How I Became a Film Director
I thought of something today that hasn't crossed my mind in a while. It amused me. So I'm foisting it upon you, dear readers.
Cast your minds back- those who can go back that far- to the long-ago days of the early 80s. Back then, if you wanted to watch a movie on demand in your home, you had to go to something called a "store" and get a magical item known as a "videotape". Bringing anything back yet?
Okay, let that concept digest a bit, and let's go on to something else. In, oh say about 1984-ish, when I was a young buck still full of piss and vinegar and creativity, my dad bought a top-of-the-line Panasonic VCR with attachable camcorder, a real rarity then. The full VCR unit was actually two connected units, the tuner and the recorder. The recorder unit was portable- you just unplugged it from the tuner, put in a battery unit the size of a '67 Impala, attached the shoulder strap and camera, then slung the assembly over your shoulder and went off to shoot, in theory, videos of the grandchildren. Except that I immediately got hold of it and started shooting my own silly video productions, and even a few wedding tapes on the side.
Okay, back to the rental tapes- you know how if you let the tape run to the end of the credits and beyond, eventually there would be some completely blank tape left before it ran out completely? Well, it occurred to me one day that that tape was just going to waste...
So, a bit of Scotch tape on the "no record" hole on the back of the cassette, and presto! Recordable cassette! My friends and I only did this a couple times- we didn't destroy anything already on the tape, just anonymously stuck a little extra surprise onto the end for anybody that let the tape run too long, and dutifully returned it to the store.
The only ones I remember (maybe the only ones we actually did) were on the Tower Video copies of "The Producers" and "Magical Mystery Tour". One was just a clip of us driving around in somebody's car (faces turned away from the camera), but the other had a bit more production value- we actually made signs, wore paper bags over our heads, and ran around the back parking lot of Fresno State.
That's really all there is to the story. Just hadn't thought about it in a long time, and it made me laugh. I wonder if those tapes still exist somewhere, stuck in somebody's closet after being bought out of the bargain used bin at Tower.
Cast your minds back- those who can go back that far- to the long-ago days of the early 80s. Back then, if you wanted to watch a movie on demand in your home, you had to go to something called a "store" and get a magical item known as a "videotape". Bringing anything back yet?
Okay, let that concept digest a bit, and let's go on to something else. In, oh say about 1984-ish, when I was a young buck still full of piss and vinegar and creativity, my dad bought a top-of-the-line Panasonic VCR with attachable camcorder, a real rarity then. The full VCR unit was actually two connected units, the tuner and the recorder. The recorder unit was portable- you just unplugged it from the tuner, put in a battery unit the size of a '67 Impala, attached the shoulder strap and camera, then slung the assembly over your shoulder and went off to shoot, in theory, videos of the grandchildren. Except that I immediately got hold of it and started shooting my own silly video productions, and even a few wedding tapes on the side.
Okay, back to the rental tapes- you know how if you let the tape run to the end of the credits and beyond, eventually there would be some completely blank tape left before it ran out completely? Well, it occurred to me one day that that tape was just going to waste...
So, a bit of Scotch tape on the "no record" hole on the back of the cassette, and presto! Recordable cassette! My friends and I only did this a couple times- we didn't destroy anything already on the tape, just anonymously stuck a little extra surprise onto the end for anybody that let the tape run too long, and dutifully returned it to the store.
The only ones I remember (maybe the only ones we actually did) were on the Tower Video copies of "The Producers" and "Magical Mystery Tour". One was just a clip of us driving around in somebody's car (faces turned away from the camera), but the other had a bit more production value- we actually made signs, wore paper bags over our heads, and ran around the back parking lot of Fresno State.
That's really all there is to the story. Just hadn't thought about it in a long time, and it made me laugh. I wonder if those tapes still exist somewhere, stuck in somebody's closet after being bought out of the bargain used bin at Tower.
posted by Zonthar at
11:02 PM
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