LCD SUN HOOD
I've been doing some more research on the LCD sun hood that was used on the prop. I know the hood came from an old camcorder, but I don't know the exact type of camcorder that it was from.
The LCD on the prop is 4" diagonally, so I know the camcorder it came from had to have a 4" LCD and that it had to have been manufactured prior to 1997. The most common camcorders from the mid-90's that featured large LCD screens with flip-up sun hoods were the Sharp ViewCam line of camcorders. But, I looked at every ViewCam I could find from that era, and the sun hoods don't look like the one used on the prop.
Next, I decided to look back through old issues of Videomaker magazines from the mid-90's to see if anything stood out to me that looked like the right type of LCD hood. I searched through digital scans of every issue of Videomaker magazine from 1993-1996, and I found a few leads that looked promising.
JVC released a camcorder in 1995 called the GR-SV3 that featured a 3" LCD screen with a flip-up sun hood. I found some photos of the camcorder, and it's sun hood looks quite similar to the one on the prop.
It's not identical, but it's the closest match I've been able to find. Unfortunately, this sun hood is for a 3" LCD. I need one for a 4" LCD.
Then, I came across an article from the December 1995 issue of Videomaker magazine about some new camcorders that were being released. One was a Hitachi camcorder with a 4" LCD and sun hood, and the other was a JVC camcorder with a 4" LCD (but no mention of a sun hood). The Hitachi model looked kind of similar, but I don't believe it's the same hood that was used on the prop. The JVC hood shown above still looks the most similar to me.
I decided to pursue the JVC camcorder with the 4" LCD, called the GR-SV7, as a likely candidate. After all, it was the successor to the GR-SV3 I mentioned above. I ended up coming across a Videomaker article in the August 1996 issue, specifically about the JVC GR-SV7. The article mentioned a notable feature of the SV7: It included a 4" LCD sun hood. But, it did not show any photos of the hood.
My hope was that because both the SV3 and the SV7 were JVC products, then perhaps the sun hoods would look similar. Which means that maybe the 4" version of the JVC sun hood would look more like the one used on the prop.
Unfortunately, this is where the trail went cold. I haven't been able to find a single photo of the JVC GR-SV7 sun hood to compare to the prop. There is nothing on eBay and from what I can see, there is virtually NO information available online about this camcorder in general. The only photos I've been able to find are a few promotional photos of the camcorder itself from 1995-1996.
