Project 1 by Natalie Chiames

South State Street is one of Ann Arbor’s busiest streets closest to campus and we can always recognize it by the usual crazy amount of pedestrians, cars, and buses that pass through it every day.  State Street is one of the staples of off-campus student life in Ann Arbor. I decided to film State Street at an earlier time on a weekend when it was not busy or packed with students trying to cross the street to get to class or their dorms. I wanted to show how the time of day affects how State Street functions on pedestrians and drivers and try to encourage the viewer to look at the outdoor space differently. Instead of the street serving as a sort of gateway for students to enter Michigan’s central campus, it was just a regular street that led towards the center of town. At an earlier time, it was much easier for drivers and pedestrians to get to places and the sidewalks were not as crowded since it was not as busy. I decided to walk up and down State Street and film different parts of the street. Since State Street is so long, it was impossible for me to just film one section; I filmed sections of the street that had different architecture in the background to try to show how each section displays a different perspective on State Street. I tried to film using different angles to show how not just one part or intersection but the whole street functioned differently on people simply because it was filmed during a different part of the day. Of course State Street always has people walking or driving on it all throughout the day, but I wanted to capture the decrease in the familiar amount of the usual movement that takes place there.