A Three Transfer Trip

I think the main reason we're being fed a steady diet of 'newer stuff' on this blog (rather than the older, much more priceless 1970s super 8 film footage) is because those old films from the 70s take too long to transfer across from the DVDs (that in turn had been transferred over from film reels) and onto little digital tapes that can fit inside my camcorder in order to be finally transfered again into my iMac computer for editing. We need to transfer 3 times on this journey. It's a long bus trip.

Instead of all that transferring nonsense (and since I only seem to think of adding a blog entry on the last day of the month lately) I find it much easier/quicker to dip into the rather large pool of 1990-2011 camcorder footage that is also stockpiled and waiting to see the light of day on the NRP (and needs no further transferring to reach the computer) in order to complete my once-a-month submission mandate.

These visual offerings (below) were all shot during a hectic day in the month of August - today is ALSO August - but these visuals fall one complete year short of reaching the awesome '20 years ago' mark. The word awesome is used here, because I just can't believe how fast time keeps flying. All this stuff seems like it should be about 6 years old to me - at the max.

Beating Deadlines

It's a good thing that the month of July contains 31 days. We probably wouldn't have made our required once-a-month quota of video submissions if it didn't. And today's offering - though far from memorable - arrives on the NRP blogerama with just minutes to spare before the deadline.

And that's really the only reason we've hoisted up this old salute to the back yard bbq anyway - just to fulfill our crazy mandate of a video a month. Who can hope to keep up a frantic pace like that, I ask you? But sure enough, if I didn't provide these bland flickering pictures on a timely basis, my viewers would be quick to complain.

High quality standards are not required here; people just want to see familiar faces and moving lights. All I can recall about the actual footage we're about to run is that it was shot in the summer of 1991. Back when there were still lots of kids around. A rather recent event when you compare it to our regular diet of mid '70s filler.

The Two Day Disney Plan

I went looking for this particular vacation video on this particular blog recently and was ultimately unfulfilled in that particular search.

So now, with the final hours ticking down to signify what could be my very first unuploaded (new word) month in the history of NRP (a full month without adding a new video) I can remedy the situation immediately with this (almost) forgotten and eventually misplaced effort from the long lost autumn of 1986.

Better than nothing is still my mantra regarding hurried projects like this. While the editing/music/choice of subject COULD have been a little more interesting for my viewers, at least there's SOMEthing here in order to put my stamp on the fast fading month of June 2011.

As for the girl onscreen... I haven't seen her since 1992. Twenny years ago, next year.

Far From See-Worthy

Rather than toss this next video out (or "delete it" as the modern kids of today would say) I'm going to hoist it up here on the blog for all to witness. Even though it's clearly far from see-worthy.

But as is the case with all these old super-8 films, the ultra rareness and 'one of a kind'ness that oozes from each frame of these long ago days of the 1970s or 80s is often enough by itself to garner at least a single viewing on this stage. Minimal effort was put into the editing and musical choice for this presentation (yet again). And as stated a'fore in a previous entry, it's merely a case of having something/anything uploaded to the blog in order to keep the monthly index chapters going (see index chapters to the right) that makes a submission like this possible in the first place. I suppose the question should be raised: what would become of our NRP blog if we decided that some of these old film segments did not meet the lowest acceptable level of quality before being added into the mix? I think it would obviously mean the end of the blog. Nuff said.

'You Can't Take That Away'

The end of the month is upon us once again and I haven't yet fulfilled my contractual obligation to the Blogger community - which as you know by now is the promise to offer up a monthly video of some description originating from the far distant past. Usually from the 70s.

We're only transporting ourselves back in time 31 years with today's production. Revisiting the summer of 1980 to be exact - which compared to all the stuff we've watched from 1974 and 1975 is much more recent, comparatively speaking. The main character in this film had a real passion for living that impressed this cameraman to no end at the time. I'm still impressed all these years later. She'd be well over the age of 50 these days and I can only assume (and hope) that she went on to live a satisfying and rewarding life in the decades after this film was shot. Unfortunately I have no updates to offer our readers in this regard. Heather had a zest for life - a way of making anyone that came in contact with her feel upbeat and 'alive'. "Truly alive... and you can't take that away" as the old Mac McAnally song sez.  Someday we'll add that song to a video.  But not today.

Project Competition

A viewer wrote in recently to ask: "pray tell what exactly is the project of higher value that you are working on that is superseding any further uploads to this NRP webstation?" I took pleasure from this investigative query because it seemed to indicate that there are NRP audience members out there (have you received your membership card yet?) that actually obtain a moment or two of entertainment while watching these ancient super 8 films that make up the bulk of our program diet.

In reply, I wrote: "My full attention to the NRP blog-o-rama has been interrupted over the past few months while a different retro project receives possibly more attention than it deserves. I refer to the vast library of musical tracks that were recorded in the mid-80s and 90s by the weak but prolific pop band, The Midhrifs starring Harry B. on lead vocals and myself on lead keyboards." A sample of which has been offered in this (and the previous) blog upload.

Just A Postman

Have we already plunked down this weak attempt at a rock video somewhere inside this blog already? I don't recall. And I'm certainly not gonna go a'looking thru the 400+ posts that precede this one just to find out.

But yeah, something tells me, if I searched long enuff, I'd probably find it hiding in amongst the rubble. But we can't be choosy here. We're running on a strict time limit these days and this is all the effort I'm going to put into this upload. Heck with it. Too busy with other projects.