Last year,
right at the start of the first Lockdown I had the idea to start making zines.
Not the film ones I make from time to time but real pen and paper and photocopy
zines. I managed to put together a few pages but, in all honesty, it wasn't my
best work. I salvaged the best pages and will be adding them to something I'm
putting together for my 10-year anniversary of this blog. One page that I kept
was a rant, a train of thought, relevant for the time, about owning DVDs and
Blu rays. Apologies for the scattered handwriting. This reveals how crazy
my handwriting is.
Despite streaming services being the go-to for most people,
including myself, to watch films, TV, music and the odd audiobook, physical
media is being kept alive by the collectors. The ‘old’ media that entertained
us when we were young is always looked upon fondly now and resurrected for a
nostalgia trip. As we’ve all been kept inside away from everything, these
nostalgia trips are happening quite frequently. I’d love to go through the
boxes still at my parents that I know contain cassette tapes, videos and there’s
even a shoe box with the last of my CD collection I couldn’t get rid of. I used
to be the proud owner of a large audiobook collection, mostly children’s and young
adult books, quite a few Jaqueline Wilson tapes and a few Jane Austen tapes, as
well as a few odd ones that I never heard of anywhere else, The Weirdstone of
Brisingamen anyone? With only a few videos surviving, half of which are recorded, I
had tried to convert this collection to DVDs but some I couldn’t find. Without
these boxes of nostalgia to pour over, I’ve looked to collection that I moved
with.
It’s been said that the Millennials are the ones keeping physical media
alive, having grown up in an age without everything at our fingertips or having
the ease of streaming services for anything you could dream of. But I also think
there has been a resurgence of the ‘special/limited edition’ that has caught
the eye of those who collect. Distributors like Arrow and the Criterion collection
are going strong with these releases, bringing cult classics into the new era
and those long-forgotten gems out of the dark for new audiences to discover.
Other labels such as Indicator, Vintage Classics and 101 Films focusing
different genres, also offering extra features and physical extras too. Bringing
out new releases to celebrate an anniversary or even just a ‘first time’
release is an opportunity. These are all for the collectors, of which I thought
there were few but after a search on Instagram with the right hashtags, I find
that I am most definitely not alone or at least it’s not just film writers and
Film Twitter out there. The appeal of physical media is not a niche thing as I
had thought.
My scribbles from last year were in frustrated response to digital
copies being deleted as and when companies wish rendering bought digital copies
useless. For anyone who loves to own the real thing, there will always be
DVD/Blu ray and now 4K releases. Vinyl made its way back from being 50p in a
charity shop to back on the shelves, cassette tapes are also having a mini
comeback. CDs might not have the same appeal, but, you never know.
