Fish Gotta Swim, Birds Gotta Fly, Man Gotta Sit and Wonder "Why?"

Ah, a finished product. I'm finally content with this piece. I went in and added more audio. I don't know why I didn't realize I had clips of birds before to add to the end. And I was also surprised to find that I didn't quite remember getting the other (louder) sound I added in near the end. I'm still trying to remember what it was I recorded. Also in terms of the video I added in a clip at the beginning that I think sets the tone nicely, a clip in the middle for a short breather and to give the movie some point of view, and a clip at the end that I think serves as I nice conclusion to the video. Really as a nice conclusion to my first year in Milwaukee as well.

Also, as an added treat I have made a map using google maps documenting where I went in this drift. I also made a google map documenting the locations of my other two drifts as well. My first drift I just collected audio and went here. My second drift I collected only video and went here. So now you can follow my path around the city and see all the things I saw.

Faster and Faster and Louder Than Bombs

This is my second attempt at my video. I think it's much better than the first. I added more audio, a clip of me banging on some metal box that I found. I think it helps drive the video forward very well. I also fixed the problem of the video dragging by speeding up the cycle of clips as they went along. But it's still missing something. The product still doesn't say enough to me. It doesn't tell me a story, it doesn't seem to have a perspective. I think part of the problem is that the audio (which does all start to build near the end) doesn't nearly build enough, and the calming ending of the peace doesn't seem nearly calm enough in contrast. Back to the drawing board.

Spinnin' Trees, Spinnin' City

This was my first attempt at creating the sense of motion I was describing. It's pretty simple, and I think conveys the sense of constant motion alright. But the audio isn't nearly as strong as the video. I took a bit of audio and matched it up to each kind of motion. It doesn't really drive the video the way I'd like it to. Also the video is just too long, it drags on in the middle.

Production Strategy

For my final walks through the city of Milwaukee before I sadly had to move away I decided to drift around my favorite places. My strategy was simple, take one walk where I would collect video for my project. Then the next day go out and walk that same route to get audio. From asking myself what was really important about my other two walks to me I found that what really struck me was the constant motion of everything. So I searched out ways to keep my camera moving, and sounds that captured that same feeling. It seemed to me that what the city really feared most was the lack of movement. Presumably because movement at all means some movement forward. I tried to explore this with my video.

Drift Reflection Four

Describe your favorite experience, situation, place, or recollection from either of your Drifts. Be specific about what happened, how you felt, how you reacted, and why you think this particular experience affected you so much.

I would tell you about my favorite place on the drift except that really my favorite experience is just the experience of being in constant motion. Being out there, doing something, looking for a different perspective, creating different soundscapes, creating new paths to walk along, just creating. That’s my favorite thing, how even when it slows down it doesn’t really slow down.

Drift Reflection Tres

Describe three surprises or unexpected situations you encountered on your Drifts and in the days that followed. The surprise could stem from your expectations that conflicted with "on the ground" realities, cultural or social issues of which you were previously unaware, feelings and reactions that you did not expect to have, appearances and soundings of things you did not expect, good or bad outcomes of "on the spot" decisions you had to make, or the discovery of "deeper" realities in the materials you brought home. (Again, skip anything technology-related!)

On my second drift I came up with the walking strategy to flip a coin at every intersection and heads I’d go right tails I’d go left. I expected this would be an interesting way to go all around the city. But the truth is that for a long time I was really just walking around in circles. You may not think it’s that likely but at some point you’re going to end up getting the same result again and again and you’re just going to have to keep turning left until you’re right back where you started. You don’t get a lot of material doing that.
On my third drift I started to realize how much good material you can get when you’re really looking. I took a lot of pictures and video in a very short amount of time and just kept going. In my final video I barely used any of it, but that’s not to say that it isn’t good material. It just wasn’t all part of the film that materialized. The other drifts at times I felt a bit frustrated at how much material I was able to find.
I think there are always deeper realities in the material people get. Especially when you send them out into the real world with a camera or microphone. There’s so much going on all the time that important messages can be found pretty easily. I found many deeper messages in my material. But wasn’t surprised to see that it wasn’t much that hadn’t been said before.

Drift Reflection Deux

Describe, with details, two situations during Drift 1 and/or 2 in which you felt unusually peaceful, at ease, or contemplative.

My second drift the entire time I felt at peace. I went out at day instead of at night, it was warm instead of snowing, I could listen to music instead of my own footsteps, and I got to take pictures. That’s a huge step up from my first drift. There was this one particular spot where I felt most at ease though. Walking down North Avenue I found this small wooded area with a soccer field next to a nursery. There were tons of birds around and the wind kept blowing the leaves up into the air and swirling them around. I stopped and sat in a tree for a long time before moving on. It wasn’t really productive, but it was contemplative.
On my third drift I went down near the lake and walked under a bridge to get there. I spent some time around the bridge looking for good pictures and sitting up on its ledges. I thought of great adventures like epic poems.

Drift Reflection Uno

1. Describe two situations that aggravated, bothered, shocked or otherwise stressed you during Drift 1 or 2.

When I went out on my second drift one of my strategies was to look for abandoned objects. This led me to realize just how much trash there is everywhere in this city. And I don’t just mean I noticed a surplus of trash cans I mean there is random papers and plastics discarded on every sidewalk, tons of broken glass, lazy boys sitting next to trees, and everything else you could imagine. I found two blue button up shirts buried beneath the dirt in the first five minutes of my walk. And not both buried in the same area, two separate incidents of finding a blue button up shirt buried in the dirt. And the discarded cigarette butts; even where ashtrays are readily available there are undoubtedly still cigarette butts laying all over the ground.
Another thing that bothered me occurred to me on my first drift. I went out and was walking around Oakland quite a bit. Oakland’s a pretty busy street so I expected a lot of noise of people. But most of my walk was pretty eerily quiet. I realized just how little movement happens in this city past dark. Compared to a lot of cities Milwaukee is surprisingly comfortable staying still. Which isn’t a bad thing, except when you’re trying to collect sound.