another experimental film? that’s right! you can watch To New York here: https://youtu.be/d36jmWRWins
the second I knew for certain I was going to NYU, my family planned a trip to go visit New York. I’d technically been there once before for an overnight layover before flying to Vermont, but not in a way that counted. I was so excited, and of course my camera stayed in my hand 24/7. however, I wanted to do something different, new, and exiciting on this trip. just taking photos was feeling stale to me at the moment. so I set the shutter speed to 1/50, and started rolling. I don’t remember the exact number of videos I took on the trip, but it was around 300. in the moment I was thrilled with myself, loving all the movement and energy the videos captured that photos couldn’t. I was thrilled with myself right up until I got home, uploaded them onto my computer, then stared blankly at the screen and wondered what in the world I was going to do with them. the subsequent result was making Have I Seen You Here Before? as a way to test out some of my ideas at a smaller scale, namely repetition of shots. I then edited To New York over the following three months, and finally decided it was “good enough” today.
I’m honestly not quite sure how I feel about the film as a whole. it’s intimidatingly long at just over twenty-four minutes, and in some ways feels like it ended up being a massive waste of my time. but I suspect like a haircut, I need to give it some time before I can truly appraise it. some moments feel golden, others haphazard, others just boring. if nothing else it serves as a decently pretty memento of the trip. I’d like to make similar films on my future travels, not with exactly the same direction but perhaps similar. one idea that calls to me is filming the clouds wherever I go, since no matter where you are in the world and how different the ground looks, clouds retain a remarkable constancy. and yet you never see the same cloud twice, not even for a second. I like that.