The clip above was originally sourced from a box of beta format videotapes that drum major Kim Lytle’s parents graciously lent me in early 1992. I’d been searching for old tapes of the band (I think?) and was on a nostalgic binge at the time. The tapes were in Beta format and the Lytles didn’t have a working Beta VCR. Lucky for me my friend and fellow band-mate Dawn Farrow’s dad lent me his retired Betamax VCR. He gave me a quick lesson on the quirks of the player which mostly consisted of the many ways of avoiding having the VCR eat the tapes. I seem to recall something about what I had to do if I noticed a burning smell. Hmmm. Anyway, I duplicated everything over the next week. This meant copying each Beta tape to a high quality VHS tape in SP mode. In case you’ve forgotten (or never knew), SP mode means Standard Play. As the kids say, that mode’s quality is bomb. I then cataloged the contents of each tape into a Lotus 123 spreadsheet, filed the tape into my cabinet, and quickly forgot about them. Awww.
Fast-forward 16 years. The tapes were in storage in Houston until February 2008 when I shipped them all here to Minneapolis. 9 boxes. The UPS shipping guy loved me. I took JVHS BAND TAPE #1 out of the box on Friday night and imported it using Windows Movie Maker. I picked this clip out and processed it with Adobe Premiere CS3. What’s that mean? I cleaned up the picture by calibrating all the levels as best as I could manage (given that everything had a sort of fuzzy purple haze to it). I re-centered the picture to fit within a 720×480 frame. In retrospect, I should have put my MARKSHIELDS.COM watermark in the left corner. The YouTube logo is superimposed when you’re watching it elsewhere. Duh. Also, I converted this from 29.97 frames per second (fps) to 24 fps and back to 29.97 fps. Don’t ask — I saw a checkbox and I hit it. Several hours passed, etc. The photos above are the BEFORE and AFTER of the video for your consideration. When you view the video on YouTube, make sure you click the ”Watch In High Quality” link to the bottom right of the video. Got that? Now click here for a sample of good ol’ 1985.
A few quick notes… I’m not in the video as the Texas law ”No Pass No Play” kept me home that year. Algebra II you were my enemy and you beat me (until summer school when I kicked your ass). You will notice lots of lingering over drum major Kim Lytle. Parents do that when they film their kids. Repeat after me: ”Mark Shields is not a pervert.” Thank you. With that being said, this video begins with the band warming up to their last home football game of the 1985-1986 school year. The band can be heard briefly playing the songs “Temptation” and “She Blinded Me With Science.”
Among the voices and faces included during the Seniors Recognition and Favorites announcements are director Timothy “Tim” Wayne Cunningham, Robin Rollins, Andrew “Andy” Fischbach, Doug Caesar, Brigitte Cantrell, Stephanie Dishroon, Zeke Duran III, Lee Mamone, John Gragg, Jeanie Grape, Valerie Hurta, Stefanie Loveless, Kimberly “Kim” Lytle, Laura Ross, and Steve Sims.
