Last week I took a trip to New York City to visit New York University. Over the four days I was there, I toured NYU, explored the UN, went to the 9/11 memorial, saw Occupy Wall Street, visited the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and was in NYC for the earliest snow fall in 40 years.
To say that my trip was well-documented is an understatement. The videos and pictures I took amount to over 100 gigabytes! With this large amount of media to work with, I planned to make at least two music videos and possibly a photography series.
Last year a picture I edited in Photoshop recieved Best in Show in Photography at the Avon Lake Reflections Art Contest. This year I am looking to expand into the Film/Video Production category. "Diversity means" is this year's Reflections theme. New York City is one of the most diverse cities in America, so it was the perfect place to get footage for my Reflection videos.
The first video I made focuses on Occupy Wall Street and the people of New York City. The video is set to a song that few people have heard. The song is off the double album
G.O.O.D. Morning, G.O.O.D. Night by Malik Yusef. Yusef started out as a Chicago poet, who has taken the roles of a spoken word artist, musician, actor and most recently film producer.
G.O.O.D. Morning, G.O.O.D. Night was released in 2009, but never hit major music stores, iTunes or even Amazon. Currently the only place it can be found is Ebay and even then there are at most a handful of CDs listed for purchase.
Despite its limited release, the albums are in my opinion far superior to most current music. The music conveys a range of messages and is lyrically strong. After listening to a song or two, it will become obvious that the songs were wrote by a poet; every word is thought out and placed for a reason. G.O.O.D. Morning, G.O.O.D. Night is a blend of several music genres and each album has a unique tone.
The concept of the reflective double CD displayed Protagonist vs. Antagonist/Lower Self vs. Higher Self, exhibiting the poet’s struggle between his internal dualities.
-Last FM
The Yusef song I chose for my first NYC video was "Promise Land". The song features Kanye West and Adam Levine (from Maroon 5). "Promise Land" was featured on Obama's 2008 Campaign CD
Yes We Can: Voices of a Grassroots Movement. Levine sings the chorus which is a plea to government official to do what they said they would do and for them to make America the "promise land" that it has been hyped up to be.
I need you to
Take us to the promise land
Don’t just make us promises
It’s too late to let go of our hand
There has been confusion name-wise.
Promise Land is the name of Yusef's song.
The Promise Land is the name of my video.
The Promise Land was shot in first person. With the changing moods of the song, the video switches between black & white and color. Mixed media (video and photography) was used to create the feeling of flipping through a stack of photos.
I made use of my mom's DSLR camera on the trip. It has the ability to take panoramic photos. In this video and the next one, you will see numerous sweeping panoramic shots that really capture the scale of things and the whole New York atmosphere.
At the start of
The Promise Land, the "viewer" travels to and arrives in New York City. The beginning of the music video focuses more on the atmosphere created in NYC by the existance of people rather than the people themselves.
As the video progresses, the siloutte of a person walking through New York is seen numerous times. This creates the feeling of following someone who is on a quest and allows for some mystery as to who the person is.
Sweeping panoramic videos and photos signal the arrival at Occupy Wall Street. The next minute or so is a beat-set slideshow of OWS. Photos range from tents and signs, to the shirts demonstators were screenprinting on the sidewalk.
Footage from walking on a crowded sidewalk was rewound to give the appearance of backing away from OWS. The next video clip is a bit disjointed. When the Nor'easter hit NYC, it started as rain then changed to snow to rain to sleet to snow. We were down at Pier 17 in South Street Seaport when it got bad.
I was outside looking over the balconies at the snow-filled Brooklyn Bridge and New York skyline, and then I heard a "thud". I looked down to find out that a middle-aged man had slipped in the slush. Before I could go down the steps to help, people walking by stopped and assisted the man. So I quickly got out my video camera and taped the now 5-6 good Sumatrans lifting the man up and guiding him indoors.
The video ends with a mix of photos and videos of New Yorkers.
