Posts tagged “video”

Cincinnati Mayor Mallory heralded as national leader in smart growth movement

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Smart Growth America recently produced a series of video interviews with mayors from around the United States. The series, officials say, is intended to highlight prominent elected officials that are taking on leadership roles in promoting smart growth.

The first of those videos features Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory. In the video, Mayor Mallory discusses the need to invest in urban centers and make smart infrastructure investments that will trigger job creation and community development.

Specifically, Mayor Mallory touts the recent completion of phase one work at The Banks and ongoing revitalization success in Over-the-Rhine. The approach being taken by Cincinnati is one that intrigued officials at Smart Growth America.

“Thinking about land-use, transportation, housing, environmental, economic development and city planning, and redevelopment projects holistically can be challenging,” Thomas Madrecki from Smart Growth America told UrbanCincy. “But the rewards are that much higher, because when executed successfully, all of those pieces of the puzzle are working together.”

Madrecki says that once that initial buy-in is achieved at a local level, support for smart growth projects like the Cincinnati Streetcar becomes a better reality. Accomplishing that initial task, however, does not necessarily mean that funding and regulatory issues will not also pose problems.

“In a place like Cincinnati, I think that’s very obvious, where you have something like the streetcar take longer to get off the ground because of withdrawn funding promises,” said Madrecki. “Smart growth strategies often require upfront investments that will engender future economic gains while saving the city money on infrastructure and utility costs, but it takes money and the political will to deal with setbacks and opposition.”

Madrecki continued by saying that Mayor Mallory has shown the latter quality in spades, and has quickly become a national leader in the smart growth movement.

As Cincinnati moves forward with additional phases of development at The Banks, and additional renovation work in historic Over-the-Rhine, smart growth champions believe that even additional investment will be needed in Cincinnati’s urban core to help those respective neighborhoods reach their full potential.

One of the greatest challenges going forward for a Midwestern city like Cincinnati will be maintaining the momentum built by Mayor Mallory’s steadfast approach.

“Everyone likes to talk about the ‘next thing,’ but there has to be an element of seeing things to fruition and making sure they fully develop. When that happens and people see the economic and community payoffs, I think it will set a precedent and make future endeavors more likely to succeed right away.”

Tilt-shift take two at the University of Cincinnati

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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.

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

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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.

Cincinnati’s central riverfront captured in new timelapse video

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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.

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

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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).

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

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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.

World’s first game-sourced film to debut in Over-the-Rhine next Saturday

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The 2011 MidPoint Music Festival (MPMF) ended nearly five months ago, but one of its products is about to have a major impact on the neighborhood it calls home. On Saturday, February 25, Possible Worldwide and Cincinnati-based Ripple FX Films will hold a world premiere of what is believed to be the first-ever, game and crowd-sourced film.

Radius: A Short Film gathered its material at last year’s MPMF when festival-goers used the SCVNGR smartphone application. Those who played the game helped to create its content. Since that time, the production team has worked together to produce the film in partnership with the Greater Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky Film Commission.

According to the production team, content for the film also came from the Emery Theatre’s 11.11.11 opening event and a Final Friday on Main Street.

The film will debut at Memorial Hall (map) from 7:30pm to 11pm on Saturday, February 25. Tickets can be purchased online until 12pm on Thursday, February 23 or at the door the day of the event for $25. Event organizers say that it will include a champagne reception, comments from the producers and filmmakers, food, drink and what is being called a “red carpet experience.”

Those who would like to find a cheaper way into the event are in luck. UrbanCincy will be giving away two free tickets to one lucky person who best answers “What Is Radius?” to them. Feel free to be creative and do response videos, photos, cliché memes, or simply submit a written entry.

We will take those submissions via email, comments on this post, or through any of our social media outlets until midnight on Sunday. The winner will be contacted (please include an email or phone number where you can be reached) on Monday and instructed how to get their free tickets for the Saturday event.