About the group

1960's

In 1964 a small group of school leavers started making films as a circle of friends on the smallest film gauge of 8 millimetre - hence the Group's name. In the Group's early days, Circle Eight produced a procession of slapstick comedy films, one of which became the longest amateur film ever made in the UK at that time. Made in 1965, it lasted for 3 hours 41 minutes with two intermissions!

1970's

The comedies changed to horror and drama in 1970, when the Group produced 'The Haunting'. It proved to be so convincingly horrific that Circle Eight were unable to show it to the public as it was banned by Surrey County Council's licensing authorities! The same film redeemed itself the following year, when it won the top three awards at the London Amateur Film Festival.

By 1969, the Group had started to show their latest work to local audiences in their tented cinema at the annual Guildford Show and added to their achievements in 1977 by producing a film of the annual Guildford Carnival Procession. After filming the progress of the Carnival through the town on Saturday evening, the 16mm footage was rushed up to London for processing and editing overnight and then shown to capacity audiences in their cinema tent at the show the following day. It proved a great success at a time when video was still in its infancy.

Another high spot in the Circle Eight story occurred in 1978 when the Group's much acclaimed documentary about the BAC Weybridge tug of war team, gained the Group one of the amateur film world's 'Oscars' - a Movie Maker Ten Best Award. Entitled 'Tug', the film went on to win another six awards at national, regional and international Film Festivals

1980's

Since the early 1980s, Circle Eight has concentrated on producing historical local interest films featuring the legends and folklore of Surrey and its county town Guildford. The first of these 'The Tales of Olde Guildford' was premiered in 1984 and its sequel 'The Tales of Olde Surrey' followed in 1989. Both films have now been seen by over 50,000 people from all over Surrey and beyond and are also available on VHS video from the Guildford Borough Council's Tourist Information Centre.

1990's

In 1991, Circle Eight produced their much-acclaimed Victorian Lantern Slide show ‘Grandad’s Guildford’ . In 1995, their documentary film ‘Guildford...This is Guildford!’ celebrated the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first train in the town back in 1845.

1996 found Circle Eight celebrating the centenary of the cinema with ‘Grandad’s Picture Palace’ which traced the history of Guildford’s cinemas and told the story of Surrey's pioneer film makers.

In 1998, Circle Eight became the first amateur film group in the UK to make a full-length documentary on the life and times of Lewis Carroll - the author of 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Alice Through the Looking Glass'. Circle Eight's 'Alice Through the Camera Lens' was made to celebrate the centenary of Lewis Carroll's death in Guildford in 1898 and tells the story of his life in Oxford and Guildford. Requests for showings of 'Alice' came from as far away as Derbyshire, where a Lewis Carroll Centenary Festival was being staged to mark the author's death. A Circle Eight projection team made a special journey to Buxton to present the film, where it was received by an enthusiastic audience. In August 1998, 'Alice Through the Camera Lens' was also presented at Lewis Carroll's old Oxford college Christchurch as part of a week-long centenary event staged by the prestigious Lewis Carroll Society.

2000-1

The group had continued over the last few years to make video productions for entry into annual local and national film competitions and has enjoyed further success with them. However these productions took second place to the completion of their major Millennium project ‘The Tales of the Pilgrims Way’.

Circle 8's video productions, 'Dont Forget the Diver' and 'The Miller of Reigate Hill' were completed in 2001 and were entered for regional and national competitions.

The acquisition of a DVCPro video camera was the first step in the changeover from film to video for future work.

2002

In May 2002 the group were succesful in receiving a lottery grant from Awards for All for the purchase of a new video projector, enabling our current and future productions to be shown on video.

Soon afterwards Guildford Borough Council confirmed another grant, awarded to assist with the production of Circle 8's feature, 'Royal Guildford'. Work was completed on this production to celebrate the Royal Golden Jubilee year. The 79 minute video production, 'Royal Guildford' was completed just before its premiere on 19 July 2002.

2003

Two new short videos were produced in 2003 by updating previous extracts from our feature films and presentations. 'The Spirits of Brooklands' was triggered by the plans for a memorial service at Guildford Cathedral and a flypast by a VC10. The occasion was part of a tribute to Sir George Edwards, the famous aircraft designer who worked at Brooklands and was chief designer of the VC 10, BAC 1- 11, Concorde and many other famous aircraft. New material was also shot for the conversion of the multimedia presentation of 'Grandad's Picture Palace' into a video. This presentation was originally used to celebrate the 100 years of cinema in Guildford in 1996.

2004

The big event was our 40th Anniversary Celebrations at the County Club, Guildford on 26 March. This was the culmination of the frantic shooting of 'Eight Over Forty' our autobiobraphical movie and a small respite in the shooting of 'The Grand Hall', premiered on 24 July.

2005

'The Grand Hall', 'The Phantom of Milford St Giles' and 'The Spirits of Brooklands' were successfully entered into competitions in the early part of the year. A new and updated DVD version of 'The Story of Guildford' was completed for Guildford Museum in July 2005.

2006

The year began with Circle Eight winning the top award, the Leonard Robinson Trophy, at The Surrey Film-Video Festival in January with their new video 'The Story of Guildford'. In February a successful charity performance of 'Above and Beyond' and 'The Tales of the Pilgrims Way' raised over £1,400 for local charities. A large part of the year was taken up in the production of 'With a Purposeful Gait', helped considerably by one of the hottest summers on record. This made for a rather warm evening in July at The Electric Theatre when 'Grandad's Guildford' was shown to a full house as part of Guildford's Summer Festival. Also in July 'The Story of Guildford' was made available for sale on DVD to the public.

2007

'With a Purposeful Gait' won its first award at The Surrey Film-Video Festival in January. This was followed with a further award at BIAFF in April when 'The Tale of Christopher Slaughterford' was also successfully entered.

2008

Our most recent production 'Off The Wall' was shot has already won awards at the Surrey Film-Video Festival and BIAFF. After four years of hard work, our video editing computer was upgraded with the latest video editing software and is now able to edit our future productions in High Definition.

2009 and 2010

Two new productions have been started. 'Tales of the Portsmouth Road' started a mammoth three-year shoot in High Definition and widescreen and a much shorter competition film based on the theme 'trapped' is now being shot. Our first mulitilingual production is a modified 'Story of Guildford'. It is available with a German soundtrack and English subtitles. A french version is being worked on.

All of Circle Eight's recent video productions were shot using the broadcast quality DVCPro digital video technology. Our latest production,'Tales of the Portsouth Road' is being shot on a Sony broadcast quality High Definition widescreen camera.

If you would like to know more about the group please contact us.

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