I have now completed a rough cut of my video for Project Brief 4. In the end, I decided to go with my idea of interviewing people about their feeling towards old media, however I’ve narrowed this to look specifically at home movies, which I feel has allowed me to explore materiality and memory as I had planned.

I conducted four interviews with my sister and three friends. While I asked each of them the same questions, I found that the responses were quite varied. There were certain points that they all agreed on, such as the fact that they all enjoying watching back their families movies, but the ways they use media in general which then influenced there opinions on different film formats. Although it was far too small a sample size for it to be in any way conclusive, I found that the people I interviewed who I know to be more likely to share their personal photos and videos on social media felt more nostalgic about older film formats. Perhaps this is because they were more aware of the qualities that we have discussed in class which are found in older technologies that can’t always be replicated with digital media.

I’m still not 100% sure about my edit. I’ve used a mixture of my own personal home movies and clips I have found on archive.org. The mixture of VHS, Super 8 and digital clips has created an interesting contrast. In some points of the video, I’m really happy with the way they juxtapose one another, and in others it feels a little too harsh. I’m a little concerned I may have used too many of my own clips, as this is what I have the easiest access to. However, this also reinforces the idea that we’d rather look at our own personal videos because they have a greater significance to us. I know that I have used certain clips of my sister and I because I like the memory and how different things look to how my life does now. But I know for an audience watching my video, it is unlikely to create the same emotions. At this point, I think I will leave it for a day or two, focus on the written component of the assignment, before looking at it with fresh eyes to see how I feel.

I have really enjoyed sorting through all of the old home movies. Sophie said in her interview home movies feel very “personal. It feels very close to home even if it is so far from your own home.” I experienced this to some extent in editing my video. While I’m primarily interested in the look and feel of the clips, I’ve begun to see personalities of the people with them. Overall, I’ve found that primarily we see the people when watching these home movies, but the format helps us understand the context and time period of when the film was taken, which may cause us to feel nostalgic.