BACKYARD STARS SHINE BRIGHTEST

Wanda and Charles Seyer's grandchildren love to watch home movies of their parents, the Seyers' children, as youngsters. Laughter is inevitable.

"They tease them about the clothes that they wore," Wanda Seyer said. "It's just unbelievable to them sometimes. They get a big kick out of it."

Those same young people who are laughing at their parents' childhood antics are likely in store for much of the same treatment when they're grown. Like millions of youngsters across the country, their birthdays, activities and achievements are being recorded with camcorders.

In the last 10 years, the making of home movies has become an everyday activity in countless backyards across the country. Bulky video recorders and hot, glaring bulbs have given way to light-sensitive camcorders, some the size of the palm, making the recording of home movies easier than ever.

However, it's not the explosion of technology in the world of home videos that excites Laura and John Robinson of Jackson. It's the ability to capture -- with a light-weight machine and the push of a button -- their 16-month-old daughter's first steps, her giggles, her amazement at day-to-day discoveries.

"One day when she was taking a bath she was giggling and laughing and I got the camcorder," said Laura Robinson. "We've got that cute little footage of her playing in the tub."

When Ashley Dawn took her first steps, Robinson recalled, "I said, `Get the camcorder.'"

"I think she will enjoy looking at those pictures," Robinson said. "I think of my own life and remember things that would have been fun to see."

Laura Robinson's father recorded many of those candid moments of childhood with still photographs, an effort for which she is grateful. "I have hundreds of pictures of me," she chuckled.

Yet, there's something about the added dimensions of movement and sound available through a camcorder that add spark to the recorded memories, many camcorder users profess.

In home movies, time and distance lose their power.

"The distance between me and my kids is extreme in any direction," said Pat McCarty of Cape Girardeau.

"Sure, we can talk on the telephone," McCarty continued, but simply by slipping a home video into the VCR, "there they are, I can see them."

While camcorders are extremely popular among families, their use is not limited to reunions, barbecues and the like.

Southeast Missouri State University student Ken Keesee of Piedmont has been tinkering with camcorders since his high school days. Keesee, who graduated in December and will attend law school this fall, also enjoys filming what he laughingly calls "goofy" shots.

"I made a two-hour movie out of all the footage of myself and a friend through high school and through college," Keesee said. "One time we hooked the camcorder underneath the vehicle," Keesee laughed. "Our best shots came from filming spur-of-the-moment things."

An English and philosophy major, Keesee has an interest in movie-making techniques and camera positioning. Particularly in older films, he said, "sometimes it's not just the plot and the story line that make the movies great, it's the way the footage is shot. The angle that you shoot a movie can convey just as much meaning as the work."

Experimentation can be equally interesting with easy-to-use camcorders, he contends.

"Whenever I have a free day," Keesee said, "I throw it in the back of the car and go, sort of like a photographer carries his camera around."

The Seyers of Cape Girardeau, likewise, enjoy impromptu shots. "We just use it for everything," Wanda Seyer said. Members of the local square dancing group called the Promenaires, the Seyers sometimes record their group's performances and weekly gatherings.

Though they've been shooting home movies for many years, the ease with which the new camcorders work is a big plus, Seyer said. "All you have to do is just pick it up and turn it on," she noted.

But making home movies was not always so simple. Fact is, it was once a daunting task.

McCarty likens an early 1970s version of today's camcorders as "heavy as a log jam." Plus, the equipment came in three separate pieces.

Weight is not the only aspect of camcorders that has lessened in the last decade.

"The first combination units (camcorders) had a sale price of about $1,700," said Scott Shivelbine of Shivelbine's Music Store. "You can get camcorders now for $500 on up.

"There are three basic formats," he explained -- the full-size VHS, the VHS-C, and the eight millimeter.

The smaller size VHS-C and eight millimeter cameras control over 50 percent of the national market, Shivelbine said.

By the late 1980s, prices had dropped to the $1,000 range and camcorders became hot-ticket items.

"With anything like this, you get an explosion," Shivelbine said. Televisions, microwave ovens, VCRs, and, more recently, compact disc players went through similar selling phases.

"In electronics," said Shivelbine, "there's a theory called 10 percent market penetration. Once you get 10 percent of the market, then everybody says `We want one too.'"

With more camcorders in homes, comes the need for places to have them repaired.

"Camcorders are extremely delicate," explained Frank Bagbey of West Side Camera. "Most people don't maintain or take care of them correctly," he said, noting that "a little, tiny piece of hair or lent can cause very poor recording."

Selling used camcorders and servicing the units are part of his business.

"The big thing coming now are color viewfinders," he said. Some units already sport the feature.

While electronic technology clicks along at a frenetic pace, camcorders, like computers, are updated continually.

Shivelbine said most consumers find deciding which format to go with, the most confusing aspect of purchasing a camcorder.

"When you're videotaping your precious moments of life, you want a reliable piece of machinery," he advised.

Likewise, Bagbey said, the quality of tape used should be a primary consideration. To help ensure those special memories are visible for future generations, high quality videotape should be used, he said.

And for many, the memories recorded are precious.

"They're priceless to us," Seyer said of many of her family's home movies.

The Robinsons agree. They are careful to include themselves in the tapes. "We want Ashley to see both of us in these pictures," Laura Robinson noted. Plus, she said, "Our dog, Cocoa, is in a lot of them."

"Cocoa used to be the star of the show before Ashley came along," she added, chuckling. "All the pictures of Cocoa are of her running away from the camera; all of Ashley are of her running toward the camera."