This features my first excursion into several different types of videography, and while it’s not entirely successful, and far too short, I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve managed to put together.

This short documentary features footage taken during the immigration protests in downtown Phoenix on July 29th, 2010, and photography from two locations: the State Capitol Building and the area in front of County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s offices. Both of these locations are within a few blocks of each other on Washington Street in Phoenix. A location that I wasn’t prescient enough to capture footage at was the Madison Street Jail, which apparently had some of the most photo-worthy, but dangerous opportunities. The major protests at that location happened in the morning, long before I showed up with my camera a quarter before noon.

While I’ve tried to craft messages in my films before, perhaps most obviously in “Metro”, I’ve never before sought to depict them as I have here. In my editing, I also tried to complement the natural tone of the protests, the formality and pageantry of the posters and colorful protesters, as well as the chaos that it often descended into.

The protests also presented a new opportunity to shoot action with a high-shutter speed, which produces the sharp, articulated movement you see in the film. I also experimented with a few other in-camera stylizations, such as purposefully overexposing the image, to give it a particularly edgy, blown-out look.

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