Through Annie’s video portrait, the different emotions Annie goes through upon her arrival to New York are expressed. The video starts off with fragmented clips of New York with the sound of heartbeat. This was to portray her excitement yet fear she feels as she moves from Vancouver for the first time to New York. By overlapping different videos and images of New York as she walks, I wanted the audience to feel the same overwhelmed state and confusion Annie feels about the city. By reversing the video around 1:13, I wanted to represent the fact that she sometimes feels as if she is going in a wrong direction while everyone else seems to know where they are going. In addition, by splitting and having two clips at once on one screen, it creates more confusion to the video which shows the turmoil she feels in this unfamiliar environment. In the Times Square scene, the switches from the zoomed out video to the closed up video and the shifts from the muffled noise to a loud annoying city noise show the lonesomeness she feels in New York.
During the 5 days of creative dating with Annie, I remember talking about how we both like to sing and to take time to be lost in thoughts when showering. Due to this, I incorporated the sound of water drops in come parts of the video to symbolize that although she is constantly surrounded by people in New York, she feels lonely as if she is alone in the shower where she often finds herself lost in deep thought.
The most challenging part when making this video was constructing the transitions from one part of the video to the next. By having moments of just black screen, I intended to illustrate the emotion of turmoil by creating dramatic pauses between each emotions. However, I was worried that the pauses would make the video seem choppy. Despite the challenges, I am proud of how I overlapped the videos to show that the city can be overwhelming and confusing.
