Thursday, August 23, 2007

Preserving the past

Today a box arrived for me in the post. I was expecting it, of course. In it was a secondhand camcorder I bought off eBay earlier in the week. It's a Digital 8 model by Hitachi, and I suspect it's almost 10 years old. But I needed it.

You see, despite already having a new Mini DV camcorder, I wanted this Digital 8 one in order to transfer some of my old Hi8 camera footage to my computer and back it up, edit it, and keep it for posterity.

Footage such as our honeymoon in Thailand, including lots of me, sunburned and drunk, singing karaoke with the Filipino band at our resort.

Footage such as the wife and I getting tattooed in celebration of our engagement.

Footage such as the documentary we started shooting about the trials and tribulations of getting married abroad.

Footage from the short film I shot and might now be able to do a redux edit of on the Mac; ditto a music video I shot for a friend of my dad's.

Footage of our nephews and nieces and, I suspect, various animals we have known. There may even be footage of people who are no longer with us.

There is a whole lot of stuff waiting to be rescued from obscurity. My only hope is that the motor and/or heads of this machine still have lots of life left in them.

It'll probably be a few weeks before I'm really able to throw myself into this labour of love. Wish me luck...

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15 Comments:

Blogger Red said...

Luck!!!

23 August, 2007 17:50  
Blogger furiousBall said...

All kinds of luck, 'member if you need some soundtracky music...;-)

23 August, 2007 19:04  
Blogger Avid Andy said...

good luck, and we expect many youtube postings of young * and red.

23 August, 2007 22:29  
Blogger _z. said...

good luck mate. I should do the same with my old camcorder.

and yes we do expect a few tubes to be linked to here.

24 August, 2007 05:34  
Blogger Glamourpuss said...

Gawd, Hi8. I made all my university films in that format. No idea where the tapes are languishing...

Sounds like you'll have a blast.

Puss

24 August, 2007 10:31  
Blogger mister anchovy said...

I'm not sure I would want video to exist of drunken karaoke with a filipino band. hmmmm.

24 August, 2007 12:28  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

what a great idea - from an old camcorder!! We bought (7 yrs ago) a dvd, vhs, recorder/player. It recorded two movies to dvd and then died. Our wedding is still safely preserved on vhs.

24 August, 2007 13:15  
Blogger Milla said...

Good luck *Aste! Maybe you can edit all your memories togetehr and make a Lynch-like film :)

24 August, 2007 13:19  
Blogger * (asterisk) said...

Red: No doubt you'll hear me cursing and swearing a lot!

F/ball: Hey, I may just take you up on that! Thanks.

Avid: It could happen, Web whore that I am...

_z.: It seems a shame to let them rot away, y'know.

24 August, 2007 13:51  
Blogger * (asterisk) said...

G/puss: It was such an improvement in quality back in the day! Should be some fun, I think...

Mr A: You KNOW you wanna see it, brutha!

RefPo: Converting the honeymoon video alone has to be worth the cost and time. Thailand was sooooo great.

Milla: Hey, now there's an idea. But I guess Red won't want to watch it then...

24 August, 2007 13:54  
Blogger Gardenia said...

LUCK! These things are so precious - have fun perusing them once again, and getting them to a more permanent media.

24 August, 2007 14:09  
Blogger * (asterisk) said...

Gardenia: Thank you. You know how these things are: you always have loads of out-of-focus bits or stuff when you didn't know you were shooting! Better to have more visually interesting highlights.

24 August, 2007 14:54  
Blogger Sheamus the... said...

thats sounds amazing. My mouth just watered thinking of all the Hi8 footage I ahve that i want to go through. ENJOY!

24 August, 2007 15:46  
Blogger * (asterisk) said...

Shea: Do it, maaaan! I'm sure you have loads of time on your hands, just like I do...

24 August, 2007 16:59  
Blogger Martha Elaine Belden said...

your luck has been wished!

25 August, 2007 06:04  

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