At first I began assembling my project in the same line as other Pittsburgh-centric videos. What this meant is that I tried to get shots of the city that made it look beautiful, clean, and neat. However, the more that I looked at the footage available to me, I discovered that there were other views of Pittsburgh that are not normally expressed. These types of videos, while showing the city in a less-than-perfect light, showcased character and spirit, more so than a lot of the production-heavy clips that I stumbled upon in my search for media. Many of them included scenes of the Carie Furnaces, the Almono Works and LTV site, and of Port Authority transit. I quickly discovered that there was a whole other paradigm for people, and that was one with an eye toward hidden beauty.
Piecing together the clips into something coherent was done with cross-dissolving transitions
between the scenes. It ends up giving the entire work a sense of connectivity throughout that loosely holds a narrative. I then inserted title cards every 3-5 clips to give a sense of direction and drive the viewer through the narrative that I have constructed.
The audio track was specifically chosen to give a distinct sense of calm and meditative reflection upon the imagery; the tempo is meant to match the same emotional state that I intended to bring out in the mixing of the clips. Sorting through the audio to find a track that achieved these goals was difficult, but I found a creative commons-licensed track that performed to my expectations.
After making these realizations, I was inspired to alter my video slightly. While the same intentions and methods were used to construct the project, my civic pride video attempts to show the city with those types of clips. It makes the city look scruffy in some ways, but I hoped to evoke a sense of personality and mystery that inspires a curiosity. I finished the project with a quote from H.G. Wells, which I felt was very appropriate. While Pittsburgh is an industrial city, it has charm and beauty, even in its less-polished spots.
