Remember before you begin shooting: have plenty of tape on hand. It is better to have one tape left over than to run out just before Christmas dinner. Second, shoot at the highest speed available. This uses more tape, but it gives a better quality to the final product. [And] the better the original, the better the copy.
Don’t chance taping dinner over the Christmas Eve service — when you finish with a tape, break off the tab so that it can’t be recorded over. Identify the occasion every time you begin shooting. You as the camera person can simply say, “Christmas 1985,” so the camera microphone can pick it up.
You may do no more all Christmas day than point the camera and shoot, but you will cherish for a lifetime the pictures you record. Every year the tape ages it will become more valuable.
—“Videotaping Your Christmas”
by Roger Bartley,
December 1, 1985
This article is featured in the November/December 2022 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.
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