feature: ‘hour by hour’ diy web series showcases new york’s underground scenes

Hey, I’m Simone Varano and I’m the producer of ‘Hour by Hour’. The series was pretty much born out of the slums of creativity and the underground NYC lifestyle. I moved to New York about 4 years ago from Alexandria, VA to pursue my BBA degree at Parsons the New School for Design. When I got here, I became extremely captivated with downtown arts and culture scene in Brooklyn and wanted to completely submerge myself in it. What started as the typical “my life should be a TV show” idea turned into reality when I decided to grab a camera and document everything I was experiencing while involved in this new environment. I became really frustrated with the lack of exposure that I felt that the dope people and places in my life were receiving, so I decided to do something about it.
In my opinion, it’s one thing to read about the arts and culture scene of NYC in blogs, but a completely different thing to visually see it through the eyes of someone actually living that life. ‘Hour by Hour’ is a way for me to channel all of my adventures and mishaps into a series of chronological, aesthetically pleasing, video diary formatted episodes. I created this series for the underrepresented youth because I feel that I myself am an underrepresented youth. As for the future, I plan to further expand my project to get even more talented voices heard.
Check out a few episodes and some pictures of the people and places featured below + visit hxhour.com for more videos!

By Simone Varano, AFROPUNK Contributor

Photo above by Jared Fullerton