This camera caught my attention right away. I’d never liked video because the cameras were bulky, batteries ran out, the picture looked like crap, and so on. Then this camera came out. It was simple, recorded on audio cassette tape running at high speed, and the picture and sound were really crappy…and black and white! But, it had just two modes: On/Off. You could record or play. That’s my kind of camera. Well, you could rewind and fast forward too. It output what you recorded as modulated NTSC which you could watch on a TV or record on a VHS deck (with a tuner). The straight NTSC out was pretty stable, but the signal coming off a cassette tape being played back wasn’t at all. But, I liked the look–a kind of dreamy, wave-like picture. It seemed more real in many respects.
I found out about them just as they had been discontinued. Fisher Price manufactured them and I guess sales weren’t so great so they started unloading them for about $100. I got mine at Toys-R-Us, the first camera I’d purchased since I bought my Elmo. Finally, I had a cheap, simple and fun video camera!
Friends and I made Massacre Lane with it. Not too long after that, I showed Massacre Lane to another friend who introduced me to director Michael Almereyda. He went on to shoot several award winning films with this camera, most famously Another Girl, Another Planet.