Early in studio history, it was common for one media production to be filmed at the expense of earlier productions, through instances of Recording Over Footage. Below is a timeline of such events currently recognized by studio historians, presented by the name and date of the later recording.
During the production of the documentary 1994, Fourth of July!, the old camera was damaged by shockwaves from nearby firework displays. From that time forward, productions recorded using that camera and productions already on a tape where that camera was adding new footage were at continuous risk of unintentional recording over, because the camera might begin automatically rewinding and fast-forwarding while the record head was engaged. This threat was finally eliminated with the advent of the Ni-Ki-Oh! camera in 2002.
The Ni-Ki-Oh! camera used a different format in 8mm tape media, so for the first few months of its usage, blank media was also scarce. The technique of intentionally recording over footage was used numerous times; however, mostly it was done proactively, such as recording over documentary footage of earlier games in the Duel Monsters Tournament that did not decide the winner of that round, and recording over outtakes. Unfortunately, although methodical and well-intentioned, this variation on the technique still inadvertently recorded over footage that future analysis would show to contain conversations and other information of historical and narrative import. From that point onward, however, the studio generally ensured that blank media was always available, so for the life of the Ni-Ki-Oh! camera, recording over was rare and mostly unintentional.
In summer 2004, the studio added the new camera to its equipment roster. This camera recorded a different data format called Digital8, but used the same tape media format as the Ni-Ki-Oh! camera. Thus, a Digital8 tape from the new camera could be inserted into the Ni-Ki-Oh! camera, but the Ni-Ki-Oh! camera would be unable to read the footage, instead showing it to be blank. This issue came to a head in December 2005, when the new camera stopped working and only the Ni-Ki-Oh! camera could be used.
In September 2008, the studio began using the HD camera which did not use tape media, instead recording everything directly to a digital file. While it occasionally became necessary to free space on the drive onto which the camera recorded, this was done with utmost care, and it was no longer possible to record over footage in the same sense as before.
- February 6, 1993
- July 1993
- September 1994
- March 1995
- May 1995
- July 4, 1998
- Y3K Dr. Pepper Factory scene
- November 4, 2000
- November 21, 2000
- November 28, 2000
- November 22, 2001
- July 15, 2002
- December 7, 2002
- February 18, 2003
- March 7, 2003
- December 22, 2005
History
Beginning early in studio history, blank tape media was a scarce resource. Whenever a new production was scheduled, if there were no blank tapes available, the production would first try to fit all of its footage into blank spaces on a tape with other productions. If that was not feasible, earlier productions that were previously dumped to another format, or that were subjectively deemed to have low artistic value, or that otherwise had low audience scores, would be "recorded over." The earliest known instance of "recording over" occurred during February 1993, when When There Were Monsters recorded over John Egan's audition footage.During the production of the documentary 1994, Fourth of July!, the old camera was damaged by shockwaves from nearby firework displays. From that time forward, productions recorded using that camera and productions already on a tape where that camera was adding new footage were at continuous risk of unintentional recording over, because the camera might begin automatically rewinding and fast-forwarding while the record head was engaged. This threat was finally eliminated with the advent of the Ni-Ki-Oh! camera in 2002.
The Ni-Ki-Oh! camera used a different format in 8mm tape media, so for the first few months of its usage, blank media was also scarce. The technique of intentionally recording over footage was used numerous times; however, mostly it was done proactively, such as recording over documentary footage of earlier games in the Duel Monsters Tournament that did not decide the winner of that round, and recording over outtakes. Unfortunately, although methodical and well-intentioned, this variation on the technique still inadvertently recorded over footage that future analysis would show to contain conversations and other information of historical and narrative import. From that point onward, however, the studio generally ensured that blank media was always available, so for the life of the Ni-Ki-Oh! camera, recording over was rare and mostly unintentional.
In summer 2004, the studio added the new camera to its equipment roster. This camera recorded a different data format called Digital8, but used the same tape media format as the Ni-Ki-Oh! camera. Thus, a Digital8 tape from the new camera could be inserted into the Ni-Ki-Oh! camera, but the Ni-Ki-Oh! camera would be unable to read the footage, instead showing it to be blank. This issue came to a head in December 2005, when the new camera stopped working and only the Ni-Ki-Oh! camera could be used.
In September 2008, the studio began using the HD camera which did not use tape media, instead recording everything directly to a digital file. While it occasionally became necessary to free space on the drive onto which the camera recorded, this was done with utmost care, and it was no longer possible to record over footage in the same sense as before.