Rethinking How We Archive Family Memories

by Catherine | May 14, 2015 | Family

For Mother’s Day, I decided to transfer my parents’ VHS home videos to DVDs.  I made the trip to Omaha to get the tapes from Mom and Dad’s house.  Dad found the box of VHS tapes stored in the basement and made arrangements for me to pick it up before Mom got home from work.  The box contained roughly 2 dozen VHS tapes with 2 hours of footage on each tape.  The dates ranged from the mid-seventies to 2002.   Thanks to our neighbor’s VHS transfer machine, I was able to begin the fun part from the comfort of our family room.

The VHS tapes weren’t labeled.  They simply said things like, “Tape 13 1:58.”  I could have just dropped off the VHS tapes at a store and had a stranger convert the tapes, but I’ve never been one to do things the easy way.  Besides, I wanted this endeavor to be worth the effort.  To me, that meant viewing each VHS tape, stopping and starting the film between different events, and noting what was happening in each event with the year.  That way, when I transferred them to DVD, each event would be a new scene that we could find with the click of a button.  No more fast forwarding.  No more guess work.  Every memory would be at our fingertips.

“Andy 3rd Birthday 1986 Trick Candles”

“Okoboji 1990 Fishing and Water Skiing”

“Lake Manawa 4th of July Parade 1978”

“Mom and Dad Playing With First Video Camera, 1976”

Archiving the videos in this way was a lot more work, but it was well worth the effort.  I thought forcing myself to go through all of the video footage would be a fun chance to go down memory lane.  What I didn’t expect was for the whole experience to make me rethink how Philip and I are archiving memories for our own little family.

The way my parents captured our childhoods is so very different than how Philip and I are archiving our memories today.  Philip and I don’t own a dedicated video camera.  If we take any videos, they are short snippets on our phones or quick clips on my new DSLR.  I had taken for granted how Mom and Dad filmed until I started viewing.

Filming with a dedicated video camera, especially a bulky one like Mom and Dad had during our early childhoods, was an event.  The camera was large and inconvenient for hauling around, so most of the events captured were events–birthdays, holidays, milestones, recitals, football/basketball/volleyball/soccer games, graduations, music programs, etc.  There were very few moments of tape when the videographer was just taping everyday life.  Since I’m so used to being able to archive every little moment on my smart phone, you’d think this would make me sad.  Ironically, I think our parents’ way of archiving memories managed to capture more.  Here’s why:

Because filming with a big, dedicated videocamera took some effort, the person filming took it upon him or herself to record the event.  They weren’t asking someone to clown on the film for a quick clip.  They filmed all of Christmas morning next to the tree or the whole First Holy Communion Mass.  Maybe this has more to do with the way my family filmed than a truism for the way archiving memories have changed.  (I’d love to hear your family’s experience!)  It was refreshing to view all of these memories in their entirety.  In an age when we didn’t have the constant distractions of our screens, the people being captured were all in the moment–even if they were daydreaming of something else, it was easy to reign everyone back in.

My favorite part of watching the videos of extended moments is getting a better glimpse into the videographer’s mind.  When Dad was filming, he remained mostly silent, simply panning the room as a silent observer, letting the action unfold in front of him.  When he found a moment he found particularly interesting or funny, he’d zoom in.  If it was Christmas morning and he saw one of us opening a highly anticipated present, he’d ask excitedly, “What is it, Matthew?”  His little chuckle behind the camera revealed so much.  He regularly let the camera stop on my mom (which she hated), but I am so glad he did since she was usually the one capturing the memories on camera, so we have few photos of Mom from my childhood.  (Isn’t that always the trap of us mamas?  I told Philip recently that I’m sad I’m in so few pictures, so he’s been making a big effort to take more snapshots of little moments when he sees me reading with the kids, helping them with their shoes, or cuddling on a lazy Saturday morning.)

The other thing I love about videotaping events is that it manages to capture more of the everyday and ordinary.  Say what, Catherine?  Let me explain.  When you have 30 minutes of footage from Christmas 1989, the people on film seem to forget that they’re being filmed.  Instead of hamming it up for the camera, they do their thing.  The person filming giggles upon discovering someone picking their nose, an aunt and uncle exchange a sweet kiss, the newborn is cuddling with Grandma, and the conversation is about nothing remarkable, but it makes you think of people, places, or events that you hadn’t thought of in years.

Another bonus of the extended footage is getting to see all of the things we didn’t think to capture in pictures.  Watching video helped me to remember the floor plan of the various homes our family and extended family has lived in.  Our childhood parish’s original (ugly!) church and school “link” connecting the school to the church that is now gone.  The Jack and Jill bathroom my sister and I shared where she used to do my hair (and I laid on the floor behind the pocket door to listen to her chat on the teen line with her friends.  The secret hideout on the top shelf of the hall linen closet.  That made me realize how much I crave getting to see those little things, and how I need to be more deliberate in capturing them today for our children.

So, how is all of this going to change how we capture memories?  For starters, we’re going to start taking more and longer film of everyday life.  We’re going to let the camera run so that we’re capturing the living instead of the performing.  We’re going to take pictures that capture the nooks and crannies and the little details that make up the background of our lives.  We’re going to capture the voices of our older relatives.  We’re going to capture the voices of the kids–how they mispronounced specific words, talking about their favorite things, talking about school or friends.  We’re going to remember that capturing the ordinary things that get overlooked may someday mean more than capturing snippets of the big moments.

After getting everything off of the VHS tapes, I was able to put everything in chronological order.  Thanks for Philip’s tech savvy-ness, we put the files onto DVD’s with a fancy main menu that had screen shots of the various files.  I’m still in the process of making copies for my siblings and ourselves.  I’m so glad I went to the trouble.  I know my parents and siblings really appreciated it.  More importantly, our children and maybe even their children will get enjoyment from them, too.  Now that they’re labeled, a lot of the guesswork will be gone.

Watching the videos on DVD on Mother’s Day

How did your family archive memories on video (if at all)?  What was the videographer’s style?  Did he/she capture the whole event?  Are there holes in the memories that you wish were filled?  What do you wish you could change about the style?  Does this make you reconsider how you’re archiving memories now? What would you do differently?