Video-Taping

Directed by Ernest Gusella

Gusella's title creates a pun on the term video "tape" by using a split screen in which one half is the electronic negative of the other. Gusella set up a glass sheet and suspended it from light poles. The glass was covered with black or white tape. As he slowly removes the obscuring tape from one half of the screen, his ghostly negative image emerges, further confusing the viewer. Electronically constructed using a VideoLab - a voltage controllable, multi-channel switcher, keyer, and colorizer built by Bill Hearn - the tape relies on the use of a luminance keyer to "cut out" specfic brightness levels (determined by voltage) from one video signal and replace them with a video signal from a second camera. Keying is a video effect seen commonly on television weather reports, in which the images of the map displayed behind the announcer are electronically matted into the image.