I have a time capsule project I’d like to do. And this involves going back in time a little bit to do it, too. But I wanna explain what sparked this...
My husband sometimes has to go to bed earlier than what I’m able to fall asleep at because of work the next day, so I usually stay up late with earbuds in and watch YouTube or something. After clicking about on YouTube, I stumbled upon an accidental time capsule...
A senior high school student had a $700 VHS camcorder and decided to do a personal project of his average day as a high school student. If you watch the video, you’ll see that it’s similar to what some people do today. But what’s unique about this is, back in April of 1990, nobody did that sort of thing. You’ll see his radio alarm clock go off at 6:06 a.m., then he films himself making coffee and breakfast; you get to catch a glimpse of what a kitchen from the 90s looked like, and you get to see whatever frozen breakfast he made himself in an old microwave---the product’s box also showing how dated the video is.
He then films himself being driven to school by his dad, and he records between classes. He’s part of the yearbook committee, so it wasn’t unusual for him to have equipment like this.
Now, aside from the hairstyles and the outfits that scream “latter part of the 80s”, there’s another thing that really dates this video: people’s attitudes towards a video camera.
Some, like you would see these days, too, would hide their faces. But others will jump around and try to get on camera because “hey! there’s a camera! I’m gonna be on TV!” This was back before everybody had a camera in their pocket. So attitudes regarding someone carrying around a video camera were a little bit different back then. Hell, not everybody back then could afford a video camera, either.. You know, considering this guy’s camera cost him $700 for such nice quality video.
Of course, there is technology today that allows us to digitally copy things from VHS cassettes. So once I get my hands on one of those, I shall begin with step two of my project: looking for replacement batteries for the VHS camcorder that’s been in our family as long as I’ve been alive (and I’m 28 at the time of typing this).
Yes. I’m going to do an intentional time capsule of 2017 (2018 if I can’t get the necessary equipment right away) on a VHS cassette camcorder. The quality is unique and I’ve yet to see it properly replicated (because editors can’t help but try to make everything HD and the frame rate was different), and to prove to the audience that’s the camera I’m using, I’ll record myself in front of the bathroom mirror talking about it, while holding an iPhone.
The time capsule will seem boring by our standards of today, but I hope to capture as much “boring” stuff as I can so that ten years down the road, people will go, “WOW!” The “boring stuff” will include getting shots of consumer products and their package designs, showing some interaction with social media (anyone remember what Facebook used to look like?), the interior of a vehicle or two (my parents’ vehicles, of course), and hopefully... hopefully... some footage of the interior of certain businesses such as a restaurant or a store. The problem is, they’d make a big fucking fuss about it these days for whatever reason, so the most I’d probably be able to get would be the hardware store my mom works at (because her boss is actually pretty chill, believe it or not).
I’d like to get some interactions with other people, but I don’t have too many friends living in the area, so other people talking to the camera could be limited.
I’d also like to get some footage of looking at news articles and such of current events.
Last but not least, off the topic of making the time capsule for 2017 or 2018, I’d like to be able to digitally copy some footage from my childhood that we still have on tape. I’d like to create a bit of a montage of clips of that (with time stamps as accurate as I can get them) to put on the internet to show what it was like in the 90s... sort of. There’s none at school, probably none in any store. It’s largely at people’s homes. I definitely have a video or two of little me going trick-or-treating with my cousin. Somewhere...
Anyway, not sure if anybody here would be interested in such a thing, but I just felt like doing such a time capsule on an old medium that isn’t used much (if at all) anymore. ^_^
