This past summer, I shot a documentary focusing on four stories told by women about domestic violence they experienced in their life. We interviewed the women in their homes in the New York City area. We only had limited time with each of them during the shoot. Usually, in a normal circumstance we would shoot for an additional day with each interviewee, but because of the sensitive nature of the subject we couldn’t rely on filming with them for an additional day. During our short period with each interviewee we captured their story and a few pieces of B-ROLL.

After the editor made a rough draft of the film, we wrote down missing visuals needed to tell the rest of the story. I thought it would be great to capture the visuals on a VHS camera because the stories told were from the past during the era of VHS. The director loved the idea! However, there was a problem with all the VHS cameras I found. The batteries seemed to be so old they wouldn’t hold a charge.

Now - back to the drawing board, right? Wrong! I had an idea to create a P-TAP from the AC power adapter that the VHS camera came with. I called my friend who had a sautering iron and voila - it worked! Now I had plenty of battery to last me the entire day without having to make a swap.

In the end - the VHS footage worked amazingly in the documentary. It gave the additional footage a realistic feel that I don’t think traditional camera footage would give.

Below are a few examples of the VHS footage used in the documentary.

Music by Rene Veron