8 Comments
User's avatar
Craig Seymour, critic's avatar

Lovely post. Thank you!

Expand full comment
Maya Cade's avatar

Thank you, Craig! Happy belated birthday!!!

Expand full comment
Paul K. Barnes's avatar

The concept of home movies has always been interesting to me because I remember them mostly being recorded at places that weren't the home I grew up in but rather the homes of my grandparents on both sides. My Dad would narrate who each family member was as he panned over all the attendees of whatever the family gathering was. I've seen him go from an old school big/chunky Sony camera to a digital camera to his phone doing this and it's pretty cool to see how far we've come in that aspect as well as family members getting older too.

Expand full comment
Maya Cade's avatar

Paul, I have always taken the same interest.

Wow, that's a truly wonderful memento to have the voice of your dad captured and the likeness of others captured as well. Magic, really. Do you all have a system for transcoding the films for archival purposes? I don't know if you're in New York, but the public libraries have VHS convertors if you're looking for a place to start.

Expand full comment
Paul K. Barnes's avatar

We actually don't. The VHS tapes are all in one place in the house though...and we actually have two working VCRs too! I'm not in New York but I appreciate the information. I'm kinda attached to the analog method but digitizing might be best in the long run.

Expand full comment
Maya Cade's avatar

Transcoding them doesn't mean you can't keep / preserve the originals! If anything it keeps them in great condition so you can continue to keep them. It also allows you to start a family film archive. Depending on where you live, some film archives will do it for discounted rates. Like Texas Archive: https://texasarchive.org/services Sending you luck!

Expand full comment
Marya E. Gates's avatar

Amazing work as always Maya!

Expand full comment
Maya Cade's avatar

Thank you icon :-)

Expand full comment