Making a video about Portland.

Background

Having known people that have gone to/lived in Portland, hearing people talk about Portlandia, and going there myself, I tried to kind of triangulate that understanding.  Most of the people that I know that go there talk about how cool it is without really saying why exactly.  People who watch Portlandia, a show I've seen a few times and one that doesn't really excite me, tend to say the same thing about the show, it's really cool, but without really saying why exactly.  Just that, "If you go there, you'd get it."

I've been there twice now and the only real difference I see is a climate that is a bit different than that of Chicago.  I don't check the temperature in the middle of winter there, but I know in October and in July it tends to rain a lot in Portland.  It's a different rain, though.  A rain that I really can't tell you exactly how it's different.  You'd just have to go there and see for yourself.

So, the focus of my video was just to point out how just how absurd Portland love is and I came to the realization that I went there for one reason - I love beer.  

Amassing the Media

When I was amassing my photos for the video, I found a lot of shots of beer that I presumably posted to some social network site.  I knew at that moment, I had to make that the focal point.  

The other two things that seem to be synonymous with Portland are the light rail system and the food trucks.  Since I had videos of them, I thought it would be nice to throw those into the video.  The rest of the shots were basically just shots from around town when I would spend the AM hours walking around town, talking to bums, and finding great coffee shops while my wife slept.  If I had the foresight, I would have taken photos of the forgotten Portland as that would've made a better narrative.  The people ravaged by heroin or crystal meth that ride the trains looking for spare change and something to eat.  That's not the Portland people "know and love."  

The music was easy.  Loretta Lynn and Jack White did a song a few years ago called Portland, Oregon.  I love the lyric, "Well I lost my heart it didn't take no time, But that ain't all. I lost my mind in Oregon." I think people honestly lose their minds there for a myriad of reasons.  Another line that I like is, "Next day we knew last night got drunk, But we loved enough for the both of us."  I think the whole "thing" of Portland is that people get drunk on it.  Like, it's a thing that you just need.  I definitely wanted my video to start with the beer pictures at that point in the song. The song also talks about a weird love affair that develops that is presumably kissed with alcohol lacking any kind of true feeling.  I think also works for people's "love" of Portland.

Plotting and Scheming

I started by plotting my pictures methodically.  I really don't like the "Ken Burns effect" on the photos, so I made sure to take all of those off, added a really easy dissolve, and made sure the timing was what it was to hit the different parts of the song.  The opening was perfect as the song slowly plods along until really taking off about a minute and a half in.  This made my video go a little longer than 4, but I wanted to keep that opening scene.  

The other video, the food truck sign, provided a nice separation between the sober and drunk parts of the video.  Albeit, "flipped" in that we ate at that place AFTER going to breweries with the idea of getting closer to sober.  

I outlined a script of what I wanted to say during the pics, but probably re-hashed it roughly 10 times.  Through my speaking parts, I wanted to show that Portland love is very shallow and without much real thought.  It's meant to be cynical and come of as a little flippant - from the beginning of the video in "Super Cool City" to the end where I play "Pretty Vacant" (again, an allusion to just how I feel about vapid nature of Portland Love) by the Sex Pistols.  The line, "And, we don't care" are my sentiments exactly about the place as I was there primarily for the beer - as almost every other person I met at the breweries was.  The only person I met that wasn't was a guy there to brew at Base Camp brewing.  He was from Idaho and brewed a beer I actually had for breakfast the morning I met him.  

If I had to do this again...

If I had to do it over again, I would probably go through the beers that I drank.  Maybe even throwing in some of the posts I made to Instagram or whatever.  I think I would add some bits from the actual homeless people that live near VooDoo donuts.  It's always funny to me as I watch roughly 50 tourists line up for overpriced and overdone donuts while a family is sleeping on the street corner by a dumpster.  These are the same people that claim to love Portland.  I think they like the idea of it.  

The trains are cool, though.  Really cool.

EDIT: Making the Video
To make the video, I used iMovie to put the pictures and clips together.  I recorded the audio clips using an iPhone and GarageBand.  The songs were probably illegally added.