Old formats
Words: Johnny von Einem
Pictures: Tyrone Ormsby
In 1995, tape was everything.
Cars had cassette players, homes had VHS, and Galactic DVD on Gawler place traded as Galactic Video.
A well-loved movie watched again and again would warp with age, the soft plastic cover of its case stretching a little more each time it was pulled open for a Friday night movie night or rainy weekend in.
The medium has moved on, a couple of times now, but there’s been no suitable replacement for the video rental shop.
Downstairs at Galactic, owner Stephen Vincent has steered the business from specialising in horror, sci-fi and Japanese animation, to broadening his range but now specialising in nostalgia.
Here you can sift through a plastic gallery of our contemporary culture and take a recommendation from a human rather than an algorithm.
Over 25 years, Stephen’s customers became regulars, regulars became friends.
The video shop was always more than the stock on its shelves; it’s movie-lovers’ communion.
