuring everything from light aircraft to fast jets and military aircraft displays including the Red Arrows and also the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight. Displays ran for two days and in 2018 included night time flying for the first time.

When the Covid 19 pandemic hit the UK, rules put in-place by the government made it illegal for groups to meet through the lockdown period. As lockdown was slowly lifted, similar strict rules allowed people to meet together but outlawed any more than six. Most churches moved to running services on-line that their congregations could watch in their own homes on TV's and computers. Much of that content was similar to low quality home video but OMF produced broadcast standard clips and inserts for use by the Salvation Army in Southport virtually every week for almost a year. These clips included bible readings, sermons, interviews and in the run-up to Christmas, six music video's featuring a sextet from the Southport Corps brass band playing carols. With the restriction to six people still in-place these were filmed using seven static HD camcorders mounted on tripods, all operated by one director/cinematographer. When compared to the vast majority of very poor quality clips that had suddenly become available on YouTube at that time, those six broadcast style music video's became the catalyst for the later OMF Ssounds initiative to create broadcast quality Christian music videos.

Right from the start of OMF, Ian Bennett had nursed an idea of creating a Disney® style, mixed live action and animation film, where real human drivers drove model cars on real roads. Two things stood in his way - there wasn't a valid reason for such a film that would bring in production costs sponsorship and although OMF had extensive chromakey and FX experience and worked on a Mac platform (as did DisneyPixar), that existing pool did not even scratch the surface of Disney capabilities.

Once Covid and lockdown became history however, the if only's became possibilities.

The concept became that of two racing car models in a toy shop window bemoaning the lack of customers during Covid lockdown and deciding to go for a drive to relieve their boredom. Once on the road and driven by humans, the cars would get mixed up with a Grand Prix motor race on the town's promenade with thrills and spills ensuing before the dust spattered cars returned to the toy shop.
Director and Ass director collaborated, a toy shop provided sponsorship and although animation was not at Pixar levels, the resulting short fulfilled Ian's lengthy quest and has given lots of fun to both old and young alike.

Requested by one of OMF's crew who played in both the Salvation Army band and the Southport Orchestra, this super short was created especially to run on the orchestra's web site to help attract audience members to their quarterly concerts, the concept created by OMF being a punchy short in the style of a film trailer.

The film hit its target but in parallel it also enabled OMF to make contact with five musicians who became OMF's residents for the Ssounds series.

Having created content for Southport Salvation Army's on-line services since the beginning of lockdown, OMF's senior director found some of the clips being downloaded from the internet by church leaders quite disappointing when run alongside OMF footage each week. That situation led to the setting up of Ssounds to create broadcast standard content.
The concept mirrored BBC Songs of Praise content with each song led by a soloist, backed by musicians and vocalists in mixed settings. For the first song, Graham Kendrick's Knowing You, Jesus, the main hall at the Salvation Army was turned into a studio with subtle lighting giving a candlelight effect, while another was converted into a chromakey studio. Outside locations then appeared to be in lush gardens or at Carlisle Cathedral.
For the second song, new Christian lyrics were written to Irving Berlin's What'll I Do song and the whole production, including Phil Shotton (one of the UK's top saxophone players) filmed chromakey and dropped in to a computer generated jazz club stage.
By the time that a temporary pause was put on Ssounds to enable the team to produce their last ever feature movie - Down&Out - two more songs had been filmed but not completed. With the feature complete, music videos are again back in postprod.

OMF's award successes have been noticed outside of just festival going viewers. Over time the quality of OMF's audio tracks captured the attention of American software company Crumple Pop, who's audio production programmes have featured heavily in OMF's postprod toolkit.

The software developer approached OMF with a request to review not just one but two new audio programmes, one of which was already in the OMF toolkit and being used extensively when creating audio tracks for movies, while the other has since joined it.

Building on a Foundation was one of the last projects undertaken for the Salvation Army in Southport and was a long short (!) created to celebrate the decade that had passed since that church's 'new' building had been constructed.

The title referenced a popular hymn The Church's One Foundation in parallel with also historic references to the Army's long history in the town.

Drawing on OMF's archive stock alongside topical new sequences and interviews, the film documented the working life of the church and activities taking place on a regular basis in the building.

Another OMF feature film prompted by the experience of sitting through a presentation and a 'we can do better' response, Down&Out brought OMF crew out of retirement to create and produce their last ever feature movie.
There had not been any speaker support for the original presentation, much of which had not registered with attendees so prompted OMF to create a film that would illustrate why some people become homeless rather than the simple fact that they were homeless rough sleepers.

Basing the storyline on real events resulted in a powerful screenplay that included an eviction, a rape, a death and much more, all brought to the screen by a professional cast and OMF's production.
Powerfully so, in the way that only a professional cast can portray such highs and lows, with rich emotions and realistic arguments coupled to sensitive production by the OMF team.

But given the advancing ages of OMF crew and the demands of other (paying) movies on a professional cast, Down & Out was a real challenge to produce.

Yet it all came together with a premiere at the Lucem Cinema in St Helens.
And while all OMF features have been international award winners, OMF's last ever feature surpassed them all with an official selection in the Lift Off Global Network awards, second (beaten only by two votes!) in the worldwide peoples choice and a special invitation to the Liverpool Indie screening festival.

Not commissioned but shot off the cuff on a phone (!) while attending a Christingle event at the Anglican church of St. John's, the Bennett's new spiritual home, Christingle was nevertheless filmed in 4K and in true OMF run & gun style mixed right in with the attendees for charismatic angles and viewpoints.

The church holds a Christingle event each year which gains an attractive backdrop of decorated Christmas trees along both side aisles of the church and also in a small side-chapel, the event then lit only by the decorated tree lights and candles.

Full of character and Christmas feel, this short film captured the spirit of that illumination and led to an approach that OMF film other events for inclusion in the church web site and create features for THE WORD, the church magazine.

After covering the British International Motor Show numerous times for Trinity-Mirror Gp titles and others, that show's demise after more than a century left a big hole in the industry supported motoring calendar that still hasn't been filled. From its commencement in 1903, the BIMS featured car manufacturers and ran at a number of venues in London as well as the NEC in Birmingham, the final edition being held in 2008.

Although an enthusiast show rather than an industry showcase, an invitation in 2025 to media accreditation for Liverpool's The Ultimate Show was however too good to be missed and this punchy little short was the result.