4 - Sunday, March 8, 1992 ~ North Shore News

Breaking the
handicam habit:
or what I did

on my vacation

i SHOULD have known
that sooner or later, there’d
be a backlash. It has finally
happened. Nobody wants
me to turn on the
videccarnera. And they’re
serious!

Bob
Hunter

STRICTLY PERSONAL

Worse, J have joined their
ranks,

There it sits in its bag, the bat-
tery not even being recharged. For
years, there has always been 2
videocamera battery snuggled in
the recharger, the little red light
letting me know that everything is
ready.

At the sound of a happy kid's
cry, [ would be up and running,
thumbnail flicking the green
POWER button forward into the
CAMERA mode, yanking off the
lens cap, and elevating the trigger
from LOCK into STANDBY, a
quick check through the electronic
viewfinder to make sure
everything’s OK, and we’re roll-
ing...

I have been known to turn the
damn thing on at parties, which
isn’t quite so bad. If there are
enough people, and they have
been drinking enough, there is
seldom any resistance. Egos come
out eagerly to play.

When there are just a handful
of guests sitting around the dinner
table, it takes more guts (or utter
lack of grace) to haul our the
Handicam and aim it straight into
someone’s face.

Still, until lately, that’s the sort
of task 1 would take upon myself,
all in the name of preserving a re-
cord for future generations. In
fact, that’s how I would coax
people into addressing the camera:
“Say hello to future generations.’”

There is some notable tape, as a
result, My mother talked at some

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length into the camera, passing
her wisdom along to those same
future generations, and now that
she’s gone that tape is almost
sacred.

Between my mom’s pearls and
all the obligatory fami-
ly-frolicking footage, plus the
parties, dinners, and don’t forget
the driving shots and holiday
footage, my estimate is that we're
up to maybe 70 and 80 hours of
home tapes.

And that’s not counting the in-
heritance, by which I mean
Grandpa Dick's old Super-8 reels
that we naturally got dubbed onto
tape, adding up to another eight
hours.

We are, of course, incredibly
lucky to have all this historical
material.

Grandpa Dick was a pioncer in
home movies, Living in Seattle he
had an edge over his Canadian
relatives, in that the (echnology
was available there slightly sooner
than north of the border, but the
main thing is that he had the vi-
sion and the drive.

In most of his footage, adult
family members squirm uncom-
fortably when the camera turns to
them. Although there is no sound,
one can read their lips well
enough to know they are mostly
saying: “Dick, for God’s sake.
put that infernal doohickey
down!"’

Grandpa Dick, bless his soul,
was one of my heroes. He was a
teail-blazing media freak.

Undeterred by the disapproval
of his peers, he captured several
generations of my wife’s family
on filin, providing a glimpse into
the past such as nobody was ever

Community§

Report

NEWS photo Stuart Dasis

KAREN MAGNUSSEN and architect Terry Barkley look over some of the action at the grand
opening of the $5.9 million wave pool complex at North Vancouver's RecCentre Karen
Magnussen. The 2,240-square-metre facility features tive uniquely-designed pools, including a
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able to enjoy before. If only
they’d had Super-8s in the heyday
of Mesopotamia, eh?

What Grandpa Dick preserved,
of course, wasn’t just a bunch of
kids acting up in front of the
camera, it was also the
background: scenes from a family
picnic along Third Beach in the
carly "50s, before there were any
highrises; Belcarra Park when
hula-hoops were in fashion; the
Kitsilano Showboat, again, in the
"50s,

One can argue that such footage
can be obtained from public ar-
chives, so why bother?

On our latest trip together, f
dutifully strapped the camera bag
over my shoulder. We went
through customs, security, onto
the plane, off the plane, into the
rented car, travelled all over the
place, passing all sorts of scenery,
experiencing all sorts of cute

1 Lai Aa eran a Hh

The men and women I have

domestic situations, and not once
did my right hand (the
videocamera hand) reach into the
bag for the trusty Handicam.,

Instead, we just experienced
things as they happened and mov-
ed on smartly to the next scene.

The kids and my wife praised
me at the end of each holiday day
for not having brought out the
Handicam. They knew | was
fighting the habit.

The subtext was that Dad had a
videocamera addiction problem. It
wasn't his fault. He'd come from
a media-deprived background, not
having seen a television set until
he was 12. Humor him if he starts
to whine, but be firm. If he
ceaches for the camera, turn your
backs on him.

After a week cf not using the
camera on a family holiday, it got
easier. Like, why not just enjoy
the view without recording it?

spoken to since the October elec-
tion tell me that they are concerned
that we restore integrity to govern-
ment. Premier Harcourt and our
government are committed to
changes that will make govern-
ment more open and honest. I
hope you share my excitement over
this session of the legislature which
starts March 17th. We will take
steps during this session to restore
faith in the political process.

We are facing severe financial
constraints. We remain commit-
ted to our 48 point program, but it
will take time to address all of the
points.

Please phone or write when-
ever you haveaconcern. I want io
hear from you.

David Schreck, MLA
(North Vancouver Lonsdale)

Legislative Office:
Parliament Buildings
Victoria, B.C. V8V 1X4
Phone: (614) 356-3003

Community Office:

140 B Lonsdale Avenue
North Vancouver V7M 2E8
Phone: (604) 986-2254

Why not feave it to memory and
imagination to fill in the blanks?
Why noi leave the kids a few
segments of undocumented
childhood? Why noi play for a
while without having to ce self-
conscious and without having to
ham it up, act out, posture or do
what the director (i.e., the cam-
eraman) tells you to do?

lt was OK. We'll do that again.
So we have no tape of the trip.

So what?

i. Me
ww N\A >

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