Why’d I Do It?
Framing an SD Window to the Past
Though wary of hoarding, I admit to a preservationist instinct. Working with computers all my life, I’ve repeated the ritual of carrying digital data forward from one format to the next. Not all of my old media creations have survived ’til now, due to some upgrade path cut short, such as sound recordings on DAT cassettes or programs I wrote for the Commodore 64 as a youngster. The computer programs are preserved on 5¼‑inch floppy disk, true, but are therefore practically irretrievable.
Back in high school, I had taken special care of the VHS cassettes of these videos, which at the time I considered to be the most awesome things I had ever done. It was easy to feel proud of them because it was fun to be living the dream, imagining myself as my heroes Sam Raimi or David Lynch while goofing around with my friends.
The operation of my preservationist instinct was triggered in late 2004 by the ascendancy of DVD and imminent extinction of VHS, so around 15 years after its original capture to tape, I habitually carried the “SD video” forward to its next format — and that transfer was made more than 15 years ago now!
So what has changed? After mostly ignoring them, all the while in the back of my mind knowing they were preserved, why did it become important that these videos be viewable again?
Missing Mom
In 2016 it was time to advance to another succeeding format. Ripping the optical DVDs to MPEG files on a hard drive would provide the convenience of backups in the cloud, and would queue up for whatever storage technology comes next.
I also had a specific objective, a motivating mission. It had been five years since Mom died, and I aimed in particular to recover the video I had taken of her, with the thought of posting something on facebook for her next birthday.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t very much. There were only two short segments in which Mom played the starring role, and the first — a comedy music video of the song “The Way We Were” — was marred by a technical mistake I made at the time it was produced. Each new shot is accompanied by a blast of static and bluescreen, the kinds of distortion recognizable by anyone who remembers VHS. I knew that with modern, freely available software tools, I could recover and possibly restore the video by lessening the effect of the glitch and making it easier to view.
The second footage of Mom was even dearer to me, because this one had been all her idea. She had come to me with the sketch and wanted to produce it. Also, it is the only recording I ever took of Mom with both picture and synced sound. It is filmed at her drawing board, her “work from home” space, and from looking at this video, you get the feeling of being in the room with her. She is putting on an act, again playing a comedic role, but unmistakably herself.
I became more desperate to recover these few minutes of footage when I discovered they had been missed from the 2004 DVD transfer! Luckily, I was able to make another digital transfer from the original tape while in Mt. Pleasant that September, and shared the two clips with Mom’s facebook friends the following June for her 72nd birthday.
Past Media Increasingly Obscure
There is something uncanny about picture and sound together, human movement and voice, especially seen and heard across the expanse of time. VHS video was captured during an era when there was so much less of it, while today it’s as though multimedia are the ether through which we swim.
With the pace of technological change accelerating through human generations, how much more ancient must the early ’90s seem to kids these days than the ’60s seemed to us? How much more alien that telephones were connected to walls and rotary‑dialed, instead of grafted onto our bodies and able to recognize our faces? Or that shooting video involved gear too bulky to hold in your hand or slip into your pocket, and would not also enable you to place wireless calls?
I think you get this idea. My impulse to share these videos was motivated with the kids in mind, and not simply because of how frequently these films feature scenes with antique homebound phones.
I’ve met some of your kids, many of them at least as old as we were when we shot these videos. Seeing these flickering images will be a nostalgia trip to us, a stimulus to memory. As for today’s youngsters, I suspect whether they know it now or not, they will be glad to have caught this unique glimpse of your childhood. Even though we’re playing clownish roles, they will recognize you — and most likely, themselves too.
Thus I decided my preservationist act of more than a decade earlier ought to finally amount to something, and I would put the Spanish Videos online.
(My motivations nonwithstanding, parental guidance is of course advised.)
No Option but Full Reconstruction
Now I’ve told you why, but I’ll say a bit more about exactly what.
For reasons discussed in this DVD Extra, I concluded that restoring these films to viewability would require literally re‑assembling them from the camera footage. It would be a lot of work, but there was an aspect of fun to it too — the opportunity to produce something more like the movie in my mind when I was a teenager. All of the post‑production tools and technology I craved as an aspiring filmmaker are now simple, free software tools.
So that’s what you’re getting here: fully re‑built, remastered “Director’s Cut” editions of our high school movies. They’ve never looked or sounded better, and barring some Peter Jackson ‑esque AI‑powered “upscaling,” it’s as good as they’ll ever.
For everyone’s convenience, I’ve also added English‑language subtitles!
Parental Guidance Suggested
Spending time with these old videos in a contemporary context, you notice things that make you cringe.
For instance, their treatment of female characters is as classy as expected for films produced by high school boys who were fans of ’80s action flicks like Cobra and Predator as well as ’70s classics Soylent Green and A Clockwork Orange.
From my adult perspective, the brutality of some depictions of violence comes as a shock. It is deliberately gratuitous, an intention conflated with “edginess” in our adolescent minds. But we were unskilled novices, crudely imitating the excesses of Robocop or Bonnie and Clyde.
Then there is the brazenness with which we trespassed, sometimes into potentially deadly settings and situations, filming ourselves committing property crimes.
Most plainly unbelievable in present‑day America is the scene featuring actual gunplay and fireworks, shot inside the high school auditorium, after hours and unsupervised! Such shenanigans occurring nowadays would be frightening even to ponder, ever since the name “Columbine” entered the public consciousness. More recently it occurred to me that our production occurred just two years prior to Brandon Lee’s accidental death, which first brought wide attention to the issue of firearm safety on movie sets.
It was all in fun and we got through it unmaimed, but it might be important to review the videos’ content yourself before deciding whether to show them to your kids, and to prepare yourself for their reactions.
What I Want to Remember
The cringey stuff is a good reminder that high school kids are dumb.
Vaguely disturbing as it is to be confronted by the early ’90s vision of oneself, there is consolation in the intervening time, and wisdom attained because adulthood. Seeing as how I was just a kid, I’m inclined to forgive myself for anything unseemly or silly, and for my teenage ego.
Overwhelmingly, I’m left with gratitude for the community which provided such a magical childhood. It was facilitated by adults who willingly trusted us, taught us well, and expected us to earn our reputations as “good kids.” Among them are our parents and most especially our dedicated public school teachers.
I am “blessed” or “lucky” or what you will — but definitely grateful, and appreciative of adult kindness, generosity, encouragement, including a special skill for patience. It was abundant all throughout the Mt. Pleasant childhood.
I also believe that we did think of ourselves as the “good kids” and wanted to deserve that label. Our ambitions were not danger or deviance specifically, but in our effort to make something kickass that would impress other kids, we sought to test our limits. Every kid should be so lucky.