Learning on old 'uns
Harvey Platter
Machines: Sadly, DV, Hi-8 and S-VHS
I got involved in video a few years ago as a natural progression from years of stills photography.
An aquaintance of mine used to run an office equipment surplus business and one day I noticed a pair of enormous top loading JVC decks together with an edit controller lurking in a corner of his warehouse. To cut a long story short, he never managed to sell them and I managed to get them for £350.
In the three years I had them, those big old monsters taught me a lot about editing - when you edit tape to tape you really have to think about each cut. And the noise! What with the whirring of the motors and the roar of the fans and the clunk every time the transport changes mode - editing was a real man's job!
In the end I moved on to non-linear with a Casablanca system which gives me a lot of pleasure and I donated the JVC system to a local school, where, so far as I know, they're teaching a new generation the ins and outs of editing. They'll probably still be doing so in another twenty years.
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Submitted Fri, 9 Mar 2001 16:38:58 GMT