Time Lapses: A sheltering-in-place short film by Amanda JS Kaufmann
I first started registering the existence of this thing called COVID-19 in January 2020, prior to a work trip to facilitate a writing and filmmaking workshop. It wasn’t until I went to Mardi Gras and witnessed two women wearing heavy-duty face masks—in black fabric, no less—that I really started wondering what was going on. The floodgates opened soon after that: We all know the story of the panic, confusion, and economic catastrophe that has ensued, not to mention the loss of life.
But Ding Ding TV’s video and essay contest, “In time of COVID-19,” is an opportunity to reach past the bad and shine a light on the good that has arisen during this worldwide crisis. It’s not often that each person on the planet is connected by the same circumstance, happening at the same time, thus opening up a dialogue that we can all understand. It’s a pretty marvelous occurrence, actually, and I hope by participating in this conversation that I can help move things along in a positive direction.
This year was already taxed by my decades-long career in higher-education publishing drying up, and my husband’s company running out of money and laying everyone off. Add my depression to the mix, and you can get a feel for the forces we were contending with. The pandemic, though, put all of us in a place of self assessment: What’s important? How are we going to manage this time that we now have? What do we want the future to look like? So, strangely, during a midlife upheaval, I didn’t feel as out of whack, because everyone was processing some of the same life questions.
My husband and I co-existed pretty well during months of unemployment and then during sheltering in place, and the blog I started mid last year has kept me busy writing, shooting, and filming. When I heard about “In time of COVID-19,” I knew I had a short film in all the footage I had been collecting these past months: time lapses of everyday moments, indoors and outdoors, close up and far away. As a highly sensitive person, I am aware of my surroundings to a great degree; I know that the planet we live on is beautiful, and the smallest things can have the greatest impact. That’s the feeling I hope “Time Lapses” imparts.
As another interesting aside, the pandemic brought my long-distance family together for weekly video calls, which I also show in “Time Lapses.” My brothers group text pretty much daily now. We’ve never had this much contact before. Even though it’s a little hard to get used to, it’s positive.
My hope is that humanity will come out of this with a little more thoughtfulness and care. It really isn’t hard to achieve if people stop talking and listen, really listen, and do the right thing.
The Above video is one of the entries from “In Time of COVID19 Video & Essay Contest”
We believe that the pandemic has generated a treasure trove of interesting stories, valuable and relevant contents about humanity in all its spectrums. Stories about generosity, heroism, kindness and outstanding services to fellow human beings on the other.
Ding Ding TV (Silicon Valley Innovation Channel and Voice of Asian Americans) , CLUSA together with 16 partners presented “In Time of COVID19 Video & Essay Contest” bringing these stories to our community and simultaneously acknowledge and honor their creators.
The contestant should read and follow the Contest Rulers published on May 10th 2020 from following link:
http://www.dingdingtv.com/?p=57035
The contestant acknowledge Rule 5, 6
5) If background music and other visual, verbal and sound (reference) material are used from internet, the contestant must possess copyrights or have explicit permission to use such material(s).
6) By entering this contest, the contestants will have given DingDingTV and Contest Partners explicit permission to distribute the video widely on media channels, the internet and social media sites such as Youtube, Facebook, WhatApp, WeChat, twitter….etc.