U-Matic

Tape 5
Media Day Downtown externs
Hart Plaza, Pontchartrain, River, Lansdowne, Spirit of Detroit
Logged
4-29-90

U-Matic S tape containing b-roll shot for the video "'E.T. Tourist' The Visit," produced by the City of Detroit's Department of Public Information for Media Day 1990. The recording features exterior daytime shots of the Civic Center, Hart Plaza, and the riverfront.

The tape begins with a series of silent shots taken from a roughly stationary position in front of the Veterans Memorial Building of the surroundings. These include a pan down from American flag over Hart Plaza to the Pontchartrain Hotel in the background; the People Mover making several rounds passing from behind Cobo Arena, across Jefferson Avenue; the Renaissance Center viewed from across Hart Plaza; pedestrians walking along Jefferson and through Hart Plaza; the Detroit Citizens' Railway trolley traveling along Jefferson, 150 West Jefferson, Detroit Police Department officers patrolling the area, the LANSDOWNE docked at the foot of Civic Center Drive, a freighter passing on the Detroit River behind the LANSDOWNE, a Detroit Police Department Mounted Division officer riding past along Jefferson, Cobo Hall's exterior, the entrance to the Pontchartrain Hotel, and the entrance to the Veterans Memorial Building.

The tape's audio recording begins with a series of shots of people walking about Hart Plaza taken from the plaza's western side. Here, a cherry picker truck and a work van can be seen parked beside the Dodge Fountain. The camera also gets a shot of people seated on the benches around the bust of Abraham Lincoln beside the Veterans Memorial Building. Following a cut, the camera is then repositioned on the east side of Hart Plaza, near the Pyramid. Here it pans about for shots of people, seagulls, the STAR OF DETROIT at dock, motorcycle police officers riding past, the city's skyline, a maintenance crew, a man smoking while reclining in the shade, the riverfront and the LANSDOWNE, Windsor's riverfront, the Renaissance Center, a man reclining on a wall, the Canadian Club sign across the river, the STAR OF DETROIT and its docking area, the STAR OF DETROIT II, a kite flying over the plaza, people seated on the Pyramid, the Ethnic Festival Parking sign on the Center Garage parking structure, the Dodge Fountain, the Pontchartrain Hotel and 150 West Jefferson, a man smoking a pipe beneath a tree on the riverfront, people seated around the spiral-shaped ramp on the plaza's ventilation tower, an ice cream vendor with a cart, a cruiser boat on the Detroit River, people walking up the stairs near the riverfront, two uniformed Wayne County Sheriff deputies talking to a woman, and a seagull perched atop a light pole.

The recording is on a 3M UCA 30S U-Matic S tape with a handwritten 3M label on its top, marked "Tape 5 Media Day Downtown." The tape is housed within a black plastic latching case with a matching label marked "Tape 5, Media Day Downtown externs, Hart Plaza, Pontchartrain, River, Lansdowne, Spirit of Detroit, Logged 4-29-90."