Hi, my name is Weegee. I am a dog. On my license, it says I am a cockapoo, but I don’t know what that means. My parents adopted me five years ago and named me Weegee, after the famous photographer. They always tell me that I channel him, because I am a character, and hold my toys in my mouth like a cigar, just like the original Weegee. That guy called himself Weegee the Famous, but I want to be famous-er.
The original Weegee was born Arthur Fellig (1899-1968). He was renowned for making photographs at crime scenes in New York City, starting in the early 1930s. Some say his moniker started because he was like a Ouija Board, and would arrive at crime scenes before the cops, clairvoyant or something. Others argue that it started when he was a young apprentice in the New York Times’ photo lab, where he used a squeegee to wipe down the prints in the darkroom.
What I do know, because my Daddy, Eric Weeks, taught me, is that the original Weegee made some pretty great photographs. Eventually he moved away from crime scene photography because things changed in NYC, with less mob killings and stuff. So, this guy moved on to some other things, eventually moving to Hollywood and working on Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb as a still photographer.
He also made experimental films, with his most well-known titled Weegee’s New York. He made it in 1948. He was really into special effects then.
My Daddy asked me if I would like to make a short film, as an homage to my namesake. I was like, “As long as I can spend to with you on long walks through New York City, you bet!”
And so here is our film. I am the director of photography and the camera operator, while my Pops is the editor and producer. As the camera guy, I use Omni Pocket and Go Pro cameras on a harness, but my favorite tool is an inexpensive KSAD body camera that I wear on my collar. Nobody knows what I am up to, hah. They think I am just another cute pup on the street. And the capture is rougher, and rawer than the fancy cameras, much like the original Weegee’s film.
I sat through the daily rushes, of course, and was always given final say. At first, I questioned adding the appropriated footage from the original film, and other films based in New York City, but I was convinced when my father told me “Weegee, this is how I see this great City. I see it interpreted through others’ experience, I see it through the history of change, I see it through our common knowledge of past decades recorded by great film-makers. Weegee, I think you are a great film-maker, and you belong right next to the original Weegee and all those others.”
Complementing our film is an original score by Alex C. Huddleston, who distills my energy and the City’s zeitgeist into a composition that compliments the film while offering an homage to the original Leonard Bernstein music that accompanies the original Weegee’s New York.
My film furthers the understanding of the daily life of urban dogs. You will see through my eyes and my perspective. I am not sure how many humans understand how many tires we see on our daily walks. I sure do hope you like it.
