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Asking information becomes a story and reveals an unexpected attitude of New Yorkers.

New York, 08.09.09 — Finding something interesting in something that is not so curious itself is at the core of a good story. The theme of this video is a very simple and ordinary aspect of urban life: the needy, lost tourists who ask for information in a park. In this case, we are in Bryant Park, New York. The lost tourist is generally the kind of foreigner considered a waste of time. Moreover, because of the common image of their frantic life style, could we expect that New Yorkers could be particularly unhelpful with such a tourist? Answering this question is the goal of the Italian students who made this video, which tries to verify a stereotype throughout a funny simulation.

In order to obtain realistic images, the authors used a hidden camera, hidden microphones and two of them pretended to be lost tourists; so they waited for their “frantic New Yorker” in Bryant Park. There was no complete, written story before shooting. At the beginning there was only one sure thing: a question! The answers to this question should have made the story, and the meaning came up only during the shoot—an original product of New Yorkers interviewed.

Cecilia De Luca and Andrea Montevecchi were in front of the camera talking to the people; Valentina Matteo with Giovanna Guidobaldi worked on both shooting and editing; and the New Yorkers naturally expressed their attitudes toward tourists. This was the staff’s first experience in shooting, so they had to face technical difficulties, and making decision as a team. There was no team leader, no one more expert than the others were: the whole staff was a blank page, ready to absorb knowledge from this experience.

That was the success of the learning method adopted by the Graduate School of Journalism (of City University of New York) and the guidance of Warren Lustig, editor of CBS’ famous show “Sixty Minutes.” The authors of this video learned how to use a camera, how to shoot people and, most of all, what to do to make a story become a very good story. To our surprise, being simple and coherent with the succession of images, are the essential elements of successful story telling. These key items inspired the team at work.

Obviously, the authors’ main idea was that New Yorkers were so stressed, so busy, so fast paced that they couldn’t spend a second for a lost tourist. The authors’ expectation was to not find any helpful people and that Cecilia and Andrea wouldn’t receive any answer from New Yorkers, who should continue walking quickly without listening to their needs. The video makers kept their minds open mind and started shooting just waiting for original reactions. One, two, three, four people answered very kindly to Cecilia’s questions. As the shooting continued, all the people were extremely available. At this point, the authors decide to verify if the same thing happens also with the male, Andrea. And it happened! All the people recorded on video were very kind and actually helpful towards the two tourists: a result above all expectations. How strong are stereotypes! All the Italian students of the staff thought that perhaps in Italy, which is commonly considered an old, slow country, there is no such a good predisposition to foreigners. The video makers shot old and young people, men and women with different ethnic roots and belonging to different social distinctions. Even considering these differences, the behaviour of New Yorkers did not change: they seemed capable of moving swiftly, but also stopping to assist foreigners.