ARiD Entertainment

As I am right now in the process of acquiring various pieces of audio equipment for the camcorder that I bought this last spring, I thought it might be a good idea to begin learning more about it. So, I looked it up online and low and behold, I found out that the camera can convert analog sources to digital.

This amazes and delights me in ways I thought impossible. All of my old videos from high school (and a handful of them after), were shot in analog. It means that I now have the capability to put them on DVD and not worry about tape degradation. It means that I now have the ability to put them online, should I choose to do so.

Keep in mind, the majority of these videos are crap. Almost all of them were made by kids who were bored and making movies on their aunt's borrowed VHS camcorder (and later, 8 mm tape). The obvious reason I may like them is nostalgia. But I also think it's fascinating to see the roots of my filmmaking career and to examine how some things have changed and others have not.

I've got everything I shot from May of '97 (when I first picked up a camera) until now, with the exception of a three things: the remake of an earlier flick of mine called "A Ghost Story," the 2001 version of "Night of the Living Bedsheets," and some random Notahki test footage from 2002 and 2003 that eventually led to us shooting Notahki - Episode I. The Notahki footage and "A Ghost Story" I can live without - even if I do wish I had them. The 2001 version of "Night of the Living Bedsheets" is driving me crazy and I've scoured my parents house looking for a possible copy. Unfortunately, no luck.

Now, as far as "Night of the Living Bedsheets (2001)," I know that in my storage shed, I've got rough masters of it on VHS, some with the score and some without. Unfortunately, I don't feel the middle of winter is the most appropriate time for me to be going and emptying my shed to find those tapes, so that one may have to wait until spring for me to convert - if those tapes are even any good at this point. The other possibility is that I know I left the final VHS copy at Seth Kruse's house waaaaaay back in 2003/2004. I imagine it's still there somewhere but whether or not he'd be able to find it is beyond me. I'm going to shoot him a note and see what he says.

But for those of you who were in my movies back in those days, I do have the rest. Shoot, even a couple that I thought were lost I ended up finding. But yes, I am going to put them online, I think at my new vimeo account: http://www.vimeo.com/arid Feel free to check them out, and please, don't be too harsh on them. I think they suck, too.