Lights! Camcorders! Action!

By Philip Elmer-DeWitt

Most of the 10 million Americans whose shoulders have sprouted camcorders over the past five years are happy just to point their whirring lenses at anything that moves -- drooling babies, blushing brides, cops beating up the citizenry. But in the great rush to see their lives replayed on TV, who can be bothered to edit the gems they have recorded? Result: the world's greatest collection of truly awful videotapes -- a vast library of raw footage even more droning and banal than the reality it purports to document.

There is, however, among the vast majority of mindless "cammers," a rare but growing breed of dedicated enthusiasts who are not content simply to point and shoot. Weighed down with auxiliary lights, remote microphones and jury- rigged dollies, they don't just videotape weddings (or birthdays or bar mitzvahs), they choreograph them. Then, back in their basement studios, they process their footage through an array of cutting-edge technology to produce video that is just as polished as the best seen on national TV -- and for a fraction of the cost.

They are called the video hackers, and they are quickly becoming as expert in the arcana of videotape as computer hackers are in the world of bits and bytes. In fact, many video hackers have mastered both worlds, plugging their camcorders into computers to explore a burgeoning new field known variously as computer video, desktop video or multimedia TV.

The road to hackerdom starts modestly enough. All anyone really needs for editing videotape is a camcorder and a VCR to copy selected segments from one tape onto another. Unfortunately, most camcorders and VCRs intersperse their cuts with irritating patches of electronic noise and make duplicates that look as if they've been smeared with a video paintbrush. So the would-be video artist soon finds himself trading in his primitive equipment for improved models (costing up to $1,200) with "flying erase heads," which allow smooth splicing, and one of the new formats (Hi8 or S-VHS) that can be duplicated again and again.

But editing on a VCR calls for extraordinary patience and split-second timing. That's where the computers come in. With an automated editing machine -- like Videonics' $599 DirectED PLUS -- instructions for making cuts can be punched into a keyboard as the footage rolls by on a TV screen. The computer remembers the markings, and when the tape is played again, the machine automatically splices together the chosen sequences. Computers can also be used to generate titles, graphics and fancy scene shifts -- like the "tumble," in which one image seems to turn over to reveal another.

The big news at the moment is NewTek's Video Toaster, a $1,595 plug-in board that attaches to Commodore's video-friendly Amiga computer. It gives operators a "frame grabber" to freeze images for computer manipulation, an animation program to create flying 3-D titles and a long menu of digital effects like the Star Trekkian "transporter" that can dematerialize people from the screen.

To capture wide-ranging action, there's Cinema Products' Steadicam JR, a $595 counterbalance that hangs off the bottom of the camcorder and smooths out swoops and pans. Photography buffs will appreciate the new camcorders that can use a variety of lenses, including most of the wide-angle and telephoto lenses made for 35-mm still cameras.

Camcording can get expensive, but there is a growing "garage video" movement whose members buy much of their equipment at discount stores. For example, a skateboard makes a fine dolly for videotaping toddlers and tricyclers. Ordinary quartz outdoor lights, perched on two-by-fours, provide good background lighting, while an old slide projector makes an excellent spotlight. Inexpensive security cameras can be used to help shoot scenes requiring two or three angles. For long-shots, a baby monitor makes a perfectly adequate wireless mike.

Even with computers, top-of-the-line camcorders and the latest editing devices, a Spielberg wannabe can gear up for under $15,000, which is less than the studios spend for a couple of weeks' catered meals for the real Spielberg's crew. The lowered cost of entry has encouraged all sorts of people to go into business -- full time or on the side -- taping everything from rock concerts to legal depositions. "All of a sudden I can give my videos the slick look TV audiences expect," says Jim Watt, a self-employed "videographer" who worked at NBC News for 12 years before the new technology enabled him to strike out on his own. Now he pursues a vocation many would covet: traveling to the world's choicest fishing spots to shoot instructional fly-fishing videos that he sells through the mail.