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Arts & Entertainment News

Tilt-shift take two at the University of Cincinnati

University of Cincinnati (UC) student Brian Spitzig noticed when we posted his first tilt-shift video of UC’s main campus several weeks ago, and said he was initially thrilled to get the exposure. Spitzig then told UrbanCincy in an email that he saw the comments and felt challenged to produce a better quality tilt-shift product.

“I read the feedback and knew it wasn’t a very high quality tilt-shift video.” Spitzig said. “I have studied a little bit more and practiced with new techniques.”

His follow-up video once again focuses on the University of Cincinnati’s internationally acclaimed campus, but this time he shifts the focus to new areas. Viewers now get perspectives of Calhoun Street, Campus Green, construction work for U Square at the Loop, UC Main Street, Nippert Stadium, McMicken Commons, Jefferson Street, the plaza outside of DAAP, and Varsity Village.

Spitzig says that he is working with a friend to find the best places to film around the city, but believes UC provides a perfect setting for filming videos of this nature due to its dynamic urban setting with easy access to buildings and high vantage points.

A Tiny Day at UC is a 2:51 video featuring music by Sigur Rós.

Categories
Business Development News

Smale Riverfront Park to feature 1,000-foot boat dock

Smale Riverfront Park project manager Dave Prather has delivered yet another video update in what has become a fairly popular video series. This update goes inside the Moerlein Lager House which has now been opened for roughly two weeks, and highlights the progress of work on the water’s edge.

Prather says that the grand opening for the Smale Riverfront Park will take place on May 18, 2012, and at that time will have virtually all construction work on the massive project’s first phase complete. He says that solar panels on the Schmidlapp Event Lawn’s stage will be installed next week, and that the first event will be held there on St. Patrick’s Day weekend.

The 11:43 video also showed where historical markers and the location of home plate existed at Riverfront Stadium will be installed in the coming months.

Visual progress is evident on the park’s second geothermal well which will produce 400 gallons of 57-degree water per minute. Progress is also noticeable on the foundation for the labyrinth and Black Brigade Monument.

Prather also said that the most complicated piece of construction left is the work on the Main Street Fountain, and that there are approximately 30 to 40 construction workers on site each day taking advantage of the favorable weather conditions lately.

Perhaps the two most exiting pieces of information from the video came at the end when Prather described the 1,000-foot boat dock that will eventually be in place and the approximately 300 trees that will be planted within the next month-and-a-half.

Categories
Arts & Entertainment News

Cincinnati’s central riverfront captured in new timelapse video

A Cincinnati-based marketing firm based out of Mt. Lookout has produced a new timelapse video of the central riverfront. The abbreviated video only lasts a total of 47 seconds, but highlights several different vantage points of Cincinnati’s urban core.

The most interesting component of the video is the unique angles in which Stimulus Worldwide captures the center city. The boutique marketing firm set up shop along the Newport waterfront high atop Mt. Adams to produce the video. Be sure to enjoy the way the city lights playfully dance upon the Ohio River.

Categories
Arts & Entertainment News

‘Cincinnati From Devou Park’ captures new urban b-roll for Queen City

Every so often the UrbanCincy team strolls through the interwebs to find out what kinds of video content people are producing about Cincinnati in the digital age. It turns out that the overwhelming majority of that content is commercial in nature, but every once in a while we find some good old fashion urban b-roll.

One of the most recent items we came across is Cincinnati From Devou Park by Michael Toffan. The nearly three-minute video slowly pans about the views from one of the region’s most popular vantage points. It is a slow and methodical video set to the song ‘Every Woman’ by Stephan Baird.

The video expectedly captures the views of downtown Cincinnati and Covington, but it also intimately showcases ongoing construction at The Banks (0:33), the aging Brent Spence Bridge (0:53), and barge traffic on the Ohio River (2:05).

Categories
Business Development News Politics Transportation

Hundreds of Cincinnatians celebrate groundbreaking of Midwest’s first modern streetcar

On what turned out to be virtually perfect weather for Cincinnati in mid-February, hundreds of people gathered to celebrate the official groundbreaking of the Cincinnati Streetcar this past Friday.

The event was announced to the public a week prior, and included dignitaries and media from not only Cincinnati but from around the United States. The #LetsGo stream used on Twitter quickly became a trending topic and people from St. Louis, Portland, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Chicago, Milwaukee, Seattle, Cleveland and Indianapolis chimed in with their praise of Cincinnati.

Some of the dignitaries at the event included FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff; Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory (D); City Manager Milton Dohoney; councilmembers Laure Quinlivan (D), Roxanne Qualls (C), Chris Seelbach (D), Yvette Simpson (D), Wendal Young (D), Cecil Thomas (D); and Secretary of Trasnportation Ray LaHood (R).

Those in Cincinnati who have been involved with its efforts to improve its transit system know that the most honored guest of the day was John Schneider. Schneider, or as Mayor Mallory refered to him “Mr. Streetcar,” has been advocating regional transit improvements for nearly two decades and has taken scores of Cincinnatians to Portland to see how modern streetcars work first-hand.

Schneider also serves on the Cincinnati Planning Commission and has been living car-free in Cincinnati for many years. During the press conference Mayor Mallory gave the podium over to Mr. Schneider so that he could share his thoughts on the historic day.

UrbanCincy contributor Jake Mecklenborg also captured the climatic end to the event as the hundreds in attendance counted down to the official groundbreaking.