Return Visit Value (Revisited)

A bit of a hurried effort with this one. We've just been informed here at the NRP offices, that unless we upload a post (ANY post) to "the blog" in the next few hours, we will leave the poor month of October in the record books as having hosted only two productions - representing the entire 31 days available for content uploading. Nope; can't have that.

So, when an emergency situation like this crops up (with no 'action videos' currently ready for prime time blogging) it's an 'easy out' for me to just toss a few old photos into a pile and string 'em all together. Not forgetting to add a folksy background tune into the mix. The viewer doesn't really care (each of the 1.5 viewers per day) so he/she/it is fine with whatever starts playing. But don't go thinking it's the same satisfying experience as with the 'moving picture' shows. That ain't possible. These old still pictures just don't have the same return visit value of the jittery kind.

The Bomb (Director's Cut)

Scenes from an unfinished, low-budget crime thriller (with little Barty Woods in the lead role) are used in this, our latest and super-8est, film collection from the mid 1970s.

'The Bomb' was shot entirely on location near the Banks of Spanish in the early months of 1976 with my trusty Canon movie camera. As you must recall, the Canon was camera #2 in my stable of three movie cameras (Bell & Howell/Nikon being the others). I'm strictly a video camcorder enthusiast nowadays with leanings to the most casual.

With Bart's stellar acting on display here, we are quickly drawn into the mind of a madman on a mission of destruction. Sadly, the middle and closing portions of this powerfully suspenseful movie have not yet been rescued from the storage room boxes, leaving us all to wonder if Bart's sinister intentions will be stopped before any real damage is done to persons or property.

New Scenes From Old Movies. Or Not.

When your film reels are not in order; and your newly transferred DVDs are all mixed up; and you've uploaded more than 150 blog entries in the past few years, well, you begin to forget exactly what has already been added and what hasn't; as far as digging out of new scenes from old 70s home movies goes.

But if it turns out that we really have already seen Blazer Doug in a previous posting, waving a finger of warning to us while he sits alone on a rocky perch up in Squamish, then so be it. That's okay, I figure. It's worth the expenditure of another 3 seconds of our viewing time to re-watch that priceless moment from 1977. (Heck - they're ALL priceless moments for any Blazer alumni tuning in.)

And as a favor to my lead singer Harry, I am also including in this upload, the very rare footage we shot of him singing my postie song LIVE while strolling Quebec Street one afternoon. For the actual complete music video that we stuck up on Youtube, the studio recorded version was dubbed in overtop; thereby replacing these raw vocals we hear from Harry today.

Bait And Switch Title Cards

The snippets for this collection were chosen without any due care or attention. This is as close as you can get to picking video scenes while blindfolded. The original plan of keeping inside the margins of '1974 to 1976' (as it says in the opening panel) were ignored very early on. Don't be misled by the title card - there's 80s stuff a'plenty tossed into the mix.

Yes, the majority of these captured moments on super 8 film are from the prime directive years of the mid 70s, but the fact that we are told one thing and then shown another is clearly an example of the ole 'bait and switch' style of advertising. And I want no part of it.

Sandy and I did NOT go down to California together in the mid 70s. We didn't even know each other until 1982. But here we are; plain as day; strolling the grounds of Disneyland. So that's wrong for a kick off and should be eliminated from this showcase tout sweet. Please avert your eyes whenever those interloper scenes appear on screen.

The first image to assault us is of Dan standing on the side of the road watching Paul drive up in his Spitfire. Hard to believe that Dan would lose every bit of that full head of dark brown hair in the next 30 years. However, he's still got the denim jacket.

Tracy Goes To Disneyland

Another blog posting today for big sister Fran. A chance for her to see daughter Tracy in puny kidlike form once again. Long before the same daughter would get married and have two puny kidlike forms of her own over in Alberta.

This film goes all the way back to the Spring of 1976 and began what for me would be a regular routine of return visits to Southern California on an 'every other summer' schedule (in particular to Disneyland and Santa Barbara); a pace that wouldn't fully fizzle out until 1988. (Since then, I've only gone down ONCE!)

The full reel of this vacation is about 15/20 minutes, but we'll certainly chop that down here to a simple 2 or 3 minutes in order to please those impatient blog viewers with low attention spans and poor manners. I certainly don't need any more angry messages in the comment section full of foul language telling me how my films are always too long and boring; and why can't I ever upload a film that isn't 30 or 40 years old for crying out loud.

Bursting At The Seams

Bursting at the seams, my tattered old photo albums are. So many pictures of so many people from so long ago - with so little square footage to contain them all. Nobody warned me about that side of the double edged coin when I was snapping pix hither dither and yon in the 70s.

Oh sure - you can think you're being far sighted and 'heritage aware' while snapping all them thar vintage moments from years gone by, but have you actually stopped to wonder what happens when your mountain of so called priceless memories starts eating you out of house and home and demanding the TV remote? What then Einstein?

All I'm saying is, there's always a downside. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. If I'd known 40 years ago that taking pictures of the old gang in the old neighborhood in the good old days would end up filling enough photo albums to reach the moon, there might have been a better sense of quality control administered and certainly a 'less is more' mind set prevailing at the point of purchase/snapping.

One way I can lighten the load on my overburdened shelving units, is to raid some of these overstuffed photo albums and pull from their time encrusted resting spots the pictures that seem most in need of a once-a-decade airing. So that they may then be plopped down into the first video blog showcase that comes along.

A Clunky Slice Of Life

When Jon and I made our limited venture into the world of video tape communication across the Atlantic back in the early 80s (as a change of pace from our audio tape communication) this little effort below was my opening statement on my initial VHS tape to him.

I remember how frustrating it was trying to match the visual images I was shooting - with the soundtrack lyrics of the song being played on a cassette deck sitting next to me. If the lyrics called for some 'old folks putting their ears to the ground' - then I'd have to go out and dig up the goods.

The thought of using a computer to digitally edit movie footage in the comfort of our homes never really entered our pea-brains back in the prehistoric year of 1983. We were reasonably happy with the bulkiness of the VHS world and if things hadn't progressed, we'd probably still be using it.

Well no, I take that back. It was never truly satisfying, even from the very beginning. Much too awkward a setup. Gave me a headache. Short shelf life. I much prefer the modern tools of the new millennium. And while I've used modern tools to tweak this original presentation a bit, it remains what it originally was - a clunky slice of my life in Vancouver/mid 80s. As it was intended to be on the day I sent it over to Jonny 26 years ago.