Some closing thoughts about the films: asking for a complete, editing film was definitely a major leap with respect to the single shots we'd been discussing all week: there are so many more issues to consider, namely the order of the shots (where to begin, where to end), the relative pace of the film, and the transition between shots. One of the most wonderful and difficult things is that editing allows various footage, often shot hours of days apart, to appear together into a new whole. Below are some general points to consider, along with which area few good examples from last year.

1. You're making a film, not a slideshow: these are entirely different things! All week we've been building up to the idea of making a film, using a simple range of shots (fixed, scrolling, etc..) and attention to sound. In the final effort, many abandoned these simple techniques in favor of compressing huge segments of the trip into 90 seconds- not the best strategy. Further, the juxtaposition of still and moving images is technically hard to accomplish and extremely unusual. The next time you see a documentary by Ken Burns, notice how he animates historical footage by moving the camera over the still images.

2. What is the theme behind the film? The danger with slideshows is that they try to cover too much of what we've seen. 90 seconds is not a long time to compress Shuxiao's 2,000 images (400 good ones)! Look for a theme which might help you be more selective about which sites or landscape aspects you want to show, and the type of visual techniques used in documenting these sites. Among the most thematically focused here are Christian and Vincent's exploration of graffiti, Rebecca's exploration of seating, and Vartan's focus on the Freedom Tower. I'm enclosing an example from Amy (landscape) and Nathan (architecture), who similarly chose to focus their film on a single topic, namely the presence of restrictive signage in all the landscapes visited. This means that all week these guys were focused on getting similar kinds of footage, rather than approaching every site from a different perspective.

3. Do more with less: Pam and Sarah's beautiful film about the Noguchi Museum courtyard is a great example of creative restraint: notice how the camera is always still in every shot, always zoomed in on details of Noguchi's sculptures, which helps take attention away from form and towards textures. In addition, the entire film is shot at a single location, which makes for tight theme and much more consistent lighting. One of the best films last year, Anni and Jeremy's (both architecture) also chose to focus on a single site, Bryant Park:

4. Focus on technique: Kate did a good job exploring landscape scrolls throughout, and Kamila's strongest scenes are simple, still shots of water surfaces, is another good example: that turtle swimming in the water of the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens may be the single best shot this past week. Here's a way that the earliest technique we discussed, the image grid, can be turned into cinematically animated (by Meghan and Yannick):

https://vimeo.com/66930449


5. Shot framing: I have never seen a film in my life that alternates between vertically framed views and horizontally framed views: this is simply a product of only relying on your photos being put into a slideshow: again, this is not a film. The entire film should be framed in the same direction: this could be vertically-framed or even upside down for all that I care, but it's got to be consistent. Again, I would commend Pam/Sarah , Derek and Kamila (chasing the same tutrle), Vartan  (centering the Freedom Tower in the frame each time) and others for realy thinking about how a scene is framed by the camera. Just because something is "in  the frame" someplace mean that the resulting image will be effective.

6. Pacing: you're telling a story; where do you begin? where do you end? How does it unfold? Another argument against the slideshows is the lack of pace, since every image is usually given the exact same amount of time on the screen. Work more carefully to establish cadence throughout.

7. Be more careful with the use of sound: Be careful with using outside source materials like music against overpowering the images themselves. Music tracks allow you to  bridge over different shots, but they threaten to turn your film into a music video. Sarah's brother did a great job in scoring the piece, Kate does great work in pacing the film to the music, and Kamila does rely on some sound clips as well throughout her film. In all, this suggests that people were generally far more visually focused than they were sonically focused on their environment.

mh

Today was the last day of our 7 Days New York, and after a tough bicycle day, surprisingly I felt pretty good and even elated this morning. Kun and I went to the Lincoln Center Plaza early and we got a coffee in Starbucks. Before all of us got together, we had a quick look around the plaza. The buildings were really gorgeous and the plaza itself was exquisite. Standing under the trees on the side of the plaza, I could figure out that there were several curves on the ground. The edges of the pool and the bench were relative and in similar form which looked very cogent. Moved forwards to the other side of the road beside the plaza, we got a extremely different view from the south side. The height of the plaza was not same with the road beside it which was not very obvious if we stood in the plaza. I loved this trick which created a kind of totally different and incoherent scene in a limited site. As for me, it’s a surprise walking in a city.

Then we went forwards and crossed the Central Park. Kun had never gone to the Metropolis Museum of Art, but I did. So we had a really nice visit in it. The most favorite work for me is the sunflower of Van Gogh which attracted me to such a degree. Actually Van Gogh is my most favorites artist all over the world. We spent much time in the gallery of him, also about Monet. The water lily of Monet was also amazing and unbelievable. I couldn’t understand how he completed such color and picture. They are real master of art for me.

After a quick lunch in front of the Museum, we went to Queen and visited the Noguchi Museum. Indeed, Noguchi is one of my most favorites landscape architect other than Peter Waker. Not only for some landscape and sculpture, what he had done was to create a kind of artistic conceptions which were very peaceful and meditative. I had to say when I stepped into his yard in the museum, all the details told me that he was a Japanese, cuz all the elements were modern and quaint enough. I believed there was no boundary in art and I believed all of us, no matter western people or Asian, could get the feelings of artists.

And then, it was the end of our course. We had finished all at the spots and Kun and I had to move to the Port Authority Bus Terminal quickly for our greyhound. However, It would not get over. We would come back to Syracuse and then continue on the work of 7DAYS NYC.

This week was the best week I had ever spent in United States. Since this is my first visit to New York City. Everything looks so exciting here. Everything started and ended so quickly. Just like the 7 days here. During this 7 days, the most impressive thing was the waterfront landscapes. I visited each island in NYC by chance: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queen, Long Island, Governor Island, Staten Island, Roosevelt Island and even New Jersey.

We visited many waterfront landscape along rivers. For example, The Eastern River Esplanade, Hudson River Waterfront Park, Roosevelt Memorial Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park and etc. Inner there islands we also visited many water-related landscape such as 9/11 Memorial Park, Paley Park, and some sculpture and devices.

Based on these experience, I want to make a video to narrate the water-related landscapes during these 7 days. They are represent in deferent scales but their logics connected to each other in some degrees.

The video begin with the roof garden in Metropolitan Museum of Art. And then move to a lovely sculpture in The Noguchi Museum in Long Island City. The falling water related to the fall in Paley Park, which has a larger scale. Then 9/11 Memorial Park rescale it. These water falling down to the ground and go back to the rivers. They accompany with us during the ferry trip to Roosevelt Island, Governor Island and Staten Island.  

What gives a city its power? What makes New York City the ‘spot’ to be in terms of metropolitan areas? What does the tagger SKINS mean when he writes “feel the city breathing”? 

The answers to these questions are all based on a beauty intangible; the wonder of New York City and the ambiance that cascades onto surrounding areas lies in the expression the people in the city make clear to others. Be the expression art, design work, physical appearance, music, obvious or subtle, modern or historical, each contribution is a significant part of the experience of the city. Each person carries their own individual perspective on the city’s expression, but also is important to recognize that tangible expression in New York means to anonymously join a nameless power.

Our video seeks to provide for the viewer the experience of our perspective (the eye of a tagger) of New York City, while emphasizing the fact that any expression in the city, while it may be traced back to a certain person, firm, or group, is essentially just a cog in a seamlessly complex system of expression. Graffiti is merely a channel with which a person can join the force of New York City.

You may notice that our video doesn’t specifically label sites. Place in our video is not a priority, in fact, the ubiquity of graffiti in the video only strengthens the power of the city it embodies (although the pictures shown are grouped by their location).

We separate our last blog into two parts, the first one we selected seven photos to represent the most impressed moment of that day.

Like the first day, we were very interested in human activities, so we picked the one that record everyone’s motion in Roosevelt Four Freedom Park. The second day, we selected the one we took at Pier 45’s skateboard playground. We are fascinate about how human activity could interact with a staged manmade landscape. The third day’s focus transferred from activity to view, we used a pure view photo without people’s interruption. This photo took from Gantry State Park, one theme for this park is about the trace of industry age. So from this image, we want to create a scenario that we use our sight to observe the metropolis through the heritage of industry age. The fourth day is open day, we went to MoMA, but unfortunately the garden was closed, so we could only see the garden through big curtain wall. Using this photo, we merged both human activity and landscape, although we could not get access to the garden, people still use their own way to get connection with the garden. There were people who standing near the window glaring at the garden, there were also people passing by just having a glimpse of the garden and so on. The next day, we chose to observe Brooklyn Bridge Park in a static way, the high skyscraper as background, they are standing still, but all the ships passing by and give the whole frame dynamic. The sixth day, we went to plant trees. We were having fun, so we are just presenting one moment of our working. Last day, we use the photo took from the roof garden of Metropolitan Museum as end. Through this image we want to claim that how close landscape to us and how intimate we could be with landscape. From the scope of the glass wall, it gives us a feeling that human activity and landscape’s relationship is like mirror, both of them could see and affect each other.

Except for photo gallery, in the end of our blog, we put a video. The first time you saw it may feel a little bit confusing, the sound and frame are not match. That’s our little design. In this video, we separated the sound and frames. We try to test what it will look like if we put a sound in a frame that is not the same scenario. We are curious to know what kind of effect it will create, maybe weird and unable to understand, but we hope that it’s novelty and miracle. Sound could remind people of activity and different from frame sound could give unlimited imagination to us. When we hear the sound of flowing water and the whisper of window passing by trees, a beauty scenario will appear in front of us. But when the image in your imagination is different from what you see with your eyes, how will you deal with it? We think it’s a very enjoyable shot. Hope you enjoy it too.

Days and nights reflects on people differently, hereby I attach my experience and part of memory here to share with everyone has the interest to know what these 7 days provided me.

In the video clip I made, I state the five projects I favor the most in flashback sequence, from May 18 to May 12, the time we started the trip. Noguchi Museum started the presentation of my interpretation on contemporary landscape in NYC. The meaning in architecture and landscape emphasis the empathy on me stronger. In retrospective, the moment we were on the rooftop of Metropolitan Museum of  Art, the scenery of whole uptown east side were in front of my eyesight with the bright sunnight and dazzled me to understand the beauty of NYC. I've been to Metropolitan Museum for several times but it really excited me. What was more exciting was the moment we went to Floyd Bennett Field at Gateway National Recreation Area. I had never known we can stand on the land of Brooklyn to see the panoramic view of Manhattan, JFK airport and New Jersey. In addition, It would be rare we can ride a bicycle on the airplane passway. The shore really distanced us from the metropolitan and gave us a break to enjoy the summer light and wind. 

On Tuesday we went to this interesting project in Brooklyn, Grange Organic Range Rooftop Farm. The concept of urban farm has been widely spread to the public eyes, however, this intention of this project extents not only to sustainable agriculture and be friendly to environment, but also becomes feasible to make profit, which no doubt would promote the idea and method to more adaptable locations. Parley Park was seen in the first of our trip, while for me, I've been there for couple times, as the inevitable spot to subway station when in the midtown area. With the hundred people sunbathe in the area, the fountain vitalize the place, and children chase each other around it.

As all these are my interpretation of the goodness taken place during the trip in NYC, and with the melody of Happy guitar song, I would like to pass on the memory further and enjoy this moment.

IT IS DELIRIOUS NEW YORK!!! (AS MY LAST IMAGE STATED )

7 days over 51 miles more than 2000 images around 400 good ones

        For the final film, we want to talk about the relationship between the person's activity and the landscape in New York City. When people mention the New York City, they will always talk about the skyscrapers, the busy traffic, the dirty streets and etc. The landscapes which are survived in this environment have such different characteristics with others. Some have done a change in elevation, some rebuild the original field and some have attractive and delicate detail in really tiny space. Each park has its unique way to solve the problem it faced. Actually, all the problems thelandscape have matter the people's activities. According person’s activity and what they really need in this area, the landscape architect design these parks. On the other hand, the creation have influenced person’s activity. It’s the process of impacting on each other.


      At the beginning of the video, we show a clip of the Green Roof of Metropolitan Museum. It is a roof garden at the top of Metropolitan. From the video, we can see people are having a rest, chatting or watching the whole view of Manhattan. The roof have been taken full advantage of. It’s the success for the city, and also the success for the designer. The designer noticed that people in the museum really need a place to have a rest and touch the environment at the same time. However, the fact is no more land resource for the museum. The roof become the best choice. This garden is carpeted with the “grass”, making people feel free to sit and enjoy the garden, even forget that we are on one building’s top. And it has become true. We think it’s really a good example to explain the relationship between the landscape and the person’s activities. The activity chooses the landscape, and the landscape influences the activity.

      Central Park is the second part for our video. Central Park is indeed the most famous one in the New York City. It’s like a lungs for the city, remit the heat island effect and improve the environment around. Actually, people just hope to keep a green space for the busy city at the very beginning. However, it has played a more important role than the hope. As time passed, more and more interesting design were added to this park. The activities happened in this huge area become more colorful and various. And people really enjoy in it. It is not only a park now, but also a place to keep the important memory (you can see a couple were taking wedding photos), a place to have the family time, a place to do social and a place to do sports.

      It seems to have been a mixture of activities which are all hold in this large area.

      Teardrop Park is the most impressive one. Although it is a small park among the residence, but it is so useful and fit the environment well. In this park, the designer use elevation changing to separate the space and make the park more interesting and private. The people who live beside love to go there is most point. Second is the material it had chosen. It seems be rough, however the “rough” makes the park to be one part of the environment and close to the human at the same time. We really have a happy time there, playing the slide, chatting on the wooden stairs and watching the child playing in the sand poor. All these are fresh evidence for this park which consider the relationship between the activity and the landscape.

      The Floyd Bennett Field is the most special one. It once was an important New York City airport, part of Gateway National Recreation Area. But now it has been rebuilt to a park for people to do sports, know the history and other outdoors. The park provide the wide space, leading to the activities. The square in front of the museum is another example to explain the different landscape leads to different activities.

      This course is really good, teaching us so much about the landscape. The knowledge is so useful and fresh. It must will help us in the architecture field in the future.

Almost every day this past week Pam and I would wake up in the dark, drive the empty roads to the train station as the sun was rising, and sit in a quiet train car half asleep, exhausted from the previous days activities. From 4:30 AM to 8:00 AM our day was quiet and slow, and then when the train doors opened onto the platform at Penn Station there would be an explosion of movement and sound. Morning commuters rushing off to work and the swarm of tourists swallowed us up and we were whisked away with the crowed. It was quite the jump, going from something so steady and unchanging to the flux of city life, and it was often overwhelming. Moving from site to site, it was hard to take everything in. Listening to the designers talk about their designs, we got a sense of how much we were missing when there was no one there to explain: the conditions that led to each decision and the solutions that came with every problem. Some of the best moments on the trip where when all these choices were made clear, when the little details suddenly didn’t seem so little after all. I was repeatedly caught wondering how often these details went unappreciated and how often they made a space the success it was. Because sometimes the draw of a place is easy to understand: there is a singular attraction, an identifiable subject, something you go to see or experience. But other times, while a space may be designed for a certain purpose or activity, it is not the action that keeps people coming back, but the atmosphere that is created by all the pieces coming together to make a whole. I think our final day had a little bit of both of these situations. Standing on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was obviously what we were supposed to be looking at. The space was clearly designed, but for most of the people there it might as well have been a bare roof. The panoramic view of Manhattan and the treetops of Central Park had enough value to eclipse everything else. Our final stop however, took more effort to appreciate. Tired from that day’s walk, I wasn’t in the right mind to appreciate what I was seeing. Noguchi’s work seemed too abstract at first glance. From a distance they were just oddly shaped rocks. But after looking closer at the beautiful textures created on the surface of the stone, and stopping to think about the time and effort that went into each work, I was able to get a better understanding and appreciation of the work.

So in making the video for our final post, the focus was on this idea of hidden elements, on what isn’t immediately or readily discernable. The video consists of zoomed-in views of several of Isamu Noguchi’s sculptures. The scale, as well as the video overlay from one of Noguchi’s other sculptures, takes the sculptures out of context and allows you to appreciate the subtle differences in texture and the beauty and precision of the craft.

Stills:                                                                          
This Tortured Earth, 1943                                                   
Cloud, 1958-1959
The Bow, 1970-1973
Childhood, 1970

Video Overlay:
The Well, 1982

*original music by Patrick Hoagland

http://www.noguchi.org/

After the last day of this course, I got more time to look at the materials I got and also have a chance to review other people’s work. I found many photos I really like and when looking at videos again, they remind me of the site we went.

After viewing those, I found an element I feel interested in the which is wind. It is invisible but through other medias it can show its own shape just at the certain moments. The media could be sunlight, plant, plastic or water and a lot of things. It can be really calm and you don't even notice it or it could be gentle or strong. The interactivity between wind and its media can vary and give the landscape different atmospheres.

I think wind is a consideration not only should be thought about when making a decision of which plant could be used considering the weather situation of the site, but also could be considered as an element to make the site more attractive and lively. It is not stable but full of changes. I think design with changes over seasons or even days can be very attractive. 

In the video above, the first shot was taken when we were on the cable car to Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park. Through the glass window of the cable car, the video captured how the surrounding trees look. Through the tree, we can see the wind is almost invisible at that moment.

The second shot was taken in central park. I love turtles and they look so relaxed in the sunshine. The plant by water is moving with the wind. It is slowly and calming.

Third shot was taken in botanical garden when it was rainy. It was quite windy by that time. The willow was moving with the wind so was the water.

The fourth shot was taken in Socrates Art Park. The plastic stripes shows the movement of wind very well at the same time creating sound.

The last video was taken in the Noguchi Museum. It is in the garden, the weather was very good and the shadow of the trees was on the wall of the garden. It was quiet and comforting.

The music I use as background is ‘the path of wind’ from movie ‘My Neighbor Totoro’ created by Miyazaki Hayao.

Hope you enjoy and like the video!