Lorinda Norton's 80's video camera makes the big time!

[Bruce Schultz]

Originally Posted by Charles Papert

Ugh--I still have UMatic 60's with a single :30 spot on them. One of these years I'll hire someone to digitize them for me, along with my VHS, S-VHS, HI8 and regular 8, Betacam, Digi Beta...probably missed some other format in there as well. Rows of shelves in a closet housing those aging beauties.

U-Matic tapes do disentegrate over time. The backing gets brittle and flakes off in the machine forcing a "head cleaning" (remember those?). The trick is to bake the cassette at low temp - around 130 degree F for about a half hour then let it cool off. You have about 24 hours to put it in a machine and get it transferred before it reverts to older condition.

I have U-Matics from the 1970's that I've gotten transferred with this technique, but it's not always foolproof. My U-Matic recorder from then is autographed by Nam June Paik, so I can't let go of it regardless.

Oh, I started shooting in video in 1969 with one of those Sony Rover 1/2" reel to reel systems. It was like shooting with Orthicon tubes in terms of light sensitivity, but it was the only small format system available until 3/4" U-Matic's came around in the mid 1970's. When I was director of video productions at AFI in 1975 those were the camera systems that first year fellows used for their shorts (2nd year in 16mm) I shot the first 3/4" original show for network (NBC) on a RCA camera with a portable 3/4" Sony deck in 1978.

I never had the pleasure of using the VHS camera mentioned in this thread though.

[Charles Papert]

We shot "Obama--The College Years" on Friday! Attached, our director Peter Atencio mans the camera. This is the first sketch on Key & Peele he has operated personally; he wanted a total home-video look where the camera becomes a character of the person operating it. The producers were all enthralled with the way the camera "performed"--it looked eerily period, like found footage (the sketch is set in 1980).

A few extra bits got added to the camera, like a wireless receiver for audio reference, and we reconfigured any loose cables and connectors to make it "bulletproof" for the director. We recorded to the onboard Nnovia DV recorder and also on a DVCAM deck at the monitors for insurance. There were all sorts of strange artifacts in the image but I eventually realized that they would likely have been hidden on the 240 line VHS recorder this was built to accompany, rather than the 480 line DV standard we were recording to. Yes folks, we used to capture at less than 1/4 the resolution of 1080! Ah the good old days.

We go back on the air in September, and I'll update this thread again then when the sketch airs.

[Chris Hurd]

Geez, this camcorder is unstoppable. Thanks, Chas!

[Charles Papert]

Ack! I had forgotten that this clip was going to be in the season premiere tonight--Lorinda, the day finally came and you probably missed it!! Here 'tis...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=vlxkcewBEe0

[Chris Hurd]

Saw these skits on the K&P season 2 opener last night... it was hilarious and the "look" really added to it!

Video clip now shows as "removed" on YT but hopefully it'll go back online eventually.

[Lorinda Norton]

I dunno, Charles...the quality of the footage looks pretty good! Not like I remember seeing from it back in the 80s, particularly in low light. I'm guessing you did the lighting and are just too good at it!

[Charles Papert]

The legendary Lorinda-cam flies again, this time on the series "Playing House" which I'm currently shooting for USA Networks. This time it was recreating home movie footage from 1991 which the characters are watching on their TV. We shot it side by side with the Alexa in case someone didn't like the look of the old camera, but judging from the reactions on set, it's gonna be the Magnavox because it looks so authentic.

Attached, one of my operators with the rig (SmallHD DP4, mini-DA, adaptor cables and Anton Bauer brick powering camera and monitor. Recording was done outboard on a KiPro, upscaled to ProRes422HQ.

[Lorinda Norton]

I love this, Charles! Hoping I can manage to find the episode one day. Thank you for the fun pictures and update!

[Mervyn Jack]

Just had a great time reading this whole thread starting in 2007. Thanks for sharing.

[Lorinda Norton]

This thread is almost 8 years old?!? Where has the time gone...

I read in one of your posts that you used cameras like this for weddings back in the late 80s, Mervyn! I'm guessing there wasn't much moving around. :)

[Peer Landa]

Originally Posted by Lorinda Norton

This thread is almost 8 years old?!?

Yep -- this (among many other things) I love with this forum.

-- peer

[Mervyn Jack]

Originally Posted by Lorinda Norton

This thread is almost 8 years old?!? Where has the time gone...

I read in one of your posts that you used cameras like this for weddings back in the late 80s, Mervyn! I'm guessing there wasn't much moving around. :)

Lorinda, One or more times I had this setup A Big old wooden Miller tripod sitting on a home made dolly, amde of 1" square tubing and some nice wheels. None of this fold up stuff, this was all welded in place. Perched on top of that was either a hired JVC KY1900 or similar camera, with a domestic 150w floodlight on top. There was a Audio, Video and power cable bundle trailing from the camera back to a U-Matic desktop recorder on a table. I would push the dolly or shoulder mount the camera and wander around the wedding reception hoping no one would trip over the leads and blind them all and say smile.
A uMatic portapack made life a bit easier later on. Then we downgraded to super VHS.

Nothing like now, carting a little Sony a6000 with tiny light on top as fill.

[Charles Papert]

Mervyn, as well as Lorinda's camera I have in my possession two KY1900's that I use for recreations of period broadcast stuff. It turns out that while those were the cheapo cameras of the day, the Saticon tubes have aged better than the Plumbicons (good luck finding a functional Ike HL79 now)! As far as blinding people goes, I hear you on that--they are terrible un-sensitive by today's standards and I have to pour tons of light onto the set whenever I use them.

As seen below, one of the 1900's rigged out in all directions to shoot this sketch:

Funky Nonsense | Key & Peele - YouTube

[Charles Papert]

Searching for more of these cameras, this thread popped up (had forgotten about it). These little Magnavoxes are still great, 15 years(!) after this thread was started. I now have a few of them outfitted to rent out and record onto Atomos recorders. One of them is on a junket for the upcoming Transformers movie today, figured I'd post the latest configuration!