Home Movies Super 8 San Francisco Bay Area - driving 1960s 1970s SF, California

[@jenniferlove688]

Being an Old Car buff , I’m in Heaven ! Thanks so much.

[@AlfredsVisions]

I know what you mean. All that heavy metal and leather.

[@jptaylor]

Sad to see where we were then versus where we are now. Such a wonderful world back then.

[@AlfredsVisions]

I know, I think that is why I wanted to feature the sounds of birds throughout this video to remind us that the natural, more tactile world is still here with us if we can only remove ourselves from screens and screen culture.

[@dannyhood7433]

​@@AlfredsVisionsGreat video. I thought the sound was from film at first. I figured the sounds had too be added. I've never seen 60 years old home movies with sound. Even the home movies with Natalie Wood in them. Those people had access film equipment. The best available for that era probably

[@AlfredsVisions]

And yet was it? Was everyone satisfied and connected? I will say that it was a world less mediated by social media and media in general. No screen time. Sitting close to the screen, which was television was discouraged and said to be dangerous physically. I think many times people say the past was better because there is that sense that life was more physical and social things happened only in the walking world or the telephone. Teenagers got bored and wanted to get out of the house and do something.@@dannyhood7433

[@pi.actual]

Yea well except for the assassinations, Vietnam war, civil unrest, Charles Manson...

[@jptaylor]

@@pi.actual I’ll take those events over the insanity and lunacy of today, any day!

[@soyyo143]

Yes, we used to play OUTSIDE all day long in the Bay Area in the 1950s and 1960s! Best times!

[@freelonmorris3659]

Look at all those kids playing outdoors! Horsing around and having fun!

[@thejdgoodwin]

Yeh, we played yard darts. And that never hurt anyone...well, except Ronnie, and Tom...oh and his sister Debbie. And that kid whose name I can't quite recall.

[@acespace7255]

" The following program is dedicated to the people and city of San Francisco. Who may not know it, but they were beautiful and so was their city. "

[@AlfredsVisions]

The Animals!

[@dudedude949]

Was…..

[@Ma_Pooh]

@@dudedude949 San Francisco is still beautiful. Unfortunately, there are areas of the City that are not, but it's not the whole city.

[@richyp64]

@@Ma_Pooh I live here and I certainly wouldn't recommend anyone walk around any part of the city after dark. You know it, too.

[@Ma_Pooh]

@@richyp64 Yes, and I was born in San Francisco, and contrary to popular belief , the whole city is not bad.

[@GeorgeVreelandHill]

Back when San Francisco was great and THE place to be. Thanks for the memories.

[@AlfredsVisions]

...and affordable for young adult who were trying to figure out their worlds.

[@pianomoverr]

Hilarious because my older aunts and uncles did nothing but bellyache about how San Francisco and the Bay Area in the 60’s was ruined forever. It never changes.

[@calirose2860]

My uncle moved out there in the late 60s. He loved it so much that he stayed there.

[@vernonbrowne-3826]

What happened?

[@E.K.2003]

​@@vernonbrowne-3826😂

[@theopinion9452]

I love the cars and the chill of the era.

[@benniebarrow348]

Isn't that the truth ......fast forward to the craziness and filth of today . Great film.

[@papaforever3706]

I love these old home movies. They are like time travel.

[@davidgamble2673]

Kids...outside? What is this madness?

[@amatrixa2923]

Great films and I really really love the sounds. It’s almost dreamlike. Very interesting!

[@davegeisler7802]

Hospital Curve near Daly City on I 280 , everything looks the same 55 years later , except San Jose and the Silicone Valley hasn't blown up quite yet with development , very cool !

[@AlfredsVisions]

I'm not sure which part is hospital curve but it would be good to identify it for me and others. People ask about places in the footage and I'm not always sure. 17 and the Pruneyard are of course easier.

[@bartonpercival3216]

At around 2:41 is hospital curve. 👍

[@bartonpercival3216]

And at 3:38 is the tunnel into Daly City on interstate 280 you can see Seton Medical Center on the hill to the right as you exit the tunnel. 👍

[@tonyarioli3979]

Actually, San Jose and Silicon (Santa Clara) Valley began it's explosive growth when Joseph Eichler built his first subdivision in Sunnyvale in 1949; the valley was pretty much built out by 1970.

[@MustangSally2.0]

San Jose native, born in 1954, this is great, thank you for sharing! Miss the old days!

[@bartonpercival3216]

I was born in 1954 too. But in the city of San Francisco. My mother always took us down to the San Jose flea market and then we'd always have dinner at San Jose Joe's

[@RonOside]

I grew up in Bay Area. The plane at the start is a Navy Anti=submarine aircraft. They flew overhead every 30 minutes for years to patrol the ocean and keep Russian or Chinese subs from spying on military ports, counting our ships.

[@AlfredsVisions]

Yes, some of them had more of a flat gray paint job with the black star I think in a white circle, while this one seems almost chrome.

[@kcalb3180]

LOL people were starved to death in China back in the 60s and you're saying they had the luxury to invest in a spy submarines?

[@RonOside]

@@kcalb3180 No I didn't say that.

[@AlfredsVisions]

@@kcalb3180 A lot of money and resource does go to military whether or not people are living well. I'm not saying the Chinese were sending submarines necessarily.

[@AlfredsVisions]

I remember the big gray submarine locating airplanes would go around Sunnyvale once every 10 minutes or so as a kid

[@dougsilva8603]

I really like seeing the old gas stations and cars really good times

[@WAL_DC-6B]

Yeah, especially that Hancock gas station at :39.

[@bartonpercival3216]

I remember all those old gas stations. Atlantic Richfield and Flying A gas stations were my favorites! 👍

[@melvin151515]

Thanks for my memories. I still drive these same roads.

[@JackWMatrix]

The Pruneyard tower was built in 1970. So that's when that part was filmed.

[@AlfredsVisions]

That's good to know.

[@jamesgizasson]

I thought I saw an early Volvo 140, so that makes sense! :3

[@ArcadianWizard]

the audio is hella eerie but I love the footage, this is the closest we can get to time traveling

[@sherry5667]

The audio is really weird! I had to turn it all the way down. It sounded scary.

[@jamesgizasson]

It's just a random mix of sound effects. I think this was filmed without sound on an early film camera. :)

[@celebrityrog]

HOLY SHIT DUDE.... This is even before I was born, but I can recognize most of the places, know whats changed and no longer exists and whats new. I was born in the later 70s.

[@AlfredsVisions]

It's been changing fast, since I was a kid. Nice that some things haven't changed and can be recognized.

[@jamesbone105]

Wow, Candlestick Park where I went to a lot of events, then seeing the Daly City exit that takes you to the Cow Palace, I used to love going down into the city in the 70's and 80's. Great memories. Just seeing the cars and the way it used to be. Thank you for the upload.

[@AlfredsVisions]

You are right. Candlestick Park - gone. The Beatles played their last concert there and my dad parked the car outside the park in a hill so some of us kids could hear from the distance.

[@markfarrington9727]

Back at that time I was growing up across the bay in east Oakland

[@Noah1997callahan]

Take me back

[@jebidiahnewkedkracker1801]

Not sure what I found more fascinating---the actual video, or the weird "soundtrack". But, yeah, hailing from the Bay Area myself, I recognized a few spots. The shot of Candlestick Park sure brought back memories.

[@r.hill.2369]

that soundtrack had me checking in as well :)

[@james396]

Track list plox

[@richyp64]

I grew up in San Francisco and this brings back some wonderful memories. I'm absolutely horrified at the thought of what it has become.

[@AlfredsVisions]

I know what you mean. As Bob Dylan said "People going down to the ground Buildings going up to the sky". That was about NY but the same can be said of SF.

[@southerncross3638]

I grew up in San Bruno Ca in the 60s and 70s, and this video, brought back a lot of memories

[@benniebarrow348]

Wonderful film......Thanks!

[@MDOurMD]

I lived in San Francisco in the early 80s. It really is a wonderful, beautiful city.

[@benniebarrow348]

Maybe in some places it still resembles this beauty. But mostly it has become a victim of the "woke" mindset.

[@thejdgoodwin]

@@benniebarrow348 Bullshit.

[@chaliwen7217]

I was in grade school in 1965 my family living in Hunter Point Naval Shipyards SF. I was bused from base to Danial Webster School, a tall brick building and we had to pass a massive 100 yr old stockyard that really stunk. Heard ugly rumors about animal experiments on base. it was a very rough part of town. One morning, along the shipyard waterfront, there was a massive tide line of used syringes and medical waste. You could hear the crowd across the Bay singing the Star Spangled Banner at Candlestick Park on game nights.

[@tonyarioli3979]

I lived in Santa Clara County from 1957 through 1978; and can remember Bayshore being a four-lane highway with traffic lights at intersections from Embarcadero Rd., Palo Alto all the way to San Jose.

[@AlfredsVisions]

That's amazing. I can't imagine that.

[@bloqk16]

The sound effects was cleverly used in this video montage. I've seen it where other YT posters would dub-in music that seemed ill-fitting for the visuals, which detracted from the visual. But in this case, the dubbed-in audio worked very well.

[@Thomassina1]

When SF was clean, safe, and the skyline not yet built up, the old Cypress freeway (I think).

[@StanTheObserver-lo8rx]

The old Schwinn bicycles screamed 1968 era. Banana seats and sissy bars too.

[@Personoidal]

Love the soundtrack, it roll with the imagery

[@BlaineShaw-d8g]

BEST times to grow up in CA . Not anymore.

[@FrankRizzo804]

Thanks for posting this video. I remember watching the Pruneyard building go up as a kid from frequent family travels along Highway 17.

[@kookienutquacker8692]

I grew up in the Bay Area. A lot of it looked familiar and definitely recognized Candlestick Park and the Golden Gate Bridge. The old cars brought a smile to my face. I miss the old VW Bugs and the large tail fins on the Chevys. The soundtrack didn’t match unless you had birds chirping on your car radio! Thanks for the memories!

[@AlfredsVisions]

Yeah, the soundtrack was just a sound collage that I threw on instead of playing it silent or with the sound of a projector. It’s footage.

[@kookienutquacker8692]

@@AlfredsVisions Maybe music from the 60’s would have worked too since it was all taken from a vehicle. Either way, I enjoyed watching it. Those were definitely the ‘good old days’ to me. Thanks!

[@Lightw81]

​@@AlfredsVisions I liked the sound collage. Very imaginative.

[@dougsilva8603]

​@@AlfredsVisionsmusic sound not that great but really nice video

[@onazram1]

Love the busy sound track... Spotted some nice cars along the way!

[@mattgiguere5638]

Speed limit signs with reflecting dots with the black background....and construction zone signs with yellow background...Damm I'm old..Go East Bay. 1967❤

[@RebekahCurielAlessi]

Alfred that was great. Thanks. 🌁

[@celesteflores3296]

I loved it! Just like I remembered!

[@melvin151515]

This might as well be my home movies. Page Mill Road really got me. My dad would drop us at Foothills Park and let us ride down to the horse rental place before 280. Watching that guy on the ten speed really took me back.

[@AlfredsVisions]

I love that. That's why I wanted to post these clips. And of course you mean before 280 was built. The drive from Sunnyvale to the Santa Cruz Mountains would have taken us via 101 to 17 or Highway 9 to 17 and now there is the straight shot via 85 which wouldn't have been until what, the 90s?

[@JebidiahStillkrackingagain]

Great video😃 (Not too sure about the audio/"soundtrack" though.....That is whether I find it fascinating or frightening.)

[@platec4798]

There are no tent cities or homeless people in these old movies like there is today, littering our sidewalk. How far have we really come as a society? Plate C

[@AlfredsVisions]

Back in the day my dad could raise a family on a high school teaching salary and live in Sunnyvale. A house could be bought for 20k.

[@AlfredsVisions]

@Generic_Name_33 I understand that. I think the main thing is our social connection and back in the day there wasn't social media and one could feel very alone but the only solution was to get out and make a friend. The trouble now is the illusion of friends that we never even hang out with in person. Many things happen through video screens. In ways this means connection in other ways it means tuning out of the actual world around us. But every generation tends to think the last generation was better or that their own generation was better than the current. Things will change so much that when you are old you might be telling the young ones in your life that life was better when you were young. However, they didn't say Apocalypse Now for nothing about the 1960s.

[@AlfredsVisions]

@Generic_Name_33 I understand the worry. I usually feel hope that the young human being comes into the world fresh from nature or God and there is always something possible that might enter the world and mix things up for the good. My fear is "screen culture" and whether that might actually change the human brain genetically and create a future of sociopathic humans who have no way of knowing how to connect - connection not being built into society. I've only recently figured out ways to remove myself from too much screen time and I was born in a time we were told not to sit so close to the television.

[@benniebarrow348]

Sadly we have fallen as a society ........it's what we tolerate now. The lunatics are truly in charge of the asylum as the saying goes.

[@rudychavez4569]

Very little traffic compared to today. No one driving and texting? Amazing!

[@AlfredsVisions]

Something like and extra million in the area since that time. And just an old fashioned movie camera whirring away.

[@pyrotechnick420]

wonderful footage but that ambient track you used is the stuff of nightmares....

[@AlfredsVisions]

I chuckle at your comment. Maybe you are right. It's a separate piece of media. I figured I'd just put it up silent then decided to through it on. Didn't feel like doing some "When you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear flowers in your hair" kind of thing or "I left my heart..." etc. Thanks.

[@jamesborden4805]

At 7:20 you're looking at some $45,000 houses!!!😢😮

[@AlfredsVisions]

At a little further, at 8:10, the ranch-style one-story houses, my dad bought one for about $19,000 around 1960. It's all about the silicon industry.

[@rick3747]

I am almost 60. In the early 80s, my neighbor and I discovered hundrends of super 8 with great stuff on them including lots of 60s and 70s porn and homemade porn. Great times.

[@AlfredsVisions]

Exactly. Before video came out in the late 70s super 8 was it. In 1977 I had bought a b&w, silent three minute reel of a scene from Star Wars from Kmart of all places.

[@johnhawks5035]

Brilliant soundtrack!

[@chrisb.1214]

Looking to see if I would spot the Zodiac Killer.

[@mikesullivan542]

Well I didn't see me in any of that!!!

[@JohnShinn6078]

Trippy. 🤤

[@0159ralph]

San Francisco was normal back then.

[@joelfrombethlehem]

This home movie really needs to be cleaned up, picture stabilized, and perhaps bring it up to the 64K standard. A good rock music soundtrack would make this film shine, and sell it to Grateful Dead Productions with some Grateful Dead from 1968.

[@AlfredsVisions]

Good ideas but I kind of like the texture in the sound. I made the transfers myself with a machine I bought. It is limited. I leave the better transfers for when someone asks to license the footage.

[@Nativeraiin]

Love this! Do you have any footage of Mountain View?

[@AlfredsVisions]

I don't recall. Only from very far away, like from the hills of Palo Alto.

[@SoftStationMusic]

Great footage, and also I'm curious about the audio in this video. Very interesting stuff

[@AlfredsVisions]

Thanks, yeah, most comments people don't know what exactly to make of the audio. It's just a collage of sounds in the end, like a wash of sounds from various many sources at once including maybe radio signals from space, birds and the white noise of car radio static or distant traffic.

[@SoftStationMusic]

​@AlfredsVisions I was mainly curious if you produced it yourself for the video or not? Either way great video

[@fmphotooffice5513]

Nice video transfer. You can almost see the film grain and I couldn't detect video dropped frames. So many film transfers are blurry and compressed to death. Likely those master films are then thrown out.

[@AlfredsVisions]

I used a machine called a Wolverine to do the transfers myself.

[@herr_von_mann]

hey, I love your film, would you allow me to record some of my ambient compositions to it?

[@AlfredsVisions]

You'd like to use the image and put it to sound?

[@ccc4eva62]

Interesting, all the birds chirping in the background didn't make a lot of sense, especially when filming going down the highway.

[@AlfredsVisions]

eah, the soundtrack was just a sound collage that I threw on instead of playing it silent or with the sound of a projector. It’s footage. At the same time if you listen for them, you’ll usually hear a bird somewhere.

[@ccc4eva62]

@@AlfredsVisions No biggie, appreciate the video:)

[@AlfredsVisions]

That is Highway 17 looking north.

[@RN_BSN_PHN]

That's me on my bike. In front of store 1968.

[@AlfredsVisions]

That's pretty cool. I know that someone recognized their car on Mary Ave.

[@jamesborden4805]

You were an adult at 21 and your license was in B&W. TRUE. Also, BankAmericaCard had just premiered.

[@Gromitdog1]

Recognized a lot of half moon bay. Must have been fleet week with the blue angels.

[@scottbarrett4753]

Sub hunters, Air show out of Moffit Field. kids out in the yard the good old days. Thanks.

[@bobkitchin8346]

I love the dinosaurs in Scott's Valley. To bad you didn't have any movies of Santa's Village.

[@churchofpos2279]

I always wanted to go to both the dinosaur park and Santa's Village, we would beg our parents to stop, but we were too poor to afford to go there.. Those were magic times to grow up in the Bay Area in the 60's. Moved out of the Bay Area 20 years ago and finally left California last year.

[@bingdong8571]

Dude, is that a basketball gym mixed with a bird chirping for background noise? WTH? Anyway, i drive a lot of those roads everyday day and im kinda amazed how simalar everything looks.

[@AlfredsVisions]

You got it right. Basketball and skidding sounds with birds. Happens all the time.

[@dougsilva8603]

Really Nice old standard oil company of California San Francisco Gas Station

[@daryllect6659]

Remember the brown and cream Chevron stations? And Beacon? And Simas Brothers, with gas @.24.9?

[@bartonpercival3216]

Don't forget Atlantic Richfield gas stations and also Flying A gas stations!!!!! 👍🌉

[@debranchelowtone]

Super 8 was invented after 1965. If you apply stabilisation use the white hole on the left side as a target.

[@larrymalato3639]

Think I saw Charlie Manson's van

[@beachdog67]

Well, dang. You guys didn't stay in Santa Cruz long, did you?

[@AlfredsVisions]

I know just the quickest shots, but I like the old shot of the dinosaurs. Other than that most of the footage I have is from Santa Cruz mountains, Summit Road and the white deer up there by Madonna Park.

[@daryllect6659]

@@AlfredsVisions I thought that looked like highway 17! Boy, was Santa Cruz fun or what? The Big Dipper and the bumper cars, and the air guns and the electric trains in the glass enclosure, and The Plunge.

[@Bhakti-rider]

@@daryllect6659 Yes, the Fun House, with the tall slide you rode down on a gunny sack, and the ring toss at the merry-go-round... I think the ring toss has been brought back.

[@Bhakti-rider]

@@AlfredsVisions Yes, I noticed the brief glimpse of the dinosaurs in Scotts Valley; I remember them well. I saw Santa's Village come and go, but never went there.

[@daryllect6659]

@@Bhakti-rider I was bad. I have one of the rings ...

[@jimmyskyblue6057]

It’s like the start of an old cult movie. Brilliant 👍

[@dougsilva8603]

What kind of music is this supposed to be?

[@HayagitaranHayastan]

❤️✨

[@hom296]

Pruneyard Towers being built at 8:39

[@paolo-n2000]

Candlestick Park! Never should have torn that down! 49ers playing in that sh#thole Levi's Stadium is an abomination!

[@markrichmond2168]

The Stick was as cold as it gets. I was stationed for awhile at Hunters Point. Crap hole of the Bay Area.

[@comfeefort]

​@@markrichmond2168 😂😆🤣

[@gregh7457]

All the ole victorians were painted white including ours

[@charlesrobert6211]

What's with all the bird chirping?

[@AlfredsVisions]

Here in Sunnyvale there have been a lot of birds chirping, especially this one mockingbird, but I also wanted to just create a soundscape and contrast the valley which was developing big time in the last fifty years with the birds which have been here since they were dinosaurs.

[@panatypical]

Did you mix the bird chirping into the footage, or is that live sound?

[@dflf]

A very strange soundtrack

[@someguy4911]

The only thing missing were shots of Frontier Village. 😉

[@AlfredsVisions]

For that, you can check this video out - kzbin.info/www/bejne/oofXomdrd5l-hJo

[@someguy4911]

@@AlfredsVisions Awesome! I spent many of a childhood birthday there. Thank you for sharing.

[@carolyngrayber74]

My dad created Frontier Village and drove one of the amusement cars home one night I wasn’t born yet.

[@edwards8545]

At 0:45...What road is that?

[@bloqk16]

That's California Highway 17, somewhere between Los Gatos and Santa Cruz

[@danielvazquez8856]

Great footage. I do agree with the commenter how generations complain about the present and fondly recall their past as the best of times. No doubt this present will be remembered as wonderful by seniors in the 2050’s and 60’s.

[@rickytrux]

Yeah…..right! You must be joking….

[@dougsilva8603]

This is when kids could ride their bike at day and night and not have problems and cops didn't have to deal with shit

[@AlfredsVisions]

I would do just that - ride my bike till the sun went down.

[@billzigrang7005]

Really don't think that downdrafting a car on your bike (4:11) was such a good idea.

[@thejdgoodwin]

Things were a bit grungier back then. Roads were soaked in oil. I was a kid back then. I like it much better today.

[@advjoe2]

Has to be at least mid 70s. Watched a few minutes and seen a 70 Cadillac and about a 76 Olds wagon

[@JackWMatrix]

1970.

[@AlfredsVisions]

Could be but I doubt it. I don't think these super 8 films were shot any later than 1972. But cars are a good way to date films. I will have to check out that '76,

[@richardmorris7063]

I think the Caddy was a 69 could have been a 70. I didn't see any cars newer than that.

[@AlfredsVisions]

It's funny, people do seem to get baffled by the music and sound. I wanted it to almost be sort of like an unfiltered mental space. A wash of sounds from nature, the city, space perhaps, old car radios, passing dialogue, muffled sounds coming from beyond the walls mixing into dreams and memories. Didn't really matter to me whether it went with the images. The images speak for themselves.

[@pyrotechnick420]

You call it an "unfiltered mental space," while I prefer to call it, "schizophrenia inducing." I guess tomato tomahto 😆

[@AlfredsVisions]

@@pyrotechnick420 I thought the same thing. Schizophrenia is often described, at least for some and unfiltered mind.

[@MichaelHansenFUN]

filming those kids is illegal now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@AlfredsVisions]

You are probably right.

[@7flag]

Low traffic and population

[@davestewart2067]

Clean new smooth freeways. Although they canceled a good portion of their programmed routes. There should have been a N-S 101 freeway, and the 480 should have been completed. An E-W 80 to the ocean would have been icing on the cake.

[@jrriels963]

Great footage, but WHAT is that creepy soundtrack overlapping everything? It sounds like radio interference, the inside of a schizophrenic's brain, and maybe the Devil all on top of each other. Where did the sounds come from? I'm not talking s#!t, I'm genuinely curious to the creator of the vid.

[@AlfredsVisions]

The footage stands on its own silent. I just thought I’d throw on a sound collage rather than a nostalgic song or music. I think there is still a nostalgia but in a different way - bits of unclear voices and birds and ambiance.

[@Nutty_commenter]

​@@AlfredsVisionsyes, I enjoyed the background sounds. Gave it a haunting tho comforting feeling, like being a kid in the backseat with your parents up front.

[@ACDZ123]

Sounds like something the Beatles had lying around from number 9 number 9 number 9

[@pauldavidson1276]

cool, but are you brainwashing people with that soundtrack?

[@walthampton6700]

Duuuuuuudddeeeeee! Subliminal Pro-Custer forces at play here. Must be his proponents for the upcoming presidential nomination. Wait, what century is it?

[@dannyhood7433]

Jimi shows up in her dreams, Sounds like it really happend?. I remember women always find jimi atractive. I had huge posters of jimi back early eighties. The worst, but girls my age didnt say anyhing bad upon seeing jim hendrix. I had the good ones, We used to listen to B side in Nine to the universe after hours. But they were open minded. Although kids my age were starting to takk shit on jimi hendrix, anything sixties.

[@MichaelHansenFUN]

4:46 illegal now

[@AlfredsVisions]

I see what you mean. Nowadays you follow people with your camera and you are spying. I guess some of these are like pranks of today where you video someone from the window and maybe yell something out at them. They seem to know that are being filmed.

[@kcalb3180]

weird ass creepy audio.....

[@AlfredsVisions]

Thank you. I suppose it is something that stands on its own.

[@7flag]

Before libbys ruined it

[@dannyhood7433]

Libby's Libby's Libby's with their labels labels labels.

[@dougsilva8603]

Times were a whole lot better the San Francisco Bay area has gone to hell

[@ACDZ123]

Sodom and Gomorrah...