Video III: Black Friday

For my third and last video, I decided to capture the shopping behavior and retailing mood of Black Friday during one of the worst economic climates since the Great Depression.  Notwithstanding my technical nightmare, this video was difficult to shape since I didn’t know the outcome of the story until I recorded all of my footage.  The end result wasn’t ground breaking per se.   The combination of deep discounts and picky shoppers offset the heavy traffic.  Still, according to the NY Times and other news publications, Black Friday performed well.  The most interesting part of my video ended up being an element I didn’t think to use.  I asked most of my interviewees who they were shopping for.  And with the exception of one European tourist, everyone provided the same answer: “me.”  Everyone seemed to be shopping for themselves.  Gifts weren’t expected to be lavish this holiday season and as one shopper put it, “they’ll understand.”