Members of the Laguna Woods Video Club once again celebrated their own version of Hollywood’s Oscars, the Goldies, awarded to the best videos club members produced in the previous year.
For the 13th year, attendees of the recent festivities watched 10 four-minute video entries before getting down to the business of voting for their top three favorites.
As the gleaming Goldies statuettes stood sentry among a bevy of door prizes, Video Club Vice President Tom Nash announced the three winners.
First prize went to Nancy Klann-Moren for her video “The Clock of Life.” Katharine Holland won second prize for “Cupid’s Curtain Call,” and Marsha Berman took third for her travelog, “Porto and the Douro River Valley.”
The Goldies were so named to honor the Golden Rain Foundation for providing facilities for the Village’s clubs and for its residents enjoying their golden years, as golden oldies.
While all 10 entries were nothing short of engaging, voters took into consideration technical aspects such as the quality of the videography, the audio, editing and special effects. What also carried weight were a video’s emotional impact, implied meaningfulness and just plain enjoyability.
Klann-Moren’s winning video is a trailer for her novel, “The Clock of Life.” Set in fictional Hadlee, Mississippi, and filmed in Northern California, the story is about an interracial friendship between two young boys, Jason Lee and Sampson Johnson, and its implied social ramifications. Klann-Moren illustrates her point with clips from a civil rights march in Selma, Alabama, and references to activist Rosa Parks.
The story then segues into Jason Lee finding his dead father’s diary chronicling his participation in civil rights marches and his service in Vietnam. The dad’s brother, also a Vietnam veteran, lives with Jason and his mother as the wacky uncle suffering from the effects of a head wound. It is his phrase “the clock of life is always ticking toward the funeral parlor” that gives the video its title.
Last year, Klann-Moren won second place for her video “Waste Not,” which documented her use of recycled material as wearable art and fashions.
A lifelong activist, she is working on a new novel that takes readers from San Francisco’s 1967 Summer of Love to the current Black Lives Matter movement.
Holland had set out to produce a biographical video. She ultimately chose to make one about her friend CeCe Sloan.
“I wanted everyone to know how special she is,” Holland said. “She is 90 and has so many stories. There were so many directions into which the film could go.”
During the filming, the discussion would circle back to Sloan’s husband, Irv, who died 20 years ago, Holland said. The story of the teen-aged couple who defied the odds against starting a family at a young age and making a go of it thus forms the gist of “Cupid’s Curtain Call.”
“During Video Club classes, I kept asking, ‘Do you want to hear about her accomplishments or how she fell in love going on dates on Coney Island with a vendor yelling, ‘Get your hot knishes, 10 cents,’” Holland recalled.
Still, distilling the love story of a pair of intelligent equals into a four-minute video proved challenging, as did the technical aspects of shooting the video on a smartphone with an adapted tripod.
“The last week was full of days starting at 4 a.m. and spending at least eight hours a day on editing,” Holland said via email. “My other challenge was working on someone with 90 years of stories. When I told someone CeCe was my subject, they said, ‘Good luck harnessing her.’
“I chose my subject because she had a lot to say, but it was a huge challenge working with someone with that much to say. I’d sit down with her to film an answer to one question. Twenty minutes later, she would stop.”
In those four minutes, Holland managed to illuminate not only a life, two lives really, but the spirit of an age.
In her third-place video, Berman captured the alluring ambience of a region of Portugal that might not be all that well known but deserves to be.
“We love the country, the food, the people and, of course, the wine,” Berman said via email. “I really wished I had more time to offer more background on the Douro River Valley, but four minutes offered a sample and a glimpse of its beauty.”
She said that choosing background music presented a challenge because of copyright issues but she managed.
Aside from presenting this year’s Goldies winners, the Video Club also introduced its new president, Jonathan Williams, who replaces Steve Carman, who will remain on the club’s board of directors.
The following videos, in viewing order, vied for Goldies awards this year:
1. Katharine Holland, “Cupids Curtain Call”
2. Nancy Klann-Moren, “The Clock of Life”
3. Sheng Grogan, “Reunion in Greece”
4. John Glassco, “Visit to Bowers Museum”
5. Eli Silberberger, “Talent’s Devastating Fire”
6. Sunshine Lutey, “Finding Way to Live During 2020”
7. Marsha Berman “Porto and the Douro River Valley”
8. Nina Gamperling, “Ines’ 100th Birthday Celebration”
9. Sheryl Martin, “The Covid Family Vacation”
10. Wolfgang Kutter, “Whale Watching with LWYC”
