To Wait

I started a new video about a week ago. It is moving slowly. In part this is due to the fact that I am slowing down part of the video A LOT and then exporting that and slowing it down again, blah blah halb. And the other reason I attribute it to (besides having a million and one things going on right now, this video and Paris are only two of the many) is building a relationship with the video. It is about - get ready, this is new - perception. There is this waiting, this expectation, this subdued, controlled frenzy of anticipation. Then after the event the people scatter; there is a chaotic exodus. Basically I have been playing with cutting between the two, using two channels, changing speeds to introduce certain characters ... I think all three of them will come into play.



When I started this video, I wanted it to be a "quick-video" - you know, one of those that I make to make things happen, one of those that I haven't been able to make in over a year. Well, obviously this isn't going to be one of those.
I find something magical in this waiting that we are all so familiar with. The wait that leads to the let down, to the anticlimax. Children are notorious for embracing that wait. They don't even seem to notice it. The new toy, the new movie, the new episode, the new whatever. It happens, you see it, you buy it. And then, it is just over. The amazing part is that it doesn't bother them; thankfully, they still have yet to understand this particular type of loss.

Many of the adult situations of waiting are different (yet, I find similarities in weddings, graduations, and the like, but we will save that discussion for when I get my PhD in cultural practices and performance ... ha ha ha.). Perhaps with the anticipated flight (you know, the one to Paris) I am thinking more and more about my travel experiences: waiting just to wait some more. You wait to check-in, to wait to go through security, to wait to sit at the gate, to wait to board, to wait to sit on the plane, to wait for a drink or snack or movie or to use your approved electronic device, to wait to land, to wait to de-board, to wait to get your luggage, to wait to ...

Now that I think about it, I guess it is really the same as all the others, but there isn't a "celebrated" event around any of that waiting. Your anticipation is all about the arrival, and on the way to the arrival you have different stages of waiting. But it is that arrival that is key - because that is when everything changes.

Back to the topic at hand. Slow video.