Diptych #15: Two Tapes & a Music Video
the leaves are falling and everything feels alright again
Hello from the first few days of good fall weather here in Tennessee! I hope wherever you are reading this from that you are safe and warm and you are enjoying the seasonal changes as we drift into the clutches of winter.
This time around, I’ve got two archived VHS tapes to show you, as well as a brief behind the scenes look at how I recently shot an entire music video of myself with no crew or skill. Thanks so much for reading, listening, watching and enjoy!
American DJ Product Video Volume 9 (1998)
“Lighting the future”This was a really interesting find at a flea market booth in Knoxville, Tennessee. As far as I can tell, American DJ or ADJ didn’t have a website yet in, and likely did all their sales through magazines, phone, and in-person showroom sales, and this was either an in-store demo tape, or something they sent out to their clients to alert them to the new products they had available.
There’s a few other ADJ Product Videos available on Youtube at the moment, but this one hadn’t been archived yet. Among a host of great house tracks featured here, I’m certain I’ve come across one in particular- “My Heart Will Go On (Fired Up Mix)” by Déjà Vu. Visually this is somewhat interesting, as it cycles through all the new lighting products available, but to me, the most interesting aspect of this tape was the music. If you treat this like a 30 minute 90s house playlist, it’s incredible.
You can check out the video right here if you like.
Beautiful Tennessee - NPT (2005)
"A stunning, visual journey to Tennessee's most scenic places, including visits to the majestic Great Smokey Mountains, the natural sanctuary of Radnor Lake, the unique earthquake-formed Reelfoot Lake and many beautiful places in-between."This tape was a thrift store fine in Jefferson County and features some stunning views of many of the places I grew up around, however, this is just one of three documentaries produced by NPT in the Beautiful Tennessee series. According to their website, this is the first in the series, and the other two are “Our Scenic Waterways | Beautiful Tennessee” and “Parks & Preservation | Beautiful Tennessee”.
While this is a wonderful documentary with some stunning views of some of my favorite places, being produced in 2005 made the VHS transfer an afterthought and the quality suffers. Luckily though, if you donate $5 or more to PBS or are already a member, this is available to watch online in standard definition, but much higher quality than this transfer. DVD’s were also for sale at some point, so if I ever get my hands on those, I’ll make an updated post about that.
A Little BTS Talk About Golden Hour
I’ve been wanting to create a music video for a long time, however, with the current state of the world, it just doesn’t feel safe enough to work with a crew. I knew I wanted to shoot on my JVC Everio GZ-MG330 because I love the look that it gives. With just a little tweaking in Adobe Premier, the footage can be coaxed into looking pretty convincingly like DVcam or digital 8mm footage, without any fussing with tapes, and on occasion, it can really nail that old VHS look.
I was in FiveBelow digging around in the clearance section and came across the iJoy Chase, a motorized phone mount that links up over bluetooth and uses an app to lock on to an object or face and track.
While I knew this feature existed in other forms (DJI’s Osmo Pocket has a great feature like this), I didn’t expect to see a device like this for $5 in the clearance section. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get my camera to mount on this device, but I brought it home and with a few modifications, I was able to get it seated and lined up with the camera on my phone as well.
I took the phone mount portion off the base of the device and used a SMALLRIG Super Clamp to attach a ball head for my camera and to re-attach the phone mount to the motorized deck of the iJoy Chase.
While it’s not exactly “pretty” the fact that it worked at all was a win for me. Paired with the remote for my camera in hand, which gave me access to zoom control, I was able to get dynamic and interesting shots that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to achieve. Any of the moving shots in the video were filmed using this rig.
As I mentioned I was able to find this on clearance for $5 in the FiveBeyond section of my local Fivebelow store, but it looks like its available on Amazon and Ebay $10. The app is really easy to use, and the only time I had some trouble with tracking was with backlit subjects, which is not surprising. For the most part, once I had everything set up and the app was paired with my phone, all I had to do was record and not really think about it anymore.
I’m sure I will find a more elegant or permanent solution to attaching my camera and phone to this device because I plan to use it again in the future, but this really allowed me to create a music video for myself all on my own in just a couple days, and I had fun doing it!
Lastly, if you haven’t checked out my first ever music video, please check it out right here!
As always, if you have any questions or comments you can get at me here or here or leave a comment below this post. If you haven’t subscribed to this newsletter yet (it’s free) please think about doing so.See you soon.—Forrest