Origin and History
My family of origin did not own a movie camera, so the very first production I did was with color slides and reel-to-reel audio tape. This was back in 1968 while I was a senior in high school. I borrowed my mother's Kodak "Retina" viewfinder camera to take the slides.
Reel to Reel EIAJ-1 (1973 - 1981)
I first picked up a video recording unit, the Sony AV-2400/AVC-3400 "Porta pak" in early 1973, while at Goddard College. I never shot movie film and the only still cameras I had ever owned were Polaroids. I had little patience for processing - I wanted to see the results right away, and video provided for that, even though the picture was black & white, the contrast was weak, the sound was monaural, and the equipment was very heavy and sometimes temperamental.
In 1976, having started work at my first full time software engineering job, I pulled together enough money to purchase a Sony porta-pak of my own ($2500 in 1976 dollars!). Since then, I have recorded literally hundreds of hours of video, first, on tape of course, but later directly to digital storage, starting around 2009.
(The record "deck" came with a "leather like" carry case (lower photo) with a shoulder strap. It weighed over 20 lbs. with a reel of tape threaded in, and a rechargeable lead "gel cell" battery in the battery compartment.) |
Betamax (1978 - 1981)
In 1978, I purchased a portable Betamax recorder. At first, I used it with the AVC-3450 camera (shown above). I actually rigged up a special cable in order to "crash" edit videos I had recorded on reel to reel tapes. I placed my 3400 and the 340 on a table, side by side, then played tapes on the 3400 and recorded excerpts by alternately recording and pausing the 340.
Within a year or two, I bought a used DXC-1800 one tube Satacon color camera to go with it. Finally, I could make recordings in color! I only made a few recordings with this rig before selling the camera in order to save money for better things. |
U-Matic (1981 - 2004)
At the end of 1979, I left my job and created Open Eyes Video in May 1980, as I describe on the About page.
In 1981, I purchased an industrial quality portable U-Matic recorder (a Sony VO-4800), but I did not have a good color camera to go with it, at first. That machine was limited to recording on 20 minute 3/4" tape cassettes. |
1. The Boston Computer Society & the First Macintosh Computer
In 1982, Dan Bricklin, then of Software Arts, contracted with me to record the monthly general meetings of the Boston Computer Society (BCS) where new computer products and software were introduced on a regular basis. I started with a VHS portable rig owned by Software Arts (a single tube color camera connected to a separate cassette recording unit). Since VHS cassettes had a 2 hour recording capacity, we used that equipment, rather than my own.
These meetings were held at New England Life Hall (in the New England Life Insurance Co. building on Clarendon St., in Back Bay, Boston). Here is an example:
Compaq Presentation by Rod Canion
Recordings of those meetings have now been digitized and curated by the Computer History Museum in California. They have put up a channel on YouTube to provide access to other recordings we made around that time, as well as a whole host of recordings made by others regarding the early computer industry.
After recording a number of BCS meetings that way, I wanted to do a better job, with better equipment, and record with two cameras simultaneously. After all, there was the speaker at the lectern on stage, a projection screen, and questions from the audience as well. Covering all that with a single camera was a compromise, at best. After some discussions between me, Dan, and Jonathan Rotenberg, (founder and president of the BCS), we agreed that Software Arts would donate the funds to the BCS, which in turn would hire me to produce the recordings. I obtained a small color camera, rented a second camera and another U-Matic portable, hired some freelancers, and we began to record with 2 cameras. We changed cassettes in a staggered fashion to avoid gaps in coverage, and then I edited it all together later to produce a single program. The first meeting recorded that way was in September 1983. We started a subscription service where corporations could receive a copy of each program every month.
These meetings were held at New England Life Hall (in the New England Life Insurance Co. building on Clarendon St., in Back Bay, Boston). Here is an example:
Compaq Presentation by Rod Canion
Recordings of those meetings have now been digitized and curated by the Computer History Museum in California. They have put up a channel on YouTube to provide access to other recordings we made around that time, as well as a whole host of recordings made by others regarding the early computer industry.
After recording a number of BCS meetings that way, I wanted to do a better job, with better equipment, and record with two cameras simultaneously. After all, there was the speaker at the lectern on stage, a projection screen, and questions from the audience as well. Covering all that with a single camera was a compromise, at best. After some discussions between me, Dan, and Jonathan Rotenberg, (founder and president of the BCS), we agreed that Software Arts would donate the funds to the BCS, which in turn would hire me to produce the recordings. I obtained a small color camera, rented a second camera and another U-Matic portable, hired some freelancers, and we began to record with 2 cameras. We changed cassettes in a staggered fashion to avoid gaps in coverage, and then I edited it all together later to produce a single program. The first meeting recorded that way was in September 1983. We started a subscription service where corporations could receive a copy of each program every month.
By early 1984, I decided to purchase a high quality 3-tube color video camera (Sony DXC-M3). This was a big expenditure for me, but as we were now "on a roll" with this series, I reasoned that I could recoup the cost over time. On January, 30, 1984, I was there recording when Steve Jobs came to present Apple's latest computer, the Macintosh, only 6 days after it was announced for the first time, back in California. It was an amazing event, and I knew we had a lot of work to do to edit it all together. There were actually 4 cameras going in the room at the same time, two brought in by Apple and two provided by me. I was able to obtain copies of what was captured by Apple's cameras, however, Apple did not provide many of the other items presented during the meeting. So, I did my best and saved all the tapes.
|
Twenty nine years later, in 2013, Jonathan Rotenberg contacted me and we began the process to search out many of the sequences I had originally been missing, some of which had been saved by other people all those years. After obtaining the necessary funding and then putting in many hours of digitizing and re-editing, we came up with a more complete version.
Here is a link to that version that I uploaded to TIME magazine in early 2014, to accompany an article they published to celebrate 30 years since the Macintosh was introduced:
Boston Computer Society Meeting, January 1984 Soon after that, I donated all the materials I had (tapes and digitized files) to the Computer History Museum. They produced a slightly different version for their collection: Steve Jobs Introduces the Macintosh |
These videos are both well over an hour, but they give you an idea of what it was like at that time, where a computer with a graphical user interface well below $10,000, was finally available to the public. About 41 minutes in from the start, you can see the team of people who created the Macintosh, on stage, and watch a demonstration of the two software applications that were included with every machine: Mac Paint and Mac Write.
2. The Minuteman Trail
Around 1989, construction finally began on the Minuteman Trail, a "Rails to Trails" conversion of an abandoned railroad into a pedestrian and bicycle trail. Still in possession of my "big" camera and record deck, along with two other U-Matic machines that I had purchased, (along with an RM-440 edit controller I bought at an auction), I was hired to record the progress of the construction. The resulting video tells of the struggle to get permission and funding to build it, so it's also a good lesson in perseverance!
The Minute Man Trail, America's 500th Rail Trail
After I produced that program, I still had a lot of recordings of construction of the trail, which I have saved ever since. Perhaps I can find a way to get funding to digitize and edit some of that, including some fascinating railroad history, someday soon.
The Minute Man Trail, America's 500th Rail Trail
After I produced that program, I still had a lot of recordings of construction of the trail, which I have saved ever since. Perhaps I can find a way to get funding to digitize and edit some of that, including some fascinating railroad history, someday soon.
8mm & Hi8 (1986 - 2004)
In the mid 1980s, Sony introduced 8mm video. Later on,
Click the button below to return to the main "Videos to Watch" page.