Coffee In the City: Commentary

The five posts I looked at:

Charismatic Coffee,

Wet Your Whistles,

CHAIN VS. PLAIN,

America May Run on Dunkin but NY Runs on Coffee,

and

Starbucks v. The Sensuous Bean

all used video to give viewers a taste (no pun intended!) of the coffee scene in New York City, specifically that around the Macaulay building. Each video had their pros and cons, things they did well and things that could have been improved, that inform how I would create and present a video on any topic.

Charismatic Coffee

This video had a lot of good footage of the interior of a few different coffee shops in the area, and it was a great length. While there were a few captions, and some speaking throughout the footage, the video could have used some more narration/voice over information or captioning so the viewer really understood how they came to the conclusion mentioned in the summary of their video.

Wet Your Whistles

This was one of my favorite projects on the whole site. The video was short and entertaining, there was a lot of great Q&A, and the viewer gets a great insight into Starbucks. The one thing this video could’ve used was a more engaging topic – everyone knows about Starbucks, so if they had examined some change or conflict revolving around this store or chain, there would’ve been more incentive for someone to view the video in the first place.

CHAIN VS. PLAIN

Like the first project i mentioned, this video had a lot of great footage, and not enough commentary. The video was however, much longer. On the one hand, this is great because it gives the viewer a more comprehensive look at the subject matter. On the other hand, the length could be a deterrent in terms of viewership – there isn’t really enough to keep the viewer interested for 8 minutes. To improve this, more engaging commentary could be added or the video could be further edited.

America May Run on Dunkin but NY Runs on Coffee

This, like Wet your Whistles, had a lot of great Q&A, was short and sweet and to the point, and unlike Wet your Whistles, examined the differences between coffee shops in the area. The best video of the bunch!

Starbucks v. The Sensuous Bean

Like some of the previously mentioned videos, this had a lot of interesting Q&A. It examined the difference between Starbucks and a mom-and-pop coffee shop, though it seemed to being with a clear bias toward the latter. Since the video was not presented as unbiased, this was fine (though perhaps a more impartial examination of this conflict would have been more informative). The people-watching section at the beginning of the video really pulled me in, though I believe the interview with Joe could’ve been edited further to keep the viewer more engaged. Overall, a great video.

-Kaitlyn O’Hagan, Hunter College

Commentary

Andrew Salimian- City College

I like the project, “Indian Burial Grounds Under Lincoln Center?” Although I was disappointed that they could not find any evidence, I found the topic very interesting. Also, since Lincoln Center is so close to the Macaulay building, I found the topic somewhat “close to home.” What this group did well was post a complete video with a fair deal of editing done.

I also liked the project, “CUNY Timeline,” because it utilized web tools. In this case, the tool that was used was Dipity. What I found most interesting about Dipity was the different interfaces that can be used to view the events. I thought the timeline view and the map views were the most important, and I would love to see a timeline with much more data sometime in the future. What I was mad about was that they listed the creation of City College as 1948, the date of its name change and not the date of its founding.

The post, “The Battle of the Brews” captured what I feel is an cornerstone of New York culture, coffee. In recent years, the explosion of Starbucks has led to a coffee shop on what seems to be every corner. If in the movies that take place in New York, there is at least one scene shot of the protagonist in Starbucks or with Starbucks in hand. The video was uploaded as a QuickTime mp4, which I thought was interesting. The video also had a expert degree of video editing and the creators interviewed locals, which is important for our final projects.

I liked the project, “The Empire Hotel.” I felt the group took a very classy approach. They managed to get inside a large amount of the hotel and provided a large deal of historical and informational research about the hotel. I noticed that the sound quality is not great on the flip cams, so the group decided to just have captions and display the video set to music. As an architecture student, I liked the juxtaposition in the hotel of what the group said was a modernistic design motif shared with Lincoln center and what appeared to be the original art deco floors. The video was also posted with Vimeo, which seems to be a little more user friendly than YouTube. I will definitely consider using this video format on my website.

The last project that I would like to mention is the project, “A Walk along Broadway.” This project merged videos edited with iMovie that were posted on YouTube with Google Maps. It was interested to see each video experience in terms of its location. This just added an extra layer of context. I wonder if you could merge these videos with a timeline such as the one in “CUNY Timeline.”

LaGuardia High School

Laurita Abreu, Baruch
Alina Pavlova, Baruch
Kristin Jones, Hunter
Peter Panousopoulos, Baruch

1) What did you do?
We explored the drama and instrumental departments at LaGuardia High School as well as interviewed CTE Head and AP of Theatre, Brad Vincent.

2) Why did you choose it?
We figured that’s it’s a place inside of the neighborhood that nobody has done yet. We also wanted to give a little tour of one of the country’s most prestigious high schools.

3) What did you learn?
We learn a little of what each department does to educate their children. We also about the severe lack of educational funding the school receives.

Check it out!

Window Displays of Columbus Ave

View Window Displays of Columbus Ave in a larger map

Dylan Moloney (Lehman)
Rachel Furr (Lehman)
Annette Paciorek (Hunter)

We videotaped window displays in various stores along Columbus Avenue, then created a map on GoogleMaps and linked videos of the window fronts to their locations on the map.

We stopped in Thomas Drugs to buy batteries for our flipcam, noticed their pretty window display, and decided to look for other interesting window displays nearby.

We learned how create a map on GoogleMaps, save our own points, and embed YouTube videos onto them.

Alice Tully Hall

For our project, we looked at Alice Tully Hall, because we thought its chamber music concerts were interesting. We learned that musical venues can be busy even when there is no music. Watch the video and all will become clear.

Matt Rippert, Ze’ev Landau, Chloe Wendell – Queens College

The City Is Their Catwalk!

Project By: Amira Hassan, Kimberly Charnovesky, Andrea Cella, Nuwan Panditaratne-CSI.

1. What did you do?
For our project, we walked around the streets of NYC and areas surrounding 67th street paying close attention to how Fashion and style can be found everywhere. We entered different stores, attempted to interview people who work there to try and get their take on how fashion impacts the people of New York.

2. Why did you choose it?
There is no question that Fashion sense is an important characteristic of many New Yorkers. It is a form of self expression and gives a sense of belonging and identity.

3. What did you learn?
What we learned is that New Yorkers might just be the most fashionable people on the planet 😀 !

Wet Your Whistles

Kate McQuater, Bhanu Seth, Miz Ahmed, Jasmine Varughese: Brooklyn

Alex Mozeak: Hunter

1) We headed straight to Starbucks! What better place for tired students to get a pick-me-up so close to campus?

We explored the reasons for choosing Starbucks over other coffee franchises.
What Starbucks does for the neighborhood.
Of course, we sampled the goods!

2) We chose Starbucks because of the proximity to the building. It seems to be a place that is incredibly convenient for students.

3) We learned that Starbucks equals Heaven.

🙂

The Macaulay Starbucks Escapade from Alex Mozeak on Vimeo.

To Eat or Not to Eat…

To Eat or Not to Eat (Click here to watch our Video)

Three Questions:

1) We decided to create a documentary-type short film about two neighbors who have different eating habits and which choice is the better one.

2) Eating right is an important issue worldwide and some people neglect the fact that some foods if consumed in large quantities or too much will result if malignant consequences.

3) We learned that there is a broad variety of foods and that food is prevalent everywhere and it is a necessity in life although certain foods may be better than others.

By:

Dan Carabas( Baruch College),

Jonathan You (Baruch College),

Regina Fojas (Queens College),

Sandra Chiu (Baruch College).

CUNY Timeline

History of the Macaulay Honors College on Dipity.

1) What did you do?
We used dipity to make a timeline of the Macaulay Honors College.

2) Why did you choose it?
Since most groups were making videos, we wanted to do something different.

3) What did you learn?
We learned about dipity as well as the history of all the honors colleges.

Christine Berrios
Angelia Fuller
Hunter College

MAC-aulay vs PC

We created a video skit highlighting the benefits of Macintosh operating system compared to the Windows operating system. The video was shot on location at the Apple Store at Broadway and W67^th Street.

We chose to highlight the Apple store because the Macs are an integral part of the lives of Macaulay students. The Apple Store is one of the newest and most dominant additions to the West 67^th Street Business District.

We learnt that people are not willing to be recorded on camera and that you cannot film any Apple Store employee. And if we work as group, we can come up with many interesting ideas. We learned that it is important to carefully plan out the project before we jump into it. We helped each other to know the applications better such as iMovie and Garageband.

Mohammed Alvi – City College

Hyeondo ‘Luke’ Hwang – City College

Deboleena Kanjilal – City College

Madeeha Khalid – City College

Erhnan Posluk – City College

Ahsan Sayed – City College

Nazana Weeks – City College