For my video essay, I decided to make a video about the dogs in the NYC. The reason for that is because New York’s dogs are as varied as its people, and their numbers can be just as telling. So, I thought it might be interesting to do some research on the dogs. After reading tons of articles, there was one saying that caught my eyes, “Downtown poodles. Uptown pit bulls. To understand the neighborhood, follow Fido.” The article says that the poodle has been considered as the fluffy stalwart of the Upper East Side, the pooch par excellence of fancy white-glove co-ops. They become part of the identity of a neighborhood, and their shifting numbers, rising or falling, can say much about its future. So, I decided to walk down the streets and find out whether or not the article was right.
I took about three days for walking around Manhattan to collect the footages and B-rolls, as I was filming the dogs, I also did the transition shot that I would use for the video, which turned out pretty well.
For the reading response to Visual Narrative Structure, I feel like it is actually talking about the plot diagram in the literature but using the video to demonstrate it. Neil Cohen mentioned that the peak is the most essential part of the narrative structure, which reminds me the climax of the literature. From my experiences and what I have been told, if a story doesn’t have a climax, it would never interested people and let them get involved. Also, by including the five narrative categories, Establisher, initial, Prolongation, Peak, and Release, would not just for the sake of integrity, but also helps the audiences to understand more easily.
