Tuesday, September 12, 2006

The Video




Frequently Asked Questions

We'd like to thank the large number of people who've written us to offer encouragement and support. Your kind words have let us know that we made the right choice in releasing this video. Because we can't respond individually we've compiled a FAQ to answer common questions:

Q. Why did you choose to release the video now?
A. We have wanted to release the video for some time, but had not found the appropriate venue. We offered it to a local public television station, but they did not respond.

Q. Why did you release the video on Revver?
A. We chose to release the video on Revver because of its author-friendly licensing terms and support for the Creative Commons. Revver is currently the only authorized commercial distribution channel for this video. Copies on Google Video, YouTube and other video sharing services are unauthorized and we will ask for their removal. While we like and use those services for some content, we do not agree with their licensing terms for this video.

Q. Are you going to make money from this video through Revver?
A. No. We will donate proceeds from Revver's ad-sharing arrangement for this video to a children's charity.

Q. Isn't this video missing important scenes?
A. We did not capture the impact of either plane or the start of either building's collapse. As many have surmised, the impacts of the airplanes and collapses of both buildings did catch us by surprise.

Q. Why did you edit this video?
A. The version we released on 9-11-2006 was intentionally and obviously (using dissolves) edited for length and size only. About 10 minutes of mostly redundant video was removed. None of the media services could host the unedited file at sufficiently high resolution.

Q. Will you release the unedited version?
A. We had intended to, but our plans our on hold at the moment due to time and logistical concerns. We do not feel the high-res version shows anything more than the edited version, and we don't wish to stroke any purient interests. We do not intended to sell or profit from this video in any way.

Q. Does Bri believe she saw a military plane?
A. Bri's comment regarding the "military" plane was due to her seeing a silhouette of the plane and therefore assuming black coloration. Her initial thought was that the plane was approaching the south tower to help fight the fire. There is nothing in our recollection to suggest that events of the day occurred in any way other than seen on the video.

Q. Are those UFOs in frame xxx?
A. Compression of the video for display on the web has distorted some objects, which include helicopters, birds, a fighter jet passing overhead (after the second plane hit the south tower), and glare from a window.

Q. What is the music in the background?
A. The lullabies playing in the background at the start of the video are from a CD we would play to calm our daughter. The CD plays lullabies slowly and includes a background heartbeat. This music was not added to the video at a later date. We have been unable to listen to that CD since.

Q. Was your daughter in day care at the WTC? Is she OK?
A. Our daughter was scheduled to start day care in the North Tower the following week. It is our understanding that all children in that day care were evacuated successfully. We were displaced from our apartment for about a month and continued to live in the area for a year. She did develop asthmatic symptoms which may have been due to the lingering dust. These symptoms cleared up when we moved to a different part of Manhattan.

Q. From where was the video taken?
A. From 41 River Terrace, the tallest building in Battery Park City North, about 500 yards northwest of ground zero. (A blogger has created an image showing our location here.)

Q. Who shot the video?
A. Video was shot by Bri and Bob on a Sony DCR-TRV11 Camcorder. A few days after the tape was shot, we transferred the video to DVD using Apple iMovie and iDVD. The tape and DVD have never left our possession. The released video was transcoded from the DVD. The unedited version was re-transferred from the original tape.

Q. Have you been contacted by the authorities regarding this video?
A. No.