I wanted to try out some of the lip synch stuff, just to see how hard it’s gonna be for the Alan Alda animation. Results here.

Despite my opinions about Girl Talk, his remix of Peter Bjorn and John is just awesome. The rest of the show turned out alright. I thought it was a little to slow in the middle but you can’t beat the DFA remix of the Tiga track. Oh.. by the way, Breakwater was played just as [...]

Wireless Application Protocol
-> 1st generation: WAP gateway - handles translation between phone and http pages
-> WAP 2.0: WAP gateway (GW) resembles a typical proxy server, mainly to support WAP 1.1 devices. SHTML-MP (mobile profile) released by the WAP forum for mobile phones.
i-Mode: Data service started by NTT Docomo in Japan, 1999. CHTML used extensively in [...]

[Project Name Here]
mobile application for “downtime”
by Kate Bauer & Chris Paretti
[Project Name Here] is a mobile application that enables users to download content via txt (no internet required)
automatically to their mobile phone that can be accessed when the phone is out of range (subway, elevator.)
Concept
[Project Name Here] has evolved from the question of what to [...]

When we first met, we all quickly agreed on creating a music video for “Laptop A Go-Go,” by End (on Mike Patton’s Ipecac label).

In terms of the narrative, we decided to use the concept of American football, using the laptop as the object being thrown and sought after. I was especially pleased that we ended up with this physical idea where the four of us would all be performers, constantly running, falling, chasing and pushing each other. We listened to the music repeatedly and decided that the visual representation of the sound had to be fast-paced and constantly moving.

As for the storyboard, we weren’t sure how we’d accomplish this task. None of us can draw realistically, so we decided stick figures would do. It didn’t take much time to choose the location for the shoot- Central Park, of course! Both Rui and Chul hadn’t been there before.

In terms of the structure of the video, we followed cues in the music closely. Every time the verse stops and breaks into a spacey sound, the laptop is thrown in the air and caught by the next “player.” We had the distinct pleasure of meeting Segway Bill, a natural-born director who travels by segway that we met at the park on the day of the shoot. Bill enthusiastically offerred to let me ride his segway while I filmed Rui, Chul and Kyveli as they ran around the park. The video concludes with the four of us fighting over the laptop when suddenly Segway Bill rides by and steals it.

I’ve finally got infrared modulation to work. I was able to send a number from one arduino to the other using an infrared emitter and detector module. I’ve listed the parts, schematics, and the code.

IR transmitter IC, part number TX-IRHS from http://www.rentron.com
20MHz ceramic resonator with internal caps for transmitter IC from http://www.rentron.com
infrared LED. Rentron part [...]

sLop (the blog you are reading) is retiring.. The archives should stay up indefinitely though so feel free to continue linking in if you like.. In the coming weeks, I should have something new up. Please stay tuned….

Apparently, I must start thinking about thesis IMMEDIATELY. This scares me for a couple of reasons. First, Im not ready for ITP to be over. No, Im not being a sentimental asshole, there are certain things about this place that I will NOT miss, but change is difficult (I felt similar when undergrad was over) you get used to something and before you know it its over. Second, I am in conflict over what my thesis should be. I have several ideas, two of which actually make sense and could possibly happen and I dont know what to do.

I have been given a great opportunity (which is unfortunately somewhat confidential…perhaps that means I should not be blogging about it) to have full access to a user group and free mobile phones to do user test using freeFormed as a platform and generally be part of a larger and very interesting project. It is an amazing offer (one that I would probably be stupid for passing up) but then there is this other thing (and according to Clay Shirky, when you say that you have just defined your thesis). The other thing is much less concrete but involves asterisks and a networked objects project. So what do I do? I am scared to death of physical computing, but I am also determined to take Networked Objects next semester regardless of whether I use it for thesis or not. Sometimes you have to take yourself completely out of your comfort zone in order for interesting things to happen otherwise you just keep doing the same thing over and over.

I guess I have a month or two to figure it out. F#%king thesis.

Sunday, December 17 from 2 to 6pmMonday, December 18 from 5 to 9pmThanks to Andrew Schneider for producing the postcard and graphics this year. This event is free and open to the public. More information is available on the show website.

To start, I haven’t yet read Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail, but I have seen him speak on the subject. So to some degree this is informed by Mr. Anderson’s views, but if this feels like a chapter from the book, let me apologize in advance and claim independent invention.

The domain

As many of you probably are already aware, the ‘long tail’ refers to a section of the power law distribution which comes up in countless aspects of our world — very commonly specifically referring to media distribution, wherein a ‘chosen few’ make up a disproportionately large share of sales. The long tail is the huge number of items which each have a small number of sales. More specifically, the concept points to the fact that as modes of distribution change for largely technological reasons, the hits (think Britney and Star Wars) are becoming less important and indie pieces and cult classics out on the tail of the curve are selling more and becoming more relevant.

If you don’t believe this, go see Mr. Anderson speak, or I would presume that you could just read his book as well. You could also find a quick introduction to the topic on Wikipedia. I think it’s pretty clear that things are changing, and that most arguments on the topic will take place over the degree of change and its implications, not the presence thereof. Remember Tower Records?

Isn’t this great?!?

Rosy-eyed and inspired by the promise of a new world of our own creation, in the beginning I saw only the upsides to this trend. Isn’t it fantastic, I thought, now I can finally escape those lousy radio singles and hollow Hollywood action flicks and find media with real substance, something that really speaks to me. And if I can’t find it, I can always just roll my own.

No really, isn’t this great?!?

I still largely do think it’s great actually, particularly the user-generated aspects, but I’m starting to see a big potential cultural downside. As we have more choices across the board, that means a denser distribution along almost any axis of view: more hardcore punk, more Gelugpa chanting, more documentaries about peanut farming, you name it — just more.

Again, isn’t this great? Well, at first glance it is, at least through the idealist’s lens that would tell us that given all of this wide and varied information that we will graze across it, gobbling up wide and varied cross-section of opinions, knowledge, and inspiration.

But is that really what we will do?

When I listen, I only hear myself

Signs point to no. In online communities, I can’t see a lot of evidence that Air America fans are drifting over to Fox News or Ann Coulter for a little balance. They might, however, nominate their favorite liberal blog for an award. Or vice versa.

When we’re given an all we can eat information buffet, it seems that we tend to just stuff ourselves on the same old meat and potatoes we’re used to, while ignoring that wide diversity that brought us to the table in the first place. orgnet.com has an interesting piece called Political Books and Polarized Readers that analyzes the ‘also bought’ data from Amazon to show this effect in sharp relief.

But that’s all I care to hear

And so then, instead of just measuring our increasing engagement in a broadening scope of opportunities, the growth in the long tail is actually fueled in large part by a narrowing of individual focus. When we read, hear, or watch something we like or agree with, we can now hunt down more of the same, almost effortlessly. And few, if any, of us can resist the temptation of being told over and over again that we are absolutely and completely right.

So the tail grows and grows, as we snatch up long lost import singles and director’s cuts and books that express the same opinions as that last book we liked so much. And we are happy, but perhaps not fulfilled.

Now it’s all I can find at all

Throw in an effective recommendation system of the future and now you’ve really got a problem, not because it won’t work, but because it will. Given an infinitely long tail, you can find an infinite number of works that align with any narrow point of view (exaggeration to be sure, but within the scope of our media consumption capabilities, not excessively so). And how to browse an infinite catalog but through an innovative recommendation system? But then given that perfect system it will know that since I loved that Bill O’Reilly book so much that I must want nothing more than books by a selection of Bill O’Reilly clones. And I probably do — or at least I’ll gobble them up happily if that’s all I see.

But at least I know I’m right

With all of this confirmation of our viewpoints, what do we get but a polarized world where each side shares little but an adherence to our opinions that borders upon the religious? And think not of a two party system of disagreement, but of a hectagon where each side, though small, can be just as polarized and isolated from the rest.

The big three networks aren’t enough either

At least at some ranges of scale, the value of media as a whole grows with the number of options presented. Television is worth much more with two channels with one, and more still with ten channels or fifty. I believe that in an ideal world this trend has the chance to continue onward to infinity. It’s up to us as consumers and especially as technologists to attempt to continue to create and extract this added value.

There’s a world of information out there — use it. Not just to read a rehash of that same blog post you just read six times in theme and variations, but instead to truly expand your horizons. We all would do well to expose ourselves to the other side from time to time. In the worst case, we are better informed and prepared to discuss or argue for our side, and in the best case we might learn something truly profound that shifts our viewpoint entirely.

On the technologists’ side, Wikipedia comes to mind (as it so often does) as a good example of a structure that can encourage this kind of growth. Even ignoring the fact that it is user-generated, simply through diverse content and dense hyperlinking, I find it almost impossible to read about just one topic on any given visit, and often these journeys lead to surprisingly diverse content even after only a few links. Recommendation systems will need to be designed with these thoughts in mind and encourage us to learn, not just buy the same old comfortable materials and tired entertainment, while keeping enough comfort and familiarity to maintain market share and thus relevance. How about a reco system with a ‘how crazy are you feeling today?’ slider that lets you fine tune the amount of diversity that suits your current mood?

This is the end - this is only the beginning

I do believe that the exploding mass of content available online and otherwise is an inherently good thing at its core, but we need ways to manage it efficiently and most importantly we need to be of the mind to use it responsibly and effectively. Mental laziness disguised as a voracious appetite for learning (the same thing over and over again) is nothing strange in this new world, so let us not become victims of this masquerader.

Sorting by popularity so that the favorites of the group float to the top achieves little more than what the ‘old media’ has been doing for decades: letting the majority decide for the diverse minorities. Conversely, as collaborative filtering systems improve, there will be a point where increased absolute filtering performance will only serve to amplify the echo, as our individual past is projected forward to become our future, preventing us from growing and expanding mentally and philosophically. Between and along the edges of these regions lies a land of great need and opportunity.

Adam Simon and I have teamed up again to bring you this short animated film about the trials and tribulations of a stick man (and his stick dog) in a 3d world. Initial storyboard below.

confession: I totally lied to my advisor when he asked me how this term went. I told him I thought everything was fine and the work load was easy and problem free.

I didn’t want to tell him the truth because I was afraid he’d say I was stupid and should of never come here.

Newly elected muslim congressman Keith Ellison wants to be sworn in using the Koran instead of the Bible, for obvious reasons. This has caused quite the uproar in some circles.
From the Article:
“When all elected officials take their oaths of office with their hands on the very same book, they all affirm that some unifying value [...]

STFU is a short film by Adam Parrish, Adam Simon, Tom Jenkins, and me. It was a three week process from the concept and storyboarding to the shoot and edit. Among the crew, there was little experience producing video but we made the best of it. While there are (and were) problems (some obvious and some not), I think our little diddy has some replay value (if only to admire Tom’s brilliant character acting).

The concept was simple: document the plight of one dedicated ITP student in his struggle to find silence in an all too noisy world. Appropriately, we would open in the Japanese Room (a space which is supposed to be (relatively) quiet on the floor). Here, our graduate student would be diligently reading when rudely interrupted by annoying person tapping pen. Then he continues to move from one space to the next, never finding the silence he requires. Finally overcome, he is forced into an empty basement where he breaks-down screaming against the white cinderblock wall.

Once we began shooting, it became very clear how important the prep work actually is. We had completed a storyboard, shot-list and had done some location scouting but things still felt a bit haphazard struggling with the blow by blow while carting and setting up 100lbs of equipment around campus. Certainly, we would have benefited from an even more finely detailed plan of action.

We shot the film using two DV cameras. This was a huge advantage that in some ways mitigated for our lack of finely tuned planning. In the end, our six or seven hours of shooting yielded about 40 minutes of tape captured into Final Cut. Among the first problems we noticed was that some of the audio was buzzing due to a problem with our Beachtek XLR adapter (note to thoroughly test equipment before using all day). We also had some color issues between the two cameras but that proved to be easily corrected.

Although I had done some editing in an old (if archaic) version of Adobe Premiere, I found that enough was different in Final Cut Pro to make life difficult. Fortunately, Adam Simon had some FCP mojo which he graciously shared with us. Four people sitting around an editing session is a bit laughable, to be sure. The net result is often one or two people working and the others twiddling thumbs. I did, however, get a private moment with the project later that weekend to get acquainted with final cut and work on a scene.

When we watched our rough cut of the footage, the result was somewhat underwhelming. We had some nice shots but they didn’t always tie together the way that we had envisioned. The story wasn’t arching and building in a way which made you believe that our character was getting progressively more annoyed in each scene. It went from ho-hum to tearing out hair in the next moment. Having run out of time to shoot any more tape we had to get creative with some of the cuts. One of the more (dare I say) brilliant suggestions was that we make short cuts in the stairwell scene to reference the previous scenes. This helped reinforce our end-point and build the tempo.

Late that night, I tried scoring the finished cut to some music. Admittedly, this is a backward-ass way to do things but I was able to pull out a piece of string music (Two Star Orchestra) which worked amazing well. With only a few slight edits it fit just right into our timeline and definitely added some drama and continuity. In the end, I wasn’t sure that this improved the story but the team seemed okay with the addition and it stuck.

Enjoy!

the year: 2006
the concept: what does change/everyday objects(?) do when you’re not around
the future: now
If you want to see large sizes of the storyboard, here is a link to flickr.
For the lazy or uninterested:

The Idea

Background Information

These images and information are taken from Maushammer’s Apple iPod Remote Control Protocol site.

We’ve also relied on a previous ITP project, iChair.

Sensor Testing

Wiring and Soldering

Initially, we removed the green (data) and yellow (ground) wires from the remote and connected them to Arduino. Soon we realized that we couldn’t send information to the remote - it’s a one-way deal.

So the next step was to cut the wires and solder connections to them.

Hatti, Seamstress in Residence, Soldering Goddess

Problems in the Land of Solder

In Hatti’s words: “This whole week has involved soldering and resoldering. Turns out, hacking into commercial devices are terribly tricky. At first, we tried just hot glue-ing straight into the remote because there is some type of film on the surface connectors that repells the solder. That is to say, once you have completed the (perfect) solder, it pops right off of the surface. Using only the hot glue worked…THE DAY OF. Overnight, however, the glue, I’m assuming, had seeped under the wires, thus disrupting the continuity and disabling the switch.”
“It seemed as though I was trapped in a cycle of 1. solder for 8 hours, 2.have the ipod working 3.leave it overnight, 4.next day = not working… Finally, it occured to me to use fabric duct tape to cover the first solder (using an exacto knife to slide it perfectly over the boundaries of the two connectors) and then solder the second, and then immediately secure the positions with hot glue.”

Goodbye Arduino, Hello PIC

After days of trying to send serial data to the ipod via Arduino with no success, Tom suggested we try to use the PIC chip instead. At this point, Hatti spent most of her time soldering and resoldering and sewing the FSRs and the remote, and I threw myself into the world of PIC.

The Next Phase

Still no luck using the PIC chip, so we’ve order a female connector for the iPod from Sparkfun so we can see what serial data the iPod spits out. Should be here around the 15th….just after finals are done. Perfect.

Make a lighting system which augments pass-byers with a glowing trail. motion-trail (video, mov) lab notes | code | components | SMD | pcb-service | todo prototype video back to → pcomp …

I’ve defined a simple protocol for the lamps to communicate amongst themselves.

All commands start with the letter “L”, followed by another letter and a series of parameters. The code for parsing the commands is pretty reliable, I will post it shortly.

Read past the link for a list of the commands.

I’m going to be travelling for the next few days to present GSPS at Nordic Exceptional Trendshop in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The orb waits for no one however, and so I borrowed a melabs Serial PIC Programmer for the trip (thanks Christian).

I’m pleased to say that the programmer setup was effortless and problem-free, paired with an Iogear GUC232A USB-Serial converter. Along with the student (free) version of the Microchip C18 compiler, I’m fully set up for hotel room PIC development on the MacBook Pro.

Now it’s time to go stuff my soldering iron into my suitcase. See you all again from across the pond.

Spent a frustrating evening trying to get the Zigbee radios to work.

Update: There is a further solution to the problems described in this article. Basically, always send a “wakeup” character to the Zigbee before doing anything else, and set the guard time before a “+++” command to 1100 msec, not 1000.

The problem:

On one of my prototype boards, the Zigbee radio did not seem to be receiving commands from the Arduino, so it wasn’t getting the right network ID, or setting itself to transmit in broadcast mode.

I programmed the Zigbee on my “modem” board, which connects it directly to a USB adapter, but nothing doing. It was clearly receiving via wireless, and ouputing the received signal to the Arduino, which changed the display, but nothing coming back the other way.

I spent several hours trying different things, including an incorrectly connected 12V power supply which killed one of the AD5206 digital pots, and nearly killed an Arduino mini.

I had made a mistake, in that I had not set the Zigbees correctly to multicast by using the PAN ID FFFF. I had used FF instead. However, that did not fix everything - one Zigbee still did not work.

What turned out to be problem? One of the Zigbees is defective, probably as a result of bad soldering by myself. It works fine as a “modem”, but simply refuses to accept input from the Arduino mini. Two other Zigbee radios are working fine.

I uploaded the receive protocol software to two of the working prototype boards, and tried sending various lighting commands to them, which worked fine.

Of course, now I am behind: I still need to port over the sensor code & the state machine from the midterm, and physically assemble the lamps.

Working with Neilson on this one. Storyboard for as-yet untitled animation.

The photograph of Alan Alda that we plan to use is here. It’s just a really good photograph of Alan Alda.

- Continued construction using the perfboard/shrink tubing sensor package and finished two shoe prototypes
- User Test - Patricia (using foamboard prototype + Korg synth module)
- Felt that more sensitivity was needed. She found it difficult to trigger the samples without stomping really hard
- Didn’t like bass drum on the heel; felt it would be more natural on the front
- Cannot tell where the sensor is — perception is that it is close to the center of the shoe
- Feels the system is more responsive with the 10k resistor than with the 2k
- Could play either sitting or standing
- Would like to play along with some other music

So the other day one of my good friends told me that reading my blog makers her depressed. She says my blog entries are suicidal, too dark and make her feel sad. So here is a blog post for you Jenny Lee. Yesterday I woke up and the first thing I notice…

STEFAN G. BUCHER : 344 DESIGN : DAILY MONSTER one of my favorite designers/illustrators draws a monster for you daily. you get to watch from above in video blog format - gives you a rare perspective into the craft….

Argh. What a frustrating environment Macromedia Flash is! It has no conventions in common with video editing or page design. I feel like I am poking around blindly in the dark.

Anyway, my first try at something is here:

http://itp.nyu.edu/~gpv206/comm-lab/CommLab1.html

We have something like three or four weeks until the end of the semester. I’ve been working to assemble my project portfolio for Spatial Design. As I flipped through all of the pictures and notes I’ve taken, I started feeling unsure of how to organize all of it into a neat package. How do I sum up “me” or what “I” have to offer?

I started out searching for other ITP Spatial Design portfolios and ended up discovering e-Portfolios. I managed to restrain myself before diving headlong into the world of personal content management systems. There is something about information storing, sorting, searching, and organization that grabs my attention. As I was preparing to start classes at ITP I gave my then “old” (meaning several months) wikidpad system a shake for Evernote. I tried out GoBinder, Windows Journal, and most recently OneNote. This has almost been an obsession for me. How do I store the information I collect each day. How do I organize it so I can find it again. How do I display it so others can get a sense of what I’ve been doing?

if it’s made in china, then it should go back - right? apparently, the EPA believes this. our trash (computers, radios, tv’s, and lots of techno trash) is being exported to Asia.
where else can it go? what else can we do with it? an organization in NYC, Per Scholas offers one solution - [...]

Flickr announced (about seven days ago….i’m a little behind) that there mobile site is now live, FINALLY! Flickr had a mobile site url for a while, but it seemed to only work with ‘old school’ users (although I never saw evidence that it actually worked because I don’t know anyone with an oldschool login). I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m pretty excited about this. Yay! Thats all.

Creating a comic strip was a lot harder than I had anticipated. You have to come up with a story, figure out how to fit it in a few cells, get the point across, draw nicely, and keep the characters consistant. Also, after creating each strip I came to realize that what I [...]

MICROPHONE FEEDBACK

Feedback is created when a signal travels in a loop from an amplifier’s output back into its input. The amp amplifies the signal from the microphone and sends it to the speaker. The microphone then picks up its own signal and sends it again to the amp, causing feedback.

Pitch of the microphone can be affected by altering the tone and by placing the microphone in a container. Placing a mic in a container changes the acoustic resonating frequency of the air surrounding the microphone. The pitch will oscillate at one of the harmonics of that frequency.

I’ve decided to place a number of contact mics in a container… to be continued.

MAKING PICKUPS or PIEZOS or CONTACT MICS

Options when hooking up multiple pickups to one single output:

1. Serial Wiring- output of one piezo becomes the input of the next. All pickups forming links in a single ciruit running from the hot lead to the ground.

2. Parallel Wiring- hot wires from each piezo are soldered to a single hot output wire, and ground wires from each piezo are soldered to a single output ground.

(insert sketch)

Impedance is an issue when wiring multiple piezos. Here’s a link to a simple explanation of impedance I found online: http://www.electronics-tutorials.com/basics/impedance.htm

In serial wiring, impedance will be cumulative (sum of the impedances of all of the individual piezos).

In parallel wiring, impedance divides instead of adding up. For example, two identical piezos will present half the impedance of a single piezo; three will present a third, etc..

Piezo impedance levels are extremely high to begin with, therefore, parallel wiring is more suitable for piezos since the cumulative impedance in serial wiring can quickly become unmanageably high. Another conflict may arise in a parallel circuit as the signal strength from each piezo will diminish as the number of piezos increases.

Suggestions:
-keep cable from pickups to mixer short (more wire = more noise)
-shield wire as much as possible (if you want to avoid extra noise)

SIGNAL PATH FROM PICKUP to AIR

Signal from pickup/microphone (mic level) ‡ pre-amplifier boosts signal (line level) ‡ power amplifier boosts signal to level sufficient to drive speakers

Three basic types of signals to be concerned with:
1. Signal strength
2. Impedence level
3. Signal type – balanced or unbalanced

Initial brainstorm initiated by questions by Tom Igoe

What kind of instrument would you make? Oscillators

What quality of sounds do you want? Oscillating, harmonic & harsh.

What kinds of rhythms? Option for speeding up and slowing down (polyrhythm would be great.

What types of motion best lend themselves to those qualities? Turning knobs, pounding on table

Alternately, what forms of movement are you interested in making music from? jumping up and down, side to side, swinging arms

What musical forms do they suggest? Oscillating, rhythmic, staccato, smooth

When you look at the movement you’re interested in, what parts of it map to musical
qualities? Landing on floor, getting closer to the ceiling—maybe if you can touch the ceiling it makes a noise??

What controls the pitch? How high I jump
What controls the rhythms? Where I land on the floor
What controls the dynamic range? preset

What’s the most interesting part of it to you? That the viewer can feel the cables hanging and can hear their skin brushing up against the contact mics.

Can you describe the quality of motion in the hallway that you find intriguing? Slow, pushing through the cables that hang like wiry, dead tree.

Can you describe the quality of sounds you see reflecting that movement? Yes. Scratchy. Different types of pitches.

It’s Christmas Time…all the time!!!

Mr. Turkey goes into Starbucks and sees that it’s already Christmas time. He thought November was his month! But, if Starbucks brings out the red cups, it must be Christmas time - who is he to argue?

He purchases a Gingerbread Latte for $4.73 and heads home, determined to get into the holiday spirit. On the way home, Mr. Turkey runs into his friend Ms. Witch and tells her that it’s Christmas time — Starbucks say so! The two of them return to Mr. Turkey’s house and prepare themselves for the holidays.

The next day, Ms. Witch goes to Starbucks and gets her Peppermint Mocha with red sprinkles. On her way to work, she runs in to the Statue of Liberty. Lady Liberty is shocked at Ms. Witch’s new appearance and inquires what prompted this drastic change. Ms. Witch explains that it’s Christmas - haven’t you seen the red cups at Starbucks?

So Lady Liberty makes her holiday preparations. The next day, she goes to Starbucks to get her Eggnog Latte and sees the Easter Bunny on the way. She explains to the Easter Bunny that it’s Christmas already - duh! The Easter Bunny, not wanting to be a Scrooge, rushes home to hang the mistletoe and ready herself for holiday festivities.

The Easter Bunny –> leprechaun –> dead presidents –> Martin Luther King, Jr.

Soon, all the holiday figures are wearing red and green all year long. Christmas has officially taken over, all thanks to Starbucks.

Here is my long-delayed video assignment for Comm Lab, I made it with Jack Aboutboul and it is called “Quest for Pastrami”.

Find it here: http://villamil.org/movies/pastrami.mov

It was all shot in my neighborhood, features the now-defunct Second Ave. Deli and Katz Deli, and of course, a pastrami sandwich.

The story is simple: searching for a pastrami sandwich on the Lower East Side. The Second Ave. Deli is now closed, so we have to go down to Katz Deli on Houston St., passing a variety of different ethnic restaurants and food shops on the way.

The music is mostly from the Klezmatics and the Amsterdam Klezmer band, and contributes pretty much all of the emotional impact of the piece.

I shot in HDV with a Sony A1J and used an Audio-Technica 835ST mike. Edit in Vegas Video 7.0, which now works *very* well with HDV, practically realtime. I only added a slight S-shaped color curve, in addition to the Cinegamma that the camera applies.

There were only two of us - no additional camera person. Given that constraint, it looks OK.