Brandon Stanton is most known for his Humans of New York (HONY) photography series, profiling random New Yorkers he meets on the street and the conversations he has with them. This summer, however, Stanton launched the first episode of Humans of New York: The Series, a video component to his popular photo blog. Working with cinematographer Michael Crommett, Stanton interviews subjects in America’s biggest city, with each episode consisting of multiple interviews that are connected around a central, universal theme.

The first video from the series that I came upon is called “Help,” and is the one we’ll examine here (it’s actually the eighth episode of the series). The 13-minute episode features a variety of views and anecdotes dealing with the concept of help and what it means to each person.

Originally, I watched this video because I love HONY, but as I got further into the episode, I realized that Crommett and Stanton employ a lot of the techniques we’ve discussed in our class, and figured it would make a good blog post.

Side note: I was not able to figure out how to embed a link to a timecode within Facebook video, and it appears there are no Vimeo or YouTube links to these videos. If you want to check out the specific scenes I mention, just advance the playhead to the listed timecode. 

Because interviews are always the prime focus for HONY, Crommett and Stanton rely heavily on cutaways to not only break up a single interview but also as a way to transition between subjects. They bookend their piece with scenic cutaways of the New York City (NYC) skyline (starting with a time-lapse at 45 seconds, ending scenes at 13:00). Typically, they will introduce their subjects by

Example of talking space and rule of thirds during one of the interviews of “Help.”

way of a J-cut and then move into a snippet of the interview. Most of the time, they are accounting for the rule of thirds, and providing talking space for the interview. Occasionally, they will shoot the subject straight-on for other reasons. For example, in the opening scene, Crommett and Stanton want to show all the people in the “rat race” behind their interview subject, so Crommett shoots the subject straight-on. I found it interesting how they also used cutaways of the person they’re interviewing as a way to break up the interview itself, as these are – from an editing standpoint – pretty long segments. Most of the time, they are shooting at eye level of their subjects – even the scene with the man and his dog, who is sitting on the sidewalk (10:55).

Speaking of which, that final segment is introduced with a great example of a conceptual matched action shot – the motion of the crane elevator thing going down, then cutting to the man lowering his dog into the wheelchair (10:35). I love that.

Other examples of techniques we should employ in our work:

Matched action sequence with the motion of the subway trains (3:37)

Use of a frame within a frame (6:08)

Dolly shot (8:22)

Cutting on the beat (during the aforementioned subway sequence)

Waiting for an object to exit the frame before a cut (2:45)

I highly encourage you check out the other HONY videos, not only for our class, but just for your own personal enjoyment.