
Moreover, the rawness and unplanned nature of the filming made the videos feel authentic in their documentation of events.

CONVERT VHS TAPES TO DIGITAL WITHOUT SHAKE PROFESSIONAL
Each video held an awkward intimacy that could not be captured through professional filming. Little did they know they were knocking a new type of collective auteur generated by our society’s culture and shaped by the flaws of a handheld camcorder. The main criticisms of home camcorders being the low quality footage compared to photographic film recording, and the constant reminder of the camera’s presence due to the hand of the person filming causing the frame to shake. It was looked down upon by professional filmmakers who had skilled the art of developing beautiful pieces of film and used a repertoire of semiotic language to tell their story. Each special moment became a filmed documentation of our culture and the way we lived in the late 20 th century.Īs the Hi8 camcorder developed from 8mm video to digital, amateur film recording of grainy pictures, shaky framing and raw content became instantly recognisable. Without realising it, the camera owners were changing the sphere of documenting history.

Videos consisted of long, continuous takes which jittered through time documenting the normal, unseen moments of our lives. The novelty of having a smaller camera formed a new style of taping. Within 10 years, everyone seemed to be documenting their lives with the help of their nifty handheld camcorder. The alteration in size began a new fashion of filming “anywhere, anytime” with the best part being the easiness of watching 8mm transfer onto a television without the added need of a video player. The release of 8mm camcorders in the 1980’s paved way for a new era of home filmmaking in which everything could be recorded in the palm of your hand. But, how has it changed the landscape and theory around professional filmmaking? We all know how the Hi8 handheld camcorder changed the way we saved memories.
