To Ithaca With Love: Video Postcard a Memento for Recent Ithaca College Grad

By Emma Silen, March 15, 2016

To Ithaca With Love: Video Postcard a Memento for Recent Ithaca College Grad

With almost 15,000 views on YouTube, a “video postcard” of the Ithaca area that features sweeping landscapes and precise time-laps shots has clearly struck a chord with current and former residents. The showcase of Ithaca’s natural wonders is the work of Canon Brownell, who graduated from Ithaca College with a B.S. in Emerging Media in 2015. He created it as his “thank you and farewell to Ithaca” before departing for the West Coast.

“For people that once lived in Ithaca, I wanted them to see the video and feel a sense of nostalgia and longing for this unique place they once called home,” Brownell said. “For people currently living in Ithaca, I wanted them to feel a sense a pride and joy when seeing the video. ‘Yep, this is my town,’ is how I would imagine a perfect response going.”

Brownell put the video together over the course of a month last year by combining his own footage with shots from his friends’ collections, including Joe Alpern ’16, who supplied the impressive drone footage of Ithaca’s exalted creeks and hills.

A two-time veteran of the Ithaca College Los Angeles Program, Brownell posted the video before embarking on a recent cross-country road trip to relocate in California.

“Ithaca will always be a second home to me and I don’t doubt I will be back very soon,” said Brownell. “I consider it close to impossible to be exploring somewhere like downtown Los Angeles and not miss a place like downtown Ithaca, NY.”