I think most people would agree the process of cleaning and decluttering a space is an arduous task no one looks forward to regardless of the sense of accomplishment once a space is clean. During a recent decluttering of my garage, I uncovered a treasure chest which may appear as junk to most; a box of unlabeled audio cassettes.
The relationship with the cassette tape may be a hard one for younger generations to grasp, so I will try to attempt an explanation. In the 1970’s, (in a world before, home computers, the internet and cell phones), the only digital devices available were either a calculator or a watch.
Music was heard on radio, a vinyl record or an 8 Track or cassette tape. If you wanted your music portable, you had to carry around a boom box. With the invention of the Walkman in 1979, one was able to carry their music around on a small cassette player and listen privately with stereo headphones.
Photos – Stephen Michael Barnett, “The Walkman Effect” Blog
Besides the control of making a “mix tape” of your favorite songs, the ability to record opened up a variety of possibilities for kids, teens and adults from recording music off the radio to hearing yourself or creating your own content. Years before the VCR (Video Cassette Recorder), I was able to record parts of favorite TV shows like “Saturday Night Live” skits and “Monty Python” bits as well as movie clips, especially when scenes from “Star Wars” or “The Empire Strikes Back” played on an awards or review show. The aural experience was all we had once a movie left the theater or played once a year on network television.
So what does all this have to do with being a “Cinematic Craftsman?” It just seems like a trip down nostalgia lane. Not entirely. Once I started listening to the tapes, I realized my connection to these recordings started bringing back vivid memories of time and place. These cassettes became sound snapshots. In the cinematic experience, sound is half of it and piecing together my past through cassettes revealed how my love of sound would lead me to be such an effective editor. This was pleasantly discovered when I recognized a tape of mixed music being the soundtracks to Super 8 home movies I used to transfer with my first video camera as a side business when I was 18. I didn’t realize I was training myself to find the perfect music to “score” these silent home movies to enhance the visual experience as well as draw emotion from the musical choices.
Further back in 1980, my recording of the television special, “SPFX: The Making of the Empire Strikes Back” and listening to the production process of that film hundreds of times was what excited me about filmmaking. On that same tape, I heard a half second of a clanging sound that was partially taped over and it immediately triggered the memory of me at 12 trying to replicate the “Star Wars” laser blast sound effect. The show had sound designer Ben Burtt hitting a radio tower’s steel guide wire with a hammer until it vibrated in a way that made the laser sound. I found a similar wire attached to a telephone pole and slammed it with a hammer, wrench and pipe with no sound. The wire was coated with plastic which muted the sound. So I improvised and hung a metal yard stick by a rope off a clothes line in my basement, free to dangle and vibrate when I hit it with various metal objects. Didn’t replicate the sound, but it was a nice reminder of the resourcefulness that resonated throughout my life to produce an outcome.
The discoveries were endless like brainstorming sessions with my Experimental Theater Workshop group in college, screenplay ideas, answering machine messages, recorded dialogue to rehearse lines for performances on stage and video to working out a guitar instrumental I wrote for my wife in our first months of dating. All treasures in real time.
Next week I will gather a number of sound snapshots I found and share the stories behind them.
If you know you have unlabeled cassettes somewhere in your home, locate them and give a listen, you may do a little time traveling and find yourself smiling through the whole journey.
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