Destroying VHS Tapes for Mr. Robot
The 2 VHS tapes I destroyed for MR. Robot.
WARNING: IF YOU HAVE OLD VHS TAPES - DIGITIZE THEM NOW!!!
_It’s no secret that VHS tape deteriorates over time or with repeated use. Those tapes from 30 years ago are memories slowly fading. But that’s your problem. 😏 What if you want that deteriorated VHS look now on a digital project? That’s what happened to me while working at Mr. Robot.
_I was obsessed with VHS growing up. I had 2 VCRs, I learned to put scotch tape over that little square to dub movies, and my tape collection grew massive. I spent hours taping tv shows and pausing the recording during commercials. Then as a teenager I got a job at Blockbuster Video. My love of VHS allowed me to study movies, pause and rewind to dissect scenes, and watch them over and over. It’s how I became an editor.
_In the early 2000’s I became a VJ or live video artist for club DJs and laptop EDM musicians in Boston. VHS always just looked cool, like retro MTV. It made great projected visuals and textures. Then I started damaging it on purpose to create glitchy, messed up images and the electronic musicians loved me. When I became a feature editor I occasionally looked for excuses to work in those VJ skills. When I got a job on Mr. Robot I had my chance.
Mr. Robot Season 2. Real VHS damage.
_In season 2 of Mr. Robot, Elliott and Darlene watch their favorite movie from growing up called “The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie.” In the show we see Elliott download a VHSrip from Pirate Bay that says the movie was from 1984. Producers Adam Penn and Sean Schuyler wanted it to look like an authentic old VHS that got ripped/dubbed. They were looking at digital filters that mimicked VHS but they were all pretty obviously bad. Either you could see then same bits of damage repeating or just something about it didn’t look totally right. Because it wasn’t. I said, “let’s do it for real.” And they let me.
_Adam and Sean made the movie then gave it to me. I brought in my old VCR and found a bodega in Brooklyn that still sold VHS tapes, crazy 🤯. I plugged my Avid into the VCR, laid the movie out to VHS a couple of times to give myself a few tries at damaging it. I re-digitized the clean VHS output so we had just the pure look before damaging it.
VHS Tape taken apart
sitting on my Avid desk @ Mr. Robot
_Then I took the VHS tape apart. It’s easy, just a few small screws. I slowly unspooled one side crinkling the tape a little bit and re-spooling it on the other side. At one point our PA Samer Esmail and I were standing at either end of a long hallway slowly walking towards each other while I pinched the tape slightly. I did this a few times, re-digitizing it between each damage session so we had options of degrees of damage.
The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie
_That is the “PLAY” and “SP” burn-in generated by my VCR. We got an FBI Warning from somewhere. The graphics department made the 80’s E Corp logo.
_It doesn’t take much to totally destroy the tape and make it unrecognizable. Little pinches work the best. To make gaps you can use magnets too but again, it’s very easy to go too far and completely erase the tape.
_For the end of The Careful Massacre… we wanted it to look like the tape basically broke or was so worn out and disintegrated that it was just over. It’s sort of like the owner of this tape had a rewind point. So for the end I grabbed the tape in my fist and rolled it in a ball. I may have cut it and taped it back together too.
_I did the same thing for an F_Society tape that Darlene’s tape deck eats while she’s taping a f society mask video in the smart house. I took that shot, put it on VHS, and destroyed it a few times until I got one timed perfectly. Sam dug it so that’s the one in the show.
_I’ve since done it for credit sequences, or in the movie Goldie for a flashback look. The only limitation I’ve found is that VCR’s are 4:3 aspect ratio everything since the late 90’s is 16:9 so you have to enlarge the VHS image which degrades it further.
Fun stuff!