Vlog review

I chose to review a vlog from http://www.duncanspeakman.net/, having randomly clicked on it from the class wiki page. I was surprised to see a video titled "Seoul, South Korea." I'm Korean myself and have traveled there once (summer of 2000), so I was interested to check it out.

The tagline of the video says "Seoul, South Korea. Sunrise to sunset. One photo per minute." The video is simply a collection of photos set to music, and the photos play very rapidly, like a flip book.

The first several images are of coffee cups, shoes, beds, household items. Then the images switch to outdoor city scenes. The images play so quickly it's hard to tell what's going on. All you can see are urban images of sidewalks, food markets, shops, traffic, people walking, and signs.
(I even saw a red swastika sign in there...not sure why). It is definitely an urban scene, not a nature/country scene.

This video doesn't seem heavy on visual rhetoric and does not use any narration, but the piece as a whole is a spastic, quick-flashing snapshot of urban life in Seoul. The music, only a couple repeating notes and a pulsing back tone (almost reminded me of The Postal Service on crack), enhance the rushed feel of the images. A few of the shots of the street were taken at ground level.

I think this video could be a reflection of the hurried, frantic nature of city living. Only a couple places slow down in this video, where the photographer must have taken several quick shots in a row. These images show people coming and going in a park and other scenery. Those slow spots were almost a relief for me while watching the video. Perhaps there is some reason to the pacing of all these images...something telling us to slow down? To comment on the hurried pace of urban daily life? Or am I reading too much into it?

The intended audience for this video would probably be people interested in photography (and/or Korea itself). The only motion comes from the editing of all the photographs in sequence. The photos are basically a collage of images from a visit to Seoul, but the pacing and music are what make it feel so in-your-face.