I've always found there something to be strangely compelling about early video; ie the first home and consumer uses of the technology in the '70s. It seems like this medium's early history hasn't really been written; actually there are probably a bunch of books about it, but it's not as firmly in the public consciousness as the early days of film.
Yesterday, at a street fair, I picked up this strange big hardcover book called The Spaghetti City Video Manual; you can see a blurry gif of the cover here:
http://208.55.137.252/image38.gif
It seems to be from a interesting era where hippy/counter-culturism overlapped with the beginnings of video (of course that trend continued, and still continues today, especially with the whole activist video thing. Also some community-based video workshops are still around, take Vidéographe here in Montreal, running since 1971). The Spaghetti City book was written by a collective called Videofreex (gotta love that, and the fact that it's signed by the collective and not the individual author), and the emphasis seems to be on de-mystifying the technology & making it accessible. Some research has revealed that this group ran a pirate TV station out of the Catskills in the early '70s. From the back:
Portable video equipment is on its way to becoming as common as typewriters. It has uses for artists, educators, businessmen, political activists, and others of all ages. Attracted by video's immediacy and simplicity of use, they are rarely technicians. They are confronted by a complex and fragile system that is prone to many simple breakdowns and a repair industry that is expensive, overburdened, and virtually nonexistent outside metropolitan areas.
I suppose this was about ten years before home video cameras started to become common enough to be unremarkable. In between those years I assume the technology, outside of the broadcast industry, was adopted and used by gearheads, artists and other types. I find the look of video from that era to be so interesting; it's like seeing that rare colour footage from WWII.
Uh oh, I gotta run & I'm not sure exactly where I'm going with this, except Early Video: Discuss.
― s1utsky (slutsky), Saturday, 23 August 2003 19:28 (twenty-two years ago)
Also, I'm not exactly sure how this fits in, but the first memory I have associated with videocameras was a party at our house when we lived in Boston and someone was carrying around one of those models where the camera and VTR were separate; the next day a family friend, who was at the party, committed suicide, and the memories of both are two of my strongest from that time.
― s1utsky (slutsky), Saturday, 23 August 2003 19:32 (twenty-two years ago)
I think I would have liked
Auto-Focus more if they'd made more use of that aesthetic. But I still liked it.
― s1utsky (slutsky), Sunday, 24 August 2003 00:28 (twenty-two years ago)
Just found
this, something called the "Early Video Project," which looks kind of neat. (Amusing: the photographs of the project's two benefactors at the bottom of the page.)
― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 25 August 2003 00:07 (twenty-two years ago)
Count me in as one who loves that flat, shimmery early-video effect. I don't have anything else to contribute, sorry.
― Christine 'Green Leafy Dragon' Indigo (cindigo), Monday, 25 August 2003 02:58 (twenty-two years ago)
apparently much early video is in danger of deteriorating and video archiving is much more primitive than film archiving at the moment. just look at the vintage TV spots on vh1's "i love the 70s"--they are horribly blurred and washed out. also some video formats were such flashes in the pan that it's difficult to find a machine that will play recordings back.
my .02
― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 25 August 2003 04:58 (twenty-two years ago)
And it's all true! Video deteriorates like crazy, way faster than any other medium I can think of. The format question seems to be a problem for lots of recordable media.
― s1utsky (slutsky), Monday, 25 August 2003 06:25 (twenty-two years ago)
"they are horribly blurred and washed out"
That's kinda how I remember it always looking, though.
― andrew m. (andrewmorgan), Monday, 25 August 2003 16:55 (twenty-two years ago)