Technology and Togetherness

For many years I have made recordings, either on film or on electronic media, of the everyday activities of family members and friends. These were usually made candidly at gatherings — birthday parties, Christmas and other holidays, vacations and the like — or formally, when the subjects were aware that I was filming or taping, and spoke directly into the camera. Some people do this more easily than others, who may feel awkward or unsure when looking into a camera lens. I try to put the subject at ease with a joke. But, to be quite honest about it, this may or may not work, and it depends a lot on their comfort level when in the intimidating presence of a camera.

Still, ten or twenty years afterwards, when an opportunity arises for me to show the film — or more likely these days, the video — to the people who appear in it, they are generally delighted to see themselves, awkward or not, as they were years before. This is especially true of images of children shown to their grown-up selves.

This is what technology can do. It can capture a moment, or long sequences of moments. Capture and preserve them. It can, in a way, stop time.

It began with early still photography — glass plates, lengthy exposures, cumbersome equipment. The photographs were static, often posed. Then photography evolved to include miniature cameras. Movies had came along — this marvelous technology that has made such great strides over the past century, and made Hollywood (ugh!) almost as synonymous with America as Wall Street in the perceptions of non-Americans.

Electronics have now made capturing live action so much easier than it had ever been. Lasers and plastics added into the mix have now given us the ability to easily preserve all of those precious moments which in the early days required the use of photographic film. Easily preserve, as well as easily share. I'm speaking of the dvd, or 'digital versatile disc', big brother of the cd, or 'compact disc' that is used to contain our music.

Computers with non-linear video editing programs have given us the means to clean up the home movies we make, add professional transitions and effects, include menus, titles, and other Hollywoodian gimcrackery if we want to, to create a video product that ultimately is good enough to be shared.



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