Shirley
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Kreines <jeffkreines@mindspring.com>
To: Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thu, Oct 8, 2009 4:38 pm
Subject: Re: [Avid-L2] Re: So you young whippersnappers might know where we're coming from...
My, you all came to this so late! (Except maybe Barry...)
My first VTR experience was in 1965, with an Ampex VR-1500 (2"
Helical, cheaper version of the VR-660). Weird joystick control.
Went to an Ampex VR-7100 1" Type A in rollaround box with popup
monitor shortly thereafter. This was in -- gasp -- junior high
school. My school had a CCTV setup and was an Ampex beta test site of
sorts. I had three years to get video out of my system, and got out of
a lot of classes dashing down to the studio (as it was) to fix
something.
Just so you don't think it was too posh, the "switcher" was a box of
relays with a little pendant with 4 buttons -- we had 3 cameras but
were optimistic -- hit the button and "switch" to the next camera.
Since the box was in the studio you could hear the relays and see the
picture roll a bit -- the audio picked up by a pair of Unidyne IIIs on
goosenecks mounted on the very low ceiling. Our film chain, as it
were, was a B&H 285 projector with the shutter ripped out aimed into a
Wilson Device -- a card with rear projection box with latex screen
stretched over. Lovely image quality! We aimed a terrible Sylvania
600 Vidicon camera at it. This was before "camera 3" arrived -- a
snappy little Ampex CC-323 that was always my favorite.
Our most popular shows were one that taught "cursive writing" (the
school system didn't let you write script until 6th grade) and Dr.
Lola May's math show, taught by a very funny Amazon math whiz whose
catchphrase was "a rubber cigar to you." (I will leave the double
entendres up to the rest of you.) We did produce some non-
instructional shows, all terrible, including one called "From Then To
Now" that was apparently history (of everything) in 5 minutes, not
intended as funny, just a way to get out of regular classes for a bit
and produce this.
Went to high school where they had an insane 2700 mHz instructional tv
station, with a quad machine, a real film chain (well, sort of), a
pair of GPL cameras, one with a 15-150 Angenieux, and in the end the
first U-Matic I ever saw -- the consumer machine. Shows still sucked
but I did do camera on one with Margaret Mead. Funniest technology
there was a bizarre Ampex machine I have never seen since -- their
attempt at the cart machine market -- an audio recorder that used a
12" floppy magnetic disk, as I recall not in any container, just
floppy plastic with oxide on it. Dumb idea!
But this high school had a great photography department, which is
where I spent a lot of time until I started making films -- aided by
the discovery of an unused Moviscop and synchronizer and rewinds that
I cut my first two sync films on.
Dropped out of high school (hey, it was 1971!) to make films full
time, and ended up soon after at the MIT Film Section, a hotbed of
cinema verite activity, and the perfect place for me to be. We had
better toys -- the oddest of which was a Kodak Videoplayer --
essentially a desktop Super-8 flying spot scanner. Ugh! Ricky
Leacock was very interested in democratizing filmmaking (he thought
everyone had at least one movie in them -- something the video
revolution proved was very wrong indeed!) so MIT developed a weird
Super 8 sync system, that I did use on some short films for WGBH.
But I never touched video again until I got and hacked an early 8mm
camcorder. Still prefer film. These days I spend a lot of time
dealing with very old film -- I make archival film scanners for places
like the Library of Congress that can deal with the most shrunken and
damaged film without harm.
What got me started on this? Perhaps an effort to avoid work?
Jeff "old fart indeed" Kreines
------------------------------------
Search the offical complete Avid-L archives at:
http://archives.bengrosser.com/avid/
Avid L2, Where the Answers are.Yahoo! Groups Links
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
Search the offical complete Avid-L archives at:
http://archives.bengrosser.com/avid/
Avid L2, Where the Answers are.Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Avid-L2/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Avid-L2/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:Avid-L2-digest@yahoogroups.com
mailto:Avid-L2-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Avid-L2-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
No comments:
Post a Comment