Andrew Clancy’s four-minute and 54-second A Year in New York is significant for a couple reasons.
First, it’s beautiful. The New York City-based cameraman and editor shot all the footage on his Canon 7D and Canon S95. That first camera was released in late 2009. That second one in late 2010. So, while the internet is chock full of talented filmmakers constructing pretty montages of urban life shot over an extended period of time and set to Solsbury Hill-esque tracks of slow-building inspirational tones, this may be the first to be filmed with such high quality equipment.
Second, it’s good. Clancy’s slow-moving pans and locked frames of everyday NYC rites of passage, parties, modes of transportation and ephemera collectively tell a sliver of a story about early 21st century life in Manhattan and its surrounding boroughs.
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Third, it feels almost like it’s instantaneously a piece of some sort of anthropological importance. Just like a photo montage of New York City’s subway system from the 1980s, you can picture Clancy’s video, 20 years from now, being dissected by Any Baio or shared by Buzzfeed or whatever the next iteration of Waxy.org or Buzzfeed may be).
