Filmmaker Matthew Beck has combined his footage of contemporary New Yorkers out and about around town with a 1970s educational film about the nature of time... which gives it all a very deep vibe, man.
The narration is from 1973's "The Meaning of Time In Science," and speaks particularly well to the hurried nature of New Yorkers. The woman's voice is equal parts calming and unnerving when she declares things like: "There is a continually moving point in time which we call 'now'... time is a long string of 'nows,' which stops abruptly at the present. It is always now."
This afternoon, Beck told us about his idea for the short: "I shoot footage of NYC and its people all the time when I'm not working on other specific projects. I also love to view old archive footage from educational films from 'back in the day.' I started to think about how fleeting our interactions with other humans are on the street, the train, and around the city. When I thought of the idea of 'A New York minute,' I then started to think that the term 'New York second' or 'New York millisecond' might be more appropriate on a day to day basis... so i began researching and looking through old archive films and audio lectures." Watch the final product... now:
