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.