Friday, August 25, 2006

Retro Video - Dime Store Odyssey


"Dime Store Odyssey"

Found this short vintage 1960s public domain footage of a woman browsing in an old dime store, it appears. The original film is silent, so I thought it'd be fun to add some music to it and see what happens. Much better, I think.

This film actually has the title, "Dollar Store #2", attached to it by whoever uploaded it to Archive.org, but I'm not so sure about that. It looks more like a dime store to me, so whatever, at least for the purposes of my little video mix, I dubbed it, Dime Store Odyssey, which sounds cooler than Dollar Store #2 anyway.

You can tell this was actually raw footage, probably taken from a local TV commercial shoot, as the woman just kind of walks aimlessy around the store touching stuff, and most of the shots get numerous takes one after the other. Not too exciting to some maybe, but the old store interior and merchandise is pretty cool to watch if you ask me. Nothing fancy but I hope you guys dig it!

Note: Video is Flash format. If you don't see it, you must temporarily disable your ad-blocking programs.



6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for adding the music. I don't think I could made it through the entire vid without it. That sales clerk did look like she wanted to be somewhere else; picking up random ojects and staring at them. Hmm. On a positive note, those vintage fishing lures were remarkable!

Fri Aug 25, 09:29:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So cool! The mood captured here with the music is spot on, LOL! Please keep these vids coming. I always look forward to them.

Fri Aug 25, 03:58:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great job on this!
Was that music from Esquivel?

Sat Aug 26, 04:16:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It definitely looks like some raw commercial footage to me. The music was perfect... and, Keith, I always get a kick out of your little "Brought to you by" intro. The music sounds like something from one of those 16 mm films the teacher would show in grade school.

If we had sound it would have probably been something like this...

Director: "Now, Carol, I want you to pick up that coffee decanter and then move on to the kitchen radio. ... That was good... but now let's try it again and add the blue vase at the end."

Cecil B. DeMille he ain't! :-) As for the zoom, remember that an editor of 16 mm film at a local TV station in those days really didn't have any other techniques to make a montage interesting. Sidetracking a little, the ability to zoom was still a pretty novel thing... while film cameras (like this was shot with) had zoom lenses starting in the '30s, zoom lenses on studio TV cameras came in the mid-'60s. If a late '60s rerun of Lawrence Welk ever shows up on your local PBS station (God forbid!), you'll probably puke from all the zooming and quick panning on the band, since it's so rarely done by TV directors anymore.

Sun Aug 27, 04:00:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love this!! The music really makes it. :D

Mon Aug 28, 07:28:00 PM  
Blogger Chris Sobieniak said...

It does look like the kind of thing they would be cutting into a workprint and having the voice/music overlayed telling of what the store has to offer.

Funny someone called it "dollar store #2", as I don't expect anyone these days to know what a "dime store" is anymore, so I wasn't surprised at all.

I was already a little upset a few days ago hearing they might convert Woodville Mall in Northwood, Ohio into a outdoor shopping plaza or whatever. Seems like day after day a piece of my childhood is slipping away.

By the way, I noticed Archive.org has simplified it's "Moving Images" section by consolodating the individual libraries/collections into different groups now. Prelinger Archives still gets it's own section apparenly!

Fri Sep 01, 02:19:00 AM  

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