#Videospeak tv#

(That’s videospeak for high-resolution 8-millimeter videotape.) Ubiquitous and persistent, the videomakers, camcorder operators, video artists-whatever you want to call them-constantly find new reasons to transfer life’s realities onto High 8.

#Videospeak tv#

“Now, everywhere, people use video to express an opinion, and shows like mine and ‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’ are growing in popularity because the viewer looks at the tape and says, ‘I believe what I see because it’s not filtered through some TV programmer. “Now that camcorders are so available, television has a different credibility factor because very little of what we see on TV now doesn’t pass the test of ‘I could have done that myself,’ ” says Weinberg.Ī self-described “grizzled video veteran,” Weinberg was among a small group of 1970s documentary makers who called themselves “video freaks” and used 30 pounds of equipment to produce shows about the national political conventions. Tom Weinberg, executive producer of “The 90s'-a critically acclaimed show on PBS that airs collages of home videos made by amateur producers around the country-says we are again outwitting ourselves with technology that is changing our perspective on the world. That year, a mere half-million camcorders were sold this year, the consumer electronics trade group predicts sales of 3.3 million. Nearly one in six American families owns a camcorder, compared to the Stone Age-1985-when one in 30 had one. The same goofy family scenes that cost $7 for a minute of film (Remember the stuff that had to be threaded through the projector while someone put up the screen and turned off the lights?) now cost $2 for hours of instant record-and-review video tape. With an $800 camera, a hobbiest can now produce quality video similar to what professionals produce with $50,000 worth of equipment. With each generation, the camcorder gets smaller, lighter, easier to operate and more affordable. It is also now a snap for Mina Johnson, a fledgling Los Angeles screenwriter, to depict her life on video the way Jane Austen might have portrayed a young woman unraveling her thoughts by writing in a diary. It is now possible for scouts to earn a merit badge for video production just the way they can for rubbing two sticks together to start a fire. In other words, forget the important, insistent or socially unjust and for just a second think about yearbooks, doorbells, treasure hunts, camp counselors, grandma’s strudel, diaries, funerals, stag parties, employee training.Īnd Boy Scouts.

For a moment, put aside the grainy scene of Los Angeles policemen bloodying a lone black man while a bystander records every tragic blow with his new video camera.įorget the chaos in Detroit on the Fourth of July when a man at a fireworks display randomly videotaped a girls’ gang beating up two bystanders.Īnd briefly put aside Newsweek, which coined “video vigilantes” last week to describe common folk with camcorders who capture the spectacular and send it overnight to CNN.