An Interesting Ordinary

While digital media allows us to create amazingly believable illusions (like elaborate stop-motion videos or explosions using After Effects), it is obviously perfect for observing the ordinary. Before digital media, the only way of knowing the daily routines of other people was through photographs, which may have traveled by newspaper or letters, or by common interaction. But people on opposite sides of the globe would never have known in the everyday happenings of other nation's lives, simply because they didn't have the means to do so. Now common people in America can network, view, and collaborate with people in Australia, and so forth and so on. Although this generation is often (justly) accused of narcissistic obsession with their average lives, it's truly amazing that we have the means to record the ordinary doings of our lives. And when presented tastefully, digital media allows for significant meaningful pieces that edify the common person.

So I tried really hard not to use Wong Fu Productions again, but this video just fits the prompt too wonderfully. It may seem a bit long at 10 minutes, but it is totally worth your time. The events, objects, and people of this film are all completely ordinary but the camera transforms these ordinary objects and actions into something completely new and different. The screenplay is a bit like a Brian Doyle "proem" but the words adopt a completely new meaning when combined with the seemingly inanimate objects. I absolutely love this simple, beautiful piece that glorifies the ordinary and an ordinary relationship with a fresh take.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSrXMFcQ4dY

Last but not least (well maybe), here's a "proem" about walking to school in the morning:

It's usually a rush out the door.

But when I've given myself time, I can slowly walk over the cracking sidewalks

and notice the way the snow has fallen on the trees, rather than trying to walk faster than everyone near me. When I'm hurrying, it seems like that blasted HFAC is just always too far away, but when I leave home early, no matter how slowly I walk the building comes too soon.

It's the difference between a frazzled procrastination and a beautiful, quiet appreciation.