The September 11 Attacks - Sam Riegel's footage with Quyen Tran (editor's cut)

This video contains the files « Sam Riegel_clip 1.avi » to « Sam Riegel_clip 10.avi » as well as « 320-WTCI-381-I.mp4 », which have been released to the public by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). I added an audio file with the voices of the videographer and his wife as eyewitnesses, which I have sourced from a TV interview with the History Channel in 2012.

This is amateur footage. In addition, the videographer was obviously nervous or even anxious at his vantage point in a high-rise building only one block from the crime scene. Nevertheless, it shows a couple of interesting details. The audio track of the footage is broken, and has only electronic noise, but no other sound.

Videographer: Sam Riegel, with the participation of Quyen Tran
Locations: South End Avenue & Battery Park City Esplanade, Manhattan, NY
Time: uncertain, about 09h15 a.m. - about 11h00 a.m. EDT, September 11, 2001.

00:16 »» From a window at the corner of South End Avenue & Liberty Street;
»» 00:22 »» Intersection West Street & Liberty Street, with WTC 3 (Marriott Hotel), WTC 4 in the rear;
»» 03:15 »» Kowsky Plaza, formerly known as Pumphouse Plaza, and North Cove Marina behind the World Financial Center;
05:39 »» Battery Park City Esplanade, waterfront, starting @ 09:59 a.m. EDT;
»» 06:35 »» Voice-over, Sam Riegel & Quyen Tran in 2012;
»» 13:19 »» Burning North Tower (WTC 1) as seen from Battery Park;
»» 14:18 »» North Tower has collapsed, Plume of smoke and dust reaching West Street & Battery Place @ 10:29 a.m. EDT;
»» 16:09 »» On the Hudson River, view from the water;

Trivia: Sam Riegel was already an actor / voice actor at the time of the September 11 Attacks. Quyen Tran just had began to explore the world of photography with her first camera, which Sam had given her on her birthday. She showed her photographs to the Associated Press, promptly received her first media job, and so discovered her passion for a career behind the camera. The couple moved to California. Quyen Tran applied to the film school at the University of California Los Angeles. She was accepted, completed her Master's degree, and has become an award-winning cinematographer.

I refrain from digital image manipulation. In my opinion, any so-called 'enhancement', as observed in similar video creations elsewhere, is tampering with evidence. I consider this video document as material evidence in the disaster investigation. My objective is to use as much raw footage as ever available for a highly authentic document, and to avoid edited material if possible. I also preserved artifacts 'as is', and the « 320-WTCI-381-I.mp4 » file may have encountered earlier compression losses.
However, I adapted all footage to NTSC standard (SD), doubled the frame rate to 59.94 fps (60000/1001). Though working with, whenever possible, uncompressed footage, Rumble is using their own encoding service and compression standards.

The audio track of the footage contains nothing but electronic noise. I could not tell whether the track has been redacted, or whether this is a recording problem, but tend to recognize a technical problem. I decided to suppress the unpleasant noise with the exception of three remnants as a reminder.
To fill the about two minutes in the dark after the collapse of the South Tower, I created a short voice-over track from an interview which Sam Riegel & Quyen Tran gave to the History Channel in 2012. This is an edited audio file, since I tried to eliminate an acoustic over-dramatization, but to concentrate on the witness testimony.

This video has been created for exclusively educational, non-profit purposes. The usage of commercial footage shall be regarded under the conditions of 17 U.S. Code § 17 / 17 U.S. Code § 512 (f) (Fair use).
Dedicated to the lives lost on September 11, 2001, and in the aftermath of that day. May they rest in Peace.
Thank you for taking the time to inform yourself.

Quyen Tran: https://www.qtranfilms.com/

https://www.conniemazur.com/