San Francisco Covid Days: 7 1/2 hours of footage from July 2020

July 2020 San Francisco Pandemic Installation Series: Act 2 Managing Randomness

*underlined words have links to more information!

This is some of the footage I filmed in San Francisco during the month of July in 2020 ( 7.5 hours! ). It was still a time of uncertainty and we didn’t really know it but the worst of the pandemic was still to come and seemingly never end. 

I can remember early one July morning before I went out to film I had a brief interaction with a nurse at a Target near where I lived. We were both there because everyday supplies such as toilet paper and disinfectants had become scarce but if you got to Target right as it opened you might be able to get some of what you needed.  As I was walking from the entrance to the back of the store where the cleaning supplies were a woman in a blue nurse outfit fell in beside me. We both had our masks on. I smiled through my mask and said good morning. We talked about what a bizarre time it was. As we were about to go our separate ways I said to her, “Maybe in a couple months if I run into you again we’ll be able to see each others face.” She looked at me and said, “More like in a couple of years.” At the time I didn’t know how right she was. It couldn’t really be that long, could it?

Each of the shots in this long piece has a story held within its confines. These vignettes may seem mundane on the surface and perhaps they are. But these simple daytime activities that I’ve documented have seemingly taken on an air of surreality when we watch as masked people pass through or linger in the frame.

In July of 2020 we were still learning new ways how to behave in order to survive the insidious virus that was invading our world. Cultural norms were changing at an accelerated pace. Personal space, the distance that we would normally keep from each was changing. Even the perception of various businesses and jobs was changing. Some people that may have been de-valued before Covid were now considered “essential workers” in the liminal upheaval that we were going through. Medical historian Charles Rosenberg would have said we were at the beginning of Act 2 of his 4 act model of pandemics. His theory, rooted in the AIDS epidemic, is a very interesting way to look at the pandemic and it’s something I will examine further.

The raw material for a video installation

I specifically filmed this project with the intention of presenting the material on large screens. Very often I would choose to film with wide angle prime lenses that had no ability to zoom into a specific area of a scene. I did this because I wanted to capture more of what was in front of me. The environment where I was shooting was important as if it was a character too. There was an obvious trade off shooting this way because if something interesting was happening in one area I couldn’t zoom in on it but it did mean that I could document the reaction of others or even discover other things that I hadn’t noticed while I was filming. I’ve spent a lot of time with this footage and on almost every occasion I rewatch a clip I see something new because I chose to keep the shots wide. 

I find this footage mesmerizing. The sound of the city, the ebb and flow of people and cars, seems to create an ever present and often subconscious rhythm that is particular to San Francisco but also conceptually relatable to other environments. Because the shots are long in duration it allows my mind and emotions to venture places that more traditionally edited films might achieve in a different way. As the project turned into a longterm endeavor I began to try and be mindful of where my thoughts and emotions would wander during a shot. I began to incorporate a log of these thoughts as a part of my production notes.

Street cinematography has some real ethical questions and elicits many differing opinions as to what is and isn’t okay to display publicly. This is something I’ve thought a lot about and I intend to explore that more deeply. That being said it’s my intention to show as realistic depiction of what I saw during the two years that I filmed in the streets of San Francisco.

Just to be clear- these images are just from one month, July of 2020, and represent only a small portion of what I filmed during this project.

As I’m writing this I’m in the process of designing the full scope of the video installation where this particular footage will be presented and I will be detailing that when I develop that further. 

But for now here’s some specific details about these early days of the pandemic, July 2020, in San Francisco. I’m putting in time markers so you can advance to a particular neighborhood if you want. In general the shots are in chronological order. 

:26 Upper Market

These shots are on Market Street near Castro. I filmed two Murals by the artist Luinova that day one in this area (the first shot) and another on Fillmore Street that’s in a different section. The first mural is a rainbow like collage that was designed as a celebration of 50 years of SF Pride. It shows the faces of some prominent LGBTQ+ activists. From left to right they are: Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, Harvey Milk, Audre Lorde, Larry Kramer and James Baldwin. Because there were so few parked cars around the mural I had the perfect opportunity to film people pass by in front of it. 

Across the street there was a mural painted by the artist Elliott C. Nation. It was on the front of a club called Beaux. This particular piece was one of the murals coordinated through the Paint The Void. Paint the Void is a project that came about because so many businesses were boarded up with sheets of plywood. The people behind the project had the great idea of connecting business owners with artists so they could help beautify the city. They figured out how to raise money to pay the artists for their time and materials. Because of them lot’s of amazing art sprang up all over the city. When I found out about the project I tried to film as many of the murals that I could. This is definitely one of the good things that happened during the pandemic.

12:20 Fillmore Street

The first shot in this section is also a Luinova mural that has a similar Andy Warholish silk screen feel like the previous mural I filmed on Market Street. The face on the left is the actor Steve McQueen and I’m pretty sure the woman on the right is actress Elizabeth Taylor. These murals covered the windows at Palmer’s Tavern on the corner of Clay at Fillmore. By the time I was on Fillmore Street the weather was beautiful it was a perfect San Francisco day. I worked my way down the street as far as California Street. It was still early in the pandemic and you could see that people weren’t exactly comfortable being in public yet. The information and messaging we were receiving from experts and the leader of our national government didn’t seem to be in synch with each other. 

Masks and and personal protection equipment were still difficult to get. Whenever I found places where people gathered I thought it was interesting. 

I also did a shot that featured the electronic billboard attached to a bus stop. The messaging had already changed since the beginning of the pandemic just a few months ago. I made sure to keep track of what was presented to the public on these signs for the next 2 years. Some of the Covid health focused ads would be showing up for the next couple of years.

22:07 The Stud

The Stud was a very important queer bar located at 9th and Harrison. On any given night it was frequented by a mix of punks, the leather crowd and even women. It was very inclusive and a place where almost anyone was welcome. It was famous for its drag shows and was one of the funnest dance clubs in the city. But the rent was high and losses due to Covid caused it to close pretty soon after the pandemic started.  It had operated for 54 years and had been at this location since 1987.  I had previously filmed it in June when it was announced that it was being closed. When the owners painted over the kitschy cluttered outside people got really upset. In this footage you can see a bunch of angry graffiti that was painted all over the building. The owners had covered the building with an ugly tan paint. Though there was a big public outcry over it’s closing and there were efforts to save it, it never opened again. The collective that ran the Stud said that they would re-open at a new location but more than two years later that hasn’t happened yet.

26:24 Chestnut Street

Chestnut Street is the main commercial street in an area of the city called The Marina. When I filmed here  in July most retail spaces were still closed. Some would never open again. 

The bistro Le Marais already had built a parklet for people to eat outside. I filmed there nine times during the pandemic and Le Marais always seemed busy but eventually it closed in 2022.

This was the day the restaurant Dragon Well built their parklet. Another restaurant I documented, Delarosa, had not started theirs yet but they had temporary fencing and they would set up tables and chairs outside on the sidewalk and in the parking spaces in front. Eventually they had a very nice parklet with separated booths. Some months later when I filmed there I talked to one of the managers. He told me they were having problems finding workers. He speculated that people were hesitant to do any job with a lot of customer interaction and that lucrative unemployment benefits were making people wait it out until it was safer. A year later I talked to hime again. He was still having trouble finding employees especially since the outdoor seating in addition to the indoor seating doubled the amount of tables they had to cover. 

I was able to film people enter the Apple store. What I documented was exactly indicative of the times. There was a security guard and an employee out in front. The employee would check each customers temperature with a touchless forehead thermometer before they could enter. I was always a bit skeptical as to whether that was actually an effective way to detect people who had Covid but I think we were a sort of winging it at the beginning of the pandemic. It still felt unique at the time as did wearing masks or face coverings. Eventually we got used to both. Two and a half years later I usually still where a mask indoors when there’s a lot of people.

1:49:44 Fillmore Street (Geary at Fillmore)

This was the second time I filmed the westside of the bus stop art installation called 3 Shades of Blue by the artist Mildred Howard. I filmed here numerous times during the pandemic because invariably I would always meet interesting people and something unique almost always happened. This is one of my favorite places to film and I would usually do shots that would last  about 20 minutes. I plan on doing a multi-screen video installation of this location. It was a great people watching location, however it wasn’t exactly the safest place to film.

1:57:06 Market Street at Van Ness

I really like this section. There are two good bus stops shots that really show a lot. The first is on Market Street and the second one on Van Ness. Bus stops have an interesting ebb and flow to them as people gather while waiting for the bus and then they are gone when the bus arrives and they get on it. And then the cycle would repeat. This corner would look very different within a year when they razed the building that had the Walgreens in it and finally finished the transit lane that would run up the center of Van Ness.

2:21:12 Polk Street

Polk Street is a busy commercial street that gets grittier as you go south towards the Tenderloin and nicer as you head north past California Street. I made sure that when I went there to film Swan Oyster Depot and Bob’s Donuts because both are near and dear to my heart. I have fond memories of going to both of them. Swan Oyster depot has some of the best shellfish I’ve ever had and Bob’s is arguably the best donut shop in the city. On numerous occasions I ate donuts at Bob’s after a show at the Red Devil Lounge which used to be down the street on the corner of Clay and Polk. There’s nothing like eating five 1am donuts and washing them down with hot black coffee to end a night!

2:56:10 9th Avenue

This is just one shot of the Green Apple by the Park bookstore. It provides a nice insight as to what retail looked like at the time. Also during the shot a guy in a Sanfranpsycho work van stopped and yelled, “Are you that guy the was filming on Haight Street?”. It was me of course. We had talked for awhile a month earlier on Haight Street. I saw him again more than a year later. One of the best parts of this project for me running into the same people numerous times in different parts of the city. There’s a bunch of people that I became friends with all over the city: photographers, business owners, city workers, cable car operators, unhoused folks, street musicians, muralists and more.

3:02:44 Rideout Fountain

This is fountain is in the park area between the de Young Museum, California Academy of Sciences and the band shell in Golden Gate Park. The fountain was built in 1924 and paid for by a gift of $10,000 by Corinne Rideout. It’s a bit of a mystery about the significance of the cat and serpent sculpture in the middle of the fountain. Kids love to ride bikes and skate around it. I can remember doing that too when I was a kid.

3:04:36 de Young Museum

The de Young is one of the most unique museums in San Francisco. It has an impressive permanent collection that has art works from around the world and hosts fantastic touring exhibitions as well. The building it is now in was opened to the public in October of 2005. While I was filming there a man who was very skilled at using Contact Poi juggling balls. It was fascinating to observe him as he concentrated on his own reflection in the museum windows. I talked to quite a few people while I was there. This was the 2nd time I filmed there. I filmed there a bunch of times throughout the pandemic including the day the de Young re-opened to the public.

3:09:09 California Academy of Sciences

I always loved this museum when I was a kid. I remember going there on a field trip in grammar school to see the moon rocks from one of the Apollo missions. It was also the first place I saw a real life living seahorse. Amazing.

3:11:59 Stockton Street/Chinatown

The Stockton Street part of Chinatown is a block west up the hill from the famous tourist street Grant Avenue. On the day I filmed there I started above on the tunnel on the north side of Stockton Street. Chinatown remained pretty vibrant during the early days of the pandemic. Mask compliance was near the 100% level. This is why Chinatown consistently had one of the lowest Covid infection rates in the City even though it is filled with SRO’s. The shot of the bus stop in front of the Central Chinese High School in this piece is a 9 minute excerpt from a 20 minute shot. A couple of things stand out in this shot. First there are two women who are sitting and talking in the bus stop. I kept thinking that they would get on a bus. But bus after bus would arrive and when the bus pulled out they would still be there. It seems like they were just hanging out there. I wonder if they do that often? Eventually they noticed me across the street and they would occasionally look over. When they looked over I waved and smiled. There was something so endearing about them. As a general rule when I was in the City filming I positioned myself out in the open and I didn’t make any effort to hide. I would pretty much stand where I thought I could get the shot that interested me the most.

Also during this shot a man with no shirt on and wearing a dirty trench coat enters from the right and sits down outside on a ledge on the school. At a certain point he got on a bus and you can see him through the windows. He doesn’t pay the fare or put on a mask which was required at the time. The bus didn’t move until the man stepped back out.  The bus driver closed the door then and then drove away as the man tried to pry the doors open.

3:52:07 The Embarcadero near Brannan Street

This part of the Embarcadero gets less foot traffic than the more renown area that’s between the Ferry Building and Fisherman’s Wharf. I talked to two police officers for a long time during the first shot of this section. It was interesting to hear their thoughts about how the pandemic had changed the city from their perspective and the dangers we were all facing because of the virus. Eventually this area became the main Covid Testing center in San Francisco. I filmed here many times from when it first opened to when it was finally closed down.

4:04:35 Noe Valley

Noe Valley especially in the area on 24th that I filmed almost feels like a wealthy little town unto itself. The day I spent there was before parklets had sprung up in front of the restaurants there. I watched businesses open and close in the neighborhood. Whenever I filmed there I made sure to treat myself to something from the Noe Valley Bakery. If you ever go there you should do the same. This was the second day I had filmed there. The first time I filmed there in April of 2020 there was a long line of people waiting in the parking lot of the Whole Foods market. There wasn’t a line there this time. There’s some good examples in this section of people who are moving about in ways they probably wouldn’t have pre-pandemic. In particular in the clip that features the front of the restaurant Novy where we see a woman walk in the middle of the street to avoid people who are eating outside and don’t have masks on. There’s a field of study called proxemics that studies the physical distance people maintain from one another. I think that what was considered the norm before the pandemic was definitely upended during this time. It’s been fascinating to watch that develop and change. I wonder what the new norms of proxemics will be and how they differ from the pre-pandemic times.

4:41:18 Market Street between 4th and 5th

This was a pretty special day. I ran into one of San Francisco’s unique characters, a man named Frank Chu. I’ve been seeing him carrying his protest sign for about 30 years at almost every big public gathering that I attended. I used to see him when I filmed for network TV in the early 2000’s. At one point there was even a bar in the Mission named after one of the main things he would often talk about- 12 Galaxies. On this day he wanted to talk on camera and what he talked about was similar to what he always talked about. He’s a soft spoken gentle man. Also a man who was with him told me that a protest march was going to be coming our way from the Ferry Building area. After talking to Frank I set up my camera and began to record as the marchers worked their way towards me from the Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street. I set up about 20 feet from a BART station and a couple of guys sat there and they became a whole story themselves. This shot is my second longest shot of my pandemic filming coming in at just under an hour. There’s a lot happening in this shot- so many stories occurring at the same time. At a certain point I talk to a couple from Houston and at another a woman stops in front of the camera and she does a funny little dance.

6:15:43 Lower Market Street From Steuart to Battery

This area is in the heart of the financial district. It’s really felt abandoned since the beginning of the pandemic and it hasn’t recovered. Many of the businesses that served the people that used to work there during the week are closed for good.

6:56:44 Castro Street

I went to Castro Street to get some footage of people walking past one of the the murals by the artist Nicole Hayden. The first shot in this section is a painting of Tulips that she did. I met Nicole on May 22, of 2020. I filmed her painting one of my favorite pandemic murals on the outside of Moby Dick a bar that’s on 18th Street near Castro. She is really talented and equally as nice. I ran into her numerous times while I was out filming. A lot of her murals were in the Hayes Valley area of the city which is the neighborhood near where she lives. I made it a point to make sure that I documented her work whenever I found out she had a new piece up in the wild. Castro Street is a great area that is very important to the LGBTQ community. I always had a good time filming around there.

7:10:16 Portola District on San Bruno Street

This neighborhood isn’t really known by people outside of San Francisco. Portola, pronounced- pore tah luh, is also known as the garden district and is in the southern part of the city. I filmed on San Bruno Avenue which is a commercial street in a predominantly residential area. There never were many parklets on this street. There were some cool murals that went up during the pandemic though. I show them setting up the chairs outside of Churn a new ice cream store that didn’t make it through the pandemic.