Sunset over Berlin and the Spree river – with views of the TV Tower (Fernsehturm), Molecule Man and the Oberbaum Bridge (Oberbaumbrücke) filmed this week on the Elsenbrücke on a beautiful summer evening.
Over three years ago I began making a 1-minute video, a moving postcard as I’ve later defined it (mostly a still shot showing the movement of life, an event, a place). I made these videos to keep my friends and family updated to what I was seeing when my husband and I temporarily moved to Berlin. The name changed from German New Yorker in Berlin to In A Berlin Minute – and when we moved back to Brooklyn in 2011, it changed to In A Brooklyn Minute.
It was an amazing and unexpected experience to have so many strangers watching these videos, starting conversations and becoming online friends, some of whom I had the pleasure to meet in person, others who have been following the series online for the entire 3 years and 6 weeks. I’m very grateful for all the connections, interest and support. It’s made me feel very special and rewarded to know that these short videos have meant a lot to some people.
Last fall it was a hard hit when YouTube closed the GNYBerlin channel for a day and all videos, comments and views were lost. I’m sad to say that the contact to many people was severed for good. This happened at a time when I needed to refocus my priorities in life and with work (as I’ve talked about in this vlog) and I never tried to fully rebuild the viewership. However, the series continued every week and I built the MovingPostcard.com website as a searchable archive so the videos would have a place to live and be viewed and shared for a long time.
The last Brooklyn video before yet again returning to Berlin was a time lapse sunset over the Hudson and East River intersection with a view of Manhattan and New Jersey seen from Brooklyn. The following week the first Berlin video was a sunrise time lapse over Berlin viewed from the Hauptbahnhof and over the Spree in Mitte. At that point I had decided to make the last In A Berlin Minute video before I leave again a sunset over Berlin.
This week seemed to be the appropriate time to shoot and publish that video of the day ending and the sun setting over the German capital. At this point, I can’t say if this is truly the last Berlin video. There are still a few more I would like to shoot and my time in Berlin is probably not quite over yet. I’ve stayed longer than I had planned and I don’t know exactly where I’m going next – but I’m ready to return to America. As of right now I’m in the USA for a few weeks and if I make more videos during this time they will come from here.
I will continue to re-publish the old videos that have not made it onto YouTube yet – and also might still edit and publish the promised longer, slower versions of some of the 1-minute videos.
After that, I honestly don’t know yet. Making and sharing these videos without a pause every week for three years has given me much pleasure and in a way has been my religious practice, my yoga class, my meditation, my structure, my adventure, my conscious exploration and my communication with people from around the world. But it also has taken a lot of time and energy that I should probably have put into other parts of my life. In a way it would be sad to interrupt or end something that could go on for years and years and grow into a life-long piece of creativity and community. But this is a time of a lot of change in my life and it might also be time to change this project to something with less regularity or actually let it go as an ongoing creation and cherish it as something complete.
Today I can say with new-found confidence that I am very proud of this series. I know that I wouldn’t and maybe couldn’t have continued to do this for so long if it wasn’t for all you amazing people who have watched, commented, shared and encouraged me. Thank you so much, all of you! And today a special thank you to Claire and Elke for spending two evenings on the bridge with me while shooting this video.
So maybe this sunset is the end of something or maybe it’s just the transition to a changed reality and a new beginning. We’ll see…
The music is from Soundtrack Pro.
