tell us about yourself
https://youtu.be/QPEMDeAVkt0
My video focuses my version of “Elysium,” a place once believed to be a paradise for those who passed on to the afterlife. My family spending time together at the beach is my interpretation of that concept, where my only thoughts revolve around happiness and contentment.
I decided to do my video portrait on the new place that I am lucky enough to call home; Midtown Manhattan. I tried to capture the constant motion, hustle and bustle of the city, as well as its beauty.
As a Dominican-American, it was hard for me to understand the horrors of the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. I first learned about it when I read In The Time of The Butterflies by Julia Alvarez in the sixth grade. Through the perspective of the Mirabal Sisters, I was terrified by what Trujillo did. On top of that, my grandparents lived during this era, so I could imagine what they were going through. Because of this, I decided to do my portrait on the Era of Trujillo.
This is a self-portrait video depicting a large influence on my life: smoking. There are many things I could have done this project on however, I choose something that not many people know about nor agree with. The point of the “flashback” moments are to show how I have normalized these cancer sticks into my life. The element that I borrowed for this piece was the use of music to set a tone , as well as the prevalent sound effects that help to “color” the portrait. Press the blue to download the video.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3B2zFOLRDd7SVdOT3RxUG92ZDQ
This is the portrait of ongoing human ignorance in the face of self created issues. With the plastic intake and misuse alongside other human catalyzed issues, the world suffers as 0.01 to 0.1 percent of all species go extinct by the year. If there were 100,000 species on the planet, that would be 1,000 to 10,000 new species added to the extinction list. The video is meant to let the reality of suffering on both ends from pollution sink in in any form it can.
A nickname for my town, White Plains, is Dubset. There are a lot of stories of how we got the name, but the one I like the most goes something like this: Somewhere in the 1990’s the White Plains high school athletes began chanting “Dubset” meaning White Plains. It is said we got this name because we have two, a set of, “dub’s” or “w’s”. one w coming from White Plains the other from all of our wins. Since then our sports have gone in another direction, but our name stuck. For me, Dubset is not just about my high school or the sports, it is about the people in the town. This portrait showcases just a few of the wonderful parts of my life in White Plains. My video exceeds the upload capacity so I put a link below.
Both Kahlil Joseph and Bill T. Jones (choreographer of A Letter to My Nephew create portraits of people, times, and places through evocative images. Using iMovie, create a portrait in video form (60 second maximum) inspired by their work. Post it along with a few sentences about who, where, or what you are portraying.
