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Contents
- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
- Section 1: Pre-colonial to Post-revolution (1500 – 1790)
- Section 2: Revolution to New Metropolis (1790-1860)
- Section 3: From New Metropolis to the Industrial City (1860 – 1940)
- Section 4: Food and the global city (1940 – present)
- Ch 15: Conclusions
- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
- Support for Authors
Admin Links
Finding the video story
Hi all:
Many of the ideas you’ve posted here could work well as short videos and it looks like a lot of you are thinking stylistically, which is good. Do you want to make a cooking show, a documentary, a “journalistic investigation” of a particular object, a “video letter” to city politicians, or maybe a really short thriller called “Hunter: The Cafeteria!” Any of these formats can work and you’ll probably be most comfortable with a style that you know and like (i.e. if you always listen to NPR or Ira Glass you might want to take a simple storytelling approach or perhaps you are a really awesome rapper and want to make an educational music video: http://www.northeastern.edu/edtech/links/biology_rap)
Whichever style you choose, however, you’ll need to decide what the main point, or thesis, is for your video and this is primarily a writing exercise. Those in the video groups should meet and write out a short script or storyboard. Once you have a short script, it’s time to think of the footage you’ll need. Can you find footage online? Or are you going to film it yourself? Will you need a voice-over or a soundtrack?
Remember, your video is part of an overall presentation of your research and should accompany your poster and talk. I think the best advice for the video is to keep it simple. Try to convey one or two ideas that elaborate on the chapter you have created. A simple investigation of a day in the life of a soda can or Hunter cafeteria salad could be very revealing.
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Video idea
Hi all:
I’m glad to see your video ideas collect here– they sound good. Don’t forget that Jesse and I have office hours (Karen, Mondays; Jesse, Wednesdays) if you want to talk about the posters or video. Also, please make sure to sign up for your presentations (see the first post in Video Support for the link.)
– Karen
Video Idea: Pictures and Menus
So there’s not a lot of media on food production from 1790-1860, but museums and libraries have paintings, drawings, and other pictures that we could probably utilize for our video. I’ve even seen restaurant menus from the mid 1800s in Gastropolis and some blog sites that showcase some popular meals that New Yorkers were eating during this time. I have a feeling that our subject is going to be very text, chart, and map-oriented, so it’d be nice to fit in some of these images as well.
Video Idea: Food Network, Industrial Era-style
For a video idea, I was thinking maybe we can use the format of a sort of cooking show, or something like Food Network’s “Diners, Dives, and Drive-Ins.” In particular for chapter 10, since our focus is on the Industrial Era, we can create a Food Network-inspired episode as if we were currently living in the Industrial Era. For example, in “Diners,” the host visits places around the country that have a certain dish or cuisine that is worth being featured for the episode. We can make up a fake restaurant from the Industrial era, and throughout the episode we can tie in the partifular features of Industrial era-foods somehow, i.e. expansion, refrigeration, etc. Yeah, I did a lot of Food Network viewing this weekend–can you tell? Sorry for being kind of vague.
Video Ideas: The Lenape
So, our group might run into some problems seeing as how multimedia (in terms of video) is difficult to find with regard to the Native Americans living in New York City during the 17th Century, and the Europeans when they first arrived. Does anyone have any ideas as to what we might be able to film? The main thing I have in mind is a visit to the Museum of the American Indian, or the Museum of the City of New York.
-Shadi Ali
Possibly Helpful Article
The article “While Warning About Fat, U.S. Pushes Cheese Sales” by Michael Moss of the New York Times shows the results of a conflict between sustaining the U.S. economy and promoting the health of residents. I thought it might be helpful for people doing dairy or policy related things in their video or chapter, and interesting for people that like cheese- or those that are concerned about mildly scary things their taxes can do.
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Video Idea: Transportation
From 19th century to present time, various technologies for transporting food were used to distribute food in and out of the city. For the video, we can include pictures of all the technologies we discussed in our papers so the audience may see actual representations of the modes of food transportation the modes of food transportation used throughout the this time period. The pictures can be placed in chronological order in a slideshow fashion so people can see the transformations from using one technology to another. We can also include tables to show the popularity of using a certain technology over another. Maps may be included to show the geography of where/ how far technologies traveled as more efficient modes of food transportation emerged.
This sounds pretty boring but other than using visuals, I can’t think of another idea to better present the types of technologies used to transport food… any suggestions??
Video Idea: Tracing Policy Through Food
For the presentation on food and agricultural policies, I was thinking that we could trace one food product (or meal, although one product would be easier to follow) from its production to consumption, noting along the way all of the legislation and government agencies that have a hand in ensuring its quality. In order to incorporate the agricultural policies, the product would have to contain some form of a grain, fruit or vegetable. Something like frozen pizza should work sell–the vegetables in the sauce, the dough, the toppings, we should be able to follow all of it through from beginning to end. This way, at least, we could show how the policies are enacted today. The poster and our presentation could cover the more historical aspects of it.
I know that food safety policy is extremely convoluted, and I have a feeling that this video would drive some of that confusion home.
Video Idea: The Modern Supermarket
Between supermarkets such as Whole Foods and C-Town (each occupying its own end of the affordability scale) and open air markets, the modern New Yorker may seem to have many food choices; however, the contents of our diet are determined largely by foods made available by modern production techniques. A video interviewing shoppers on their knowledge of the origins on their food, contrasted with historical data and diagrams found in our research will be an interesting way to educate viewers about modern food production techniques and how they affect their lives.
Class Distinctions
My idea is to focus on class distinctions within the urban marketplaces from 1790-1860 (Chapter 6).
I think the video would be exciting and move quite well by contrasting the poor v. the wealthy in a few ways:
1. The lavish Oyster Cellars v. the all-you-can-eat oyster bars
2. The wealthy afforded nicer cuts of meat than the poor
3. The experience at the market (as far as even market assistants doing your shopping for you…if you were wealthy v. waking up at the crack of dawn, if you were poor, to try and get fruit that wasn’t rotten, i.e.)
Also, for the poster, I have designed a sketch idea of a giant map of Manhattan circa 1790-1860 era (maybe later in this time period) with a mouth biting out a piece of it. I like this idea because it will be clean, simple, and visual on the main front (while getting the point across that this is food in Manhattan’s history) and we can have facts and figures also.
