About two years ago, a friend told me their idea to shoot 30 seconds a day, every day for a year, as a type of “pulse of NYC” kind of experiment. (he was a commercial editor, so I imagine that’s where he got the 30 seconds, but it seemed like a decent enough length of time)
This year, I’ve decided to give it a shot. Not as a document of New York (especially since I’m so bi-coastal these days), but as a filmmaking exercise. I’ve set up a few self-imposed rules, too, though some of those might be broken as the year goes on.
- Each film is a single, 30-second take. No editing, post-production, extra sound or effects or anything.
- They don’t necessarily have anything to do with me personally, though I am obviously present and chose to film the scene for whatever reason. It’s not a video-blog of what I’m up to, just a capturing of 30 seconds somewhere each day.
- For the start, at least, I’m going to keep the camera locked; no panning or zooming. Find an interesting angle and see how the world enters and leaves the frame.
I’ll post each film the day after it was shot. New Year’s Day’s film will be up today, and so on.
A great deal of the 365 films may be dull. A few of them may be funny or amazing. Hopefully about two a month will be a learning exercise. And if I’m lucky, maybe 2 or 3 films will really be stunning. We’ll see.
