vhs-c

VHS-C! I love it! This was my first camera, Panasonic NV-V10B. I begged my parents for it back in 1996. The foldout screen or 'slim vision' was cutting edge! I made my first ever film at the age of 13 - a feature length remake of Psycho (Yes I got there before Gus Van Sant!). I starred as Norman Bates and spent much of the 45 minute in a summer dress chatting to Marion Crane. Set in Scunthorpe, of all places, and with a cast of children, it really does need to be seen to be believed!

However naff this all sounds, it does deserve a fair bit of credit - for a 13 year old to be crafting films with limited resources, tape to tape linear editing and a dodgey camcorder - that really takes effort and dedication. Right now it's easy; kids have access to all sorts of digital devices and software, where I spent night after night swapping digits between record, pause and rewind, experimenting with scart cables and gigantic editing decks. Technology has made it so easy for youngsters to break into film - which is a good thing and a bad thing. Good in the sense that it nutures new creative talent, but bad in the sense that those who truly have a passion for the moving image are lost in a torrent of YouTubers.

I'm amongst the last of my kind!