Joost RekveldSpending some time browsing the Signal Culture library today. This is from "The Spaghetti City Video Manual by Videofreex, published in 1973.
Andrew (Television Executive)I talk about the #VideoFreex and the rest of the 70s Counterculture TV movement a lot, but...
Have you seen Lord of the Universe?
https://mountaintown.video/w/nyK4dx16Gm4AM9NxZotZxb
This is a guerilla television documentary about a cult that was active in North America in the 1970s. It aired on PBS.
It shows the cult at its peak, it shows some of the people caught in the machine, it is at turns sympathetic and skewering, while also being a string of barely edited "reality" segments.
(They called it Video Varite or something like that. Shoot life as it happens, leave the editing to Hollywood.)
It is some of the best of television.
Lord of the Universe - TVTV -
Sneak Peak at a project I've been working on:
https://communitymedia.network/
This is a website with information about #DIYTV and #NewEllijayTelevision, a history of independent video from the #videofreex through to #youtube and suggestions on how to proceed in to the future.
It's still growing. There are almost certainly typos, formatting issues, dead links, awkward phrases, incorrect information, missing instructions, etc. Over the next week or three I'll be adding links, embedding videos, sharing code, and writing additional supplemental and instructional materials.
But the site is up and it works, and I have a page through which you can by a hand bound zine style copy of Community Media: A Handbook for Revolutions in DIY TV.
The mural depicts lots of things, but that scene specifically is supposed to represent on of the #videofreex carrying a Sony AVC-3400 (AKA the portapak) taping an instance of police violence in the seconds before the officer turns on him.
It's a chilling scene to watch.
You can see that moment from the perspective of the cameraman for a few seconds in the trailer for Here Come the Videofreex: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=iXAkIjztp4w
The whole scene, from his perspective and from another perspective, appears in the film. Right up until the point everyone runs.
Here Come The Videofreex by Jon Nealon, Jenny Raskin | Official Trailer [HD]
Subscribe to our channel: http://goo.gl/Etb1I3 The Best Int'l Trailers: https://goo.gl/HTJZPF Watch the trailler for the documentary HERE COME THE VIDEOFREEX directed by Jon Nealon, Jenny Raskin. In the 1960s and 70s, a group of renegade journalists known as the Videofreex democratized the future of the media as they deployed the first handheld video cameras to report and observe the world around them. In HERE COME THE VIDEOFREEX, directors Jon Nealon and Jenny Raskin tap into a treasure chest of restored tapes shot by the Freex, including interviews with icons like murdered Black Panther Fred Hampton and legendary activist Abbie Hoffman, charting the path of this underground video collective from their assignment on the counterculture beat for CBS News to their rupture with the network and creation of a radical pirate television station in upstate New York. Follow us on our social networks Facebook: http://on.fb.me/UFZaEu G+: http://goo.gl/s8s3Pz Website: http://www.filmisnow.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/filmisnow Download our Movie Trailers APP Android: http://goo.gl/TFSFPz iOS: http://goo.gl/wEWrKg FilmIsNow Movie Trailers International your first stop for the latest new cinematic videos the moment they are released. Whether it is the latest studio trailer release, an evocative documentary, clips, TV spots, or other extra videos, the FilmIsNow team is dedicated to providing you with all the best new videos because just like you we are big movie fans.
I'm finally in to the meet of #SubjectToChange.
They're done talking about the #videoFreex and they're in to TVTV and the work done in Appalachia.
There's so much to this movement, this era, and I'm glad it was cataloged.
Now I have to try and hunt it all down.
A couple of notes:
1 - early TVs are pretty forgiving of the resolution limitations of the Sony Portapak format.
2 - black and white TVs were at least as common in this era than color TV, and many shows were still black and white (even where some networks had started broadcasting in color.)
3 - The #VideoFreex could have used some more light.
Well not *just* the #VideoFreex
Also The Raindance Foundation and TVTV and trying to read the issues of Radical Software that are available.
It's amazing how Of The Times some of this content is, and how Ahead Of the Times some of this content is.
I'm reading about Intersectional Independent Media Production from more than 50 years ago, and where they succeeded and failed.
This #DIYMedia movement is older and weirder and way cooler than I thought.
(and in case you were concerned that it was all rock and roll and bread and circuses, here's the #videoFreex interviewing Fred Hampton of the black panthers in 1969: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIbeTS8G5co
Imagine what else is sitting in their vaults.)
Adding tags to this thread about the EIAJ documentary so I can reference it later #DIYMedia #citizenMedia #EIAJ #VideoProjects #videoFreex