Final Pieces

My thoughts, process, hopes and audience participation

Adding clips from other VHS tapes

These clips are from all kinds of VHS tapes i had lying round the house, I took segments of the tapes, cut them out and spliced them together, because i could watch the video and I had opened the top of the VCR I could pick out scenes from the tape and cut out those segments so i knew what footage i was getting. As well as films i also included home videos, just so it added a bit more realism and grounded the footage. I also had some of these where i have created them digitally, then converted to tape added the distortion, then converted them back to digital again.

Test title sequence

Creating my own animation digitally, converting it to tape, using the tweezers when played to add the distortion, then converting the VHS tape back to digital.

Development

VHS Tests

adding authentic distortion with a tweezer

This film was originally shot with a 100 mm macro lens on a canon 650D, the footage was then edited and recorded to VHS. The Tape was then played with the VCR's top cover taken off, I used tweezers to hold the tape at certain points to produce the glitches you see in the video.

The Film is influenced by Nostalgic memories that I have of the VHS cassette, it highlights the malfunctions and problems that the format is known for today.

Original footage

Effects added by using a tweezer

I feel this is a much better way of creating distortion than adding it in After Effects, at least this way i'm affecting the actual tape

Testing

Experimenting with tapes

I began experimenting with my old VHS player and cassettes, just seeing how i could manipulate the audio and visuals of the tape.

 This Piece has been created by recording the master copy to a different VHS cassette and then re-recording the same footage back again. It is basically a copy of a copy but 20 times over. It is a wonderful example of analogue decay.

more experimenting

An experimental tape created by cutting up other old VHS movies and splicing segments of the film together by hand.

Opening up the VCR

two of the tapes that have been cut and spliced together, these are the types of things to cause distortion to the video

I opened up the VCR player, just so i could see all the mechanics working, i found it quite intriguing actually. Being able to see the tape being run also means i can tamper with it whilst its running.

VHS effect

I found this video which teaches you how to add VHS effects to a digital video, although it is effective, I feel this is cheating and kind of misses the point of the idea. I want  genuine distortion, something that is organic, not added in post.

Inspiration

I was partially inspired by an unlikely source, Daft Punk. stating that for their new album they were looking back at past music styles and putting a new fresh twist on them. I liked this notion this is why i decided to look at VHS. i could take this format and create something new from it.

Distorted imagery

A thing i associated with VHS is the distorted imagery you always seem to got, the noise it made, the way it would mess up the image on screen, he warped lines and fuzziness, all of these things and more make up part of the nostalgic memory I have for VHS tapes.

There is an audience

http://news.en.softonic.com/youtube-celebrates-vhs-with-the-tape-button

It's 57 years since the invention of the video tape, and YouTube is celebrating in strange style, by adding a 'tape mode'.

It's not on all YouTube videos, so you may have to look around to find one that works. The small VHS like icon next to the caption control transforms the image into an exaggerated version of watching a VHS video.

My concept - Format of Life

I feel like us a human being can linked to the development of new technologies and the fall of outdated ones like VHS. From birth we are considered to be getting greater by gaining knowledge, wisdom and understanding. However the one factor that stops us from becoming a sort of ‘winning format’ is that of our deterioration of health as we continue to grow older. The older generation could be seen as ‘living dead formats’ as it were. They hold vast amounts of information but due to their ‘incompatible’ nature with everyday modern society they are slowly lost in the depths of the modern life that grows around us.

So what can play the information they hold? Because people remember a specific technology through their memories. I propose to use a specific dead format in a creative way to encourage nostalgic feelings from their past.

The project may not have a final physical tangible structure that has a place because it is the audience that will experience the outcome through their own individual nostalgia experiences.

Lost generation - Nostalgic feeling will be lost

When my 5 year old Niece was very young, her mum would put on a VHS copy of sleeping beauty, however very soon after, my sister replaced DVD player and got new copies of all the disney films. This just got me thinking, my niece is going to grow up not knowing and not experiencing VHS tape, she's not going to experience of holding a tape cassette, placing it in the VHS, having to put up with the distorted visuals, the degrading colour and picture quality. All of these things that i have a nostalgic feeling too, will be lost on my niece.

For these reasons I now know I want to create something using VHS tapes in some way

VHS

Whilst thinking in my room I noticed how on my old T.V., the screen picture had slightly warped in shape at the side. This reminded me of VHS tapes, which i feel hold a lot of nostalgic value too because it was the format i grew up watching as a child.

 For me it was the last thing before the digital age struck us, before i was inside on the computer all day I was playing outside and everyone was free from the technological stresses of today.

The triggers that VHS have; the sound of putting in a tape, the distorted visuals etc all of these I think I could play off.

What to do next - Nostalgia for me

After doing all this experimenting i feel now i need to concentrate on something that i find nostalgic. From the research i have done i feel i need to do something that I've personally experienced through my lifetime, something i've experienced whilst growing up. Something that would senses as well would be key as well.

My Infographic

So this is my infographic, i felt that putting all this information together will show the bare essentials as to what makes this bag special to my mum.

planning on what information to display

list of things i could include in my inforgraphic

Wanted to roughly plan how i wanted my infographic to look, whether it be portrait or land scape, imagery that will be used etc

working out distance

Manchester to menorca: 981 miles 1579 km

Manchester to Algarve Portugal: 1170 miles/ 1883 km

Manchester to volos Greece: 1531 miles / 2464 km

Manchester to Fethiye turkey: 1985 miles/ 3196 km

Manchester to Olu Deniz  1531 miles/ 2464 km

Manchester to kalkan, Turkey – 1926 miles/ 3101 km

Manchester to florida – 4328 miles / 6964 km

Manchester to turkey: 1901 miles, 3060 km

Manchester to Cyprus: 2132 miles/ 3432 km

Manchester to California - 5296 miles/ 8523 km

Manchester to Corfu – 1412 miles/ 2273 km

38939km

Looking at Infographics

I want to display information about the bag in an Infographic, so i looked at some example so how best i could display my information.

My mum's holiday bag

So as i've found out Nostalgia can also be in the form of an object. My mum has an old bag that she always takes on holiday with her, even though its battered and looking worse for where. I wanted to provide at least some insight as to why she keeps it, is it the nostalgic memories she has with it, for instance where the bag has been? what it holds etc

Nostalgia Inducement

The user is able to induce powerful emotional feelings to someone or on themselves to yearn for the past, often in idealized form. Induce memories by bringing up the past of pleasant remembrances, and regrets such as anguish and remorse. Often triggered by something reminding the individual of an event or item from their past. The resulting emotion can vary from happiness to sorrow. The user can induce nostalgia through verbal speech or by physical touch.

• Déjà-vu - replaying a specific memory can trigger nostalgia.
• Fear Nostalgia - fearing a certain someone or something can trigger nostalgia.
• Love Nostalgia - the lost of loved ones from our past can trigger nostalgia.
• Musical Nostalgia - music form our past can trigger nostalgia.
• Object Nostalgia - touching or smelling an object from our past triggers nostalgia.
• Pain Nostalgia - feeling pain from the past can trigger nostalgia.
• Youth Nostalgia - the memories of a person's childhood.

Thoughts and understandings

From all of these talks i feel i have gained a better understanding of what nostalgia is. The idea of triggers; smells, sounds and visual and the fact they are individual to everybody. I found this really fascinating and the notion it be a fleeting moment that initiates a past memory.

Final typography piece

So this is what i came up with. It was nice and i found creating this came quite naturally in the sense that i didn't really plan on creating one, it just seem to right thing to do in response to all the audio footage i had collected.

Sections of typographic animations

Heres a couple of clips to shows just some of the scenes i am working on. I thought i would have the two people talking distinguished by having their words in different colours, my dad being in black my mum in white, it just means you know who is saying what, especially when they talk over one another.

I also decided to have some of the words on simple white backgrounds, for me these are the bits that stand out, that put across key points.

Working in After Effects

Having each word on a different layer, making them 3D layer so i could animate them, altering the x,y & z axises 

Creating Null objects so i could parent multiple layers and have them all move at the same time. Furthermore I added the audio from the recording so i could match when the words should appear on screen at the right time.

Playing with movement of the text, to try and keep it interesting, got to be careful, making sure it can read easily and people can follow it along.

I wanted to keep the little pauses or mistakes the speakers make like the 'erms' and 'ahh' i think it just make it so much more interesting, looks more spontaneous and so nothing is lost from the conversation.

example typographic animation

I wanted to create a typographic animation piece to accompany the audio, just to give some visual interest and highlight particular things said.

transcript of one of the conversations

After i recorded the conversation i then sat down, listen through the various audio clips and picked out an interesting topic i thought i could use. It turned out to be the conversation my mum & dad had about the essence of nostalgia and what the word means to them. I really like the banter between them. I wrote down what they aid so i could use then progress further with it.

More Research - Asking different generations

To try and understand the concept of nostalgia I decided to record conversations with people from different generations to see what they considered as nostalgic and provide their personal understanding of it.

Thoughts

Although it was interesting to see people’s life summed up in simple drawings, in the end I found it was more general memories that were being told rather nostalgic moments, it was more a life story. 

Interesting Outcomes

Although I suggested to think of happy memories, two people drew scenes involving death of some sort. Just thought was quite interesting. Its something they vividly remember but as one of them said,’ someone may die but they live on in your memory and history, you never really stop thinking about them’ 

Others take on Nostalgia

Although I had in mind people describing their own personal memories for nostalgia, for one person, nostalgia to them was key events from the past, just thought it was quite interesting to see others people's point of view.

Another whiteboard memory

More whiteboard stories with audio

I asked people from an older generation to draw their memories, also i asked them to record a voiceover to narrate what each of the scenes means to them.

More Stories

I asked more people to do it, to get a variety of stories, after this i think i should ask people of a different age, from a older generation perhaps

creating a genuine VHS look

Manage to use this video as a kind of guide to help transfer a VHS tape to a digital format

This is the technique I have used to create a genuine VHS look. The process involves creating a digital video piece, then recording it to VHS and then finally transferring it back to digital again.

Nostalgia in recent advertising

Beyonce has recently done a advert for Pepsi. It shows mirror version of her from past music videos, the line at the end 'embrace the past, live for now' is a great summary of a positive take on Nostalgia.

Whiteboard Idea

I wanted to look further into the idea of someones childhood. i had this idea of asking people tho think about key memories in their lifetime that they remember. They were first asked to roughly sketch out their ideas, then using a whiteboard to draw these scenes in simple stickmen form. This is so they didn't have to spend so much time drawing each scene and not have to worry about the fine detail, but just to put across the key points of the scene.

Nostalgia in programmes

Earlier this year, itv celebrated its thirty years of broadcasting by showing all of the old shows it used to run, just watching some of the programmes can invoke nostalgia as it transports you back to you childhood, when you use to watch all the kid T.V. programmes.

Nostalgia Photographs

Here's a couple i tried out. I definitely had some nostalgic moments when doing this, recalling when the photo was taking, what i was doing, what the photograph represented i.e first day of school.

I really interested now into looking into other ways of recalling past memories from people's lives.