Not-so-simple old family videos

[catherine]

Just for the fun of it, while DH was napping before we head out to DS's for a Father's Day BBQ, I pulled out an OLD family video, from 1994.

Wow. We always thought that being able to record family memories on video would be a wonderful thing, but watching this video, I'm thinking, let bygones be bygones.

Truly, this video I watched made me realize why I'm so attracted to the movie Little Miss Sunshine. The tagline of my family video should be "We put the Fun in DysFUNction." From the wacky grandparent (my MIL doing some weird dance move to a jazz song) to my outgoing 8 yr old DD (who wore her sequin-spangled dancing costume as a bathing suit) and my still-innocent and precocious mop-topped 9 yr old DS to one sullen 14-yr son who was a counter point to my "cool dude" 16-yr old son, to the Selleck-mustached cool uncle BIL, to my DH who actually looked the best on the video out of all of us in his demonstration of a Caesar salad which should have made him a contender for the next Food Network star, to me, with my long frizzy 80s hair looking like I'm a bit overwhelmed. With 4 kids, maybe I was, but ... whew... the whole experience was just a bit bizarre.

Anyone else have the chance to take a video walk down memory lane? If so, what were your reactions?

[SteveinMN]

Never have. I've never been interested in video as a means of collecting memories, partially because, for years, video was a pain -- shoot the film, get it developed, play it back on special gear; even videotape only fixed a few of those pain points. And so few people know how to edit video to the essentials. Instead, every minute is rebroadcast and, frankly, much of that is of poor quality and really does not advance the story-telling that the video is supposed to enable.

I have the same issue with people "dumping" their camera rolls to Facebook/Instagram/flickr -- a dozen shots of your kids playing in the sand just devalues the moment. Pick the best one and go with it. Quality rather than quantity.

[Miss Cellane]

My father relentlessly recorded our childhoods. From snapshots to slides to the Super8 movies, we have it all.

I enjoy watching the movies, at least most of them. Now, the movies are of me and my siblings as kids, it might be a bit different if we were adults.

But there's nothing like showing your nieces and nephew a movie of their father's 18th birthday, only to have the 5 year old pipe up with, "But where's Mommy?" and then the resulting explanations that Daddy and Mommy didn't even meet each other for another 20 years that quite simply blew his poor mind.

For the record, Catherine, nothing you describe sounds like a dysfunctional family, just a very normal family. Or at least, as normal as my family is.

[Teacher Terry]

My Mom took slides and it was a project to put up screen, projector etc and before she died she asked if any of us wanted it-nope so she threw it all away. Your video sounds like fun-not crazy but just the way families are.

[razz]

I don't have videos but a very large tub of photos - some good and some awful. No one especially wants these either.

[ToomuchStuff]

I don't but family does. I went over to a family function one day, to find some of my family watching an old video of when a nephew was first born and given to my grandmother, who was dying in the hospital.
Not much different then being drug, by surprise, by the spouses of some relatives, to see the movie Stepmom, on what was supposed to be a guys night out (and the woman wanted to make it a couples night out), and relive people dying in front of me.
No thanks.