‘Neighborhoods of Pittsburgh’ filmmaker takes a hit but keeps shooting
What is the point of doing anything at all?
That’s the question Dean Bog asked his 17,000 YouTube subscribers in a video uploaded to his channel in October. The 25-year-old Pittsburgh documentary filmmaker was a bit over five months into recovery from a rock-climbing injury that shattered his ankle.
“If you take the analogy of a car, my body is a young, new car, but I’ve got these tires on it that are like, on their last legs,” Bog explained in a phone interview. “So I’m trying to get as many miles out of these tires as I can.”
Given his circumstances, Bog’s question to his YouTube audience is a grim one. Yet it’s followed by homespun clips of Bog’s friends goofing off under a bridge, the face of a puppy, his cozy apartment. Finally, he answers his own question in a close-up shot of a handwritten note addressed “To the Universe”: “Create beauty, and inspire others to love.”
This is where the documentarian excels — taking ordinary people, places and moments in Pittsburgh’s many neighborhoods and finding their beauty. Originally from New Jersey, Bog graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2018 and has made videos featuring the city ever since.
In his “Neighborhoods of Pittsburgh” video series, Bog explores the quirks and intricacies of each community. Clocking in around 15 minutes, each episode aims to capture not only a neighborhood’s highlights, but its untold histories and the stories of its residents.
In 2020, the first season of “Neighborhoods” debuted on YouTube with Bog taking viewers through Bloomfield, once the epicenter of Pittsburgh’s Italian community and increasingly an offshoot of Lawrenceville gentrification. Instead of just telling you this, Bog lets business owners, bikers and porch-dwellers he meets share their stories in intimate interviews.
In later episodes, “Neighborhoods” followed slackliners balancing atop Mount Washington, construction workers in the Mexican War Streets, and Polish Hill punk rockers.
Bog needs cortisone inections every few months to ward off the pain of osteoarthritis. With a recent injection — and a new
perspective on life — he is currently filming season two of “Neighborhoods.” He says the injections allow him to get up and wander a neighborhood for an hour or two at a time.
He has plans to film episodes in Hazelwood, Duck Hollow, Strip District and Friendship. At least two episodes may be done by the end of the year, but he makes no promises.
“I’m taking a completely different approach,” Bog said, “and I don’t know if this will work.”
Season one saw Bog releasing a new episode every week, but this time it’s different.
“With the first season, it was like I would go into a neighborhood, be there for a week, and then just leave,” he said. “You can’t really build relationships in a week. You can’t really develop a story in a week. You can’t really make an impact on a community in a week.”
This time, he’s bouncing from neighborhood to neighborhood and going back periodically, “digging deeper” into narratives, he said. In Hazelwood, he is exploring the neighborhood’s complicated industrial past.
“Hazelwood has a very intense story of the steel industry collapsing and the neighborhood going through an immensely difficult time. And you know, now they’re starting to get the new development in. So there is this narrative that’s apparent there.”
Part of season one’s charm was Bog positioning himself creatively within the environment. In one scene, he sat on top of a boulder explaining the boundary between Bloomfield and North Oakland. An editing trick allowed a second version of Bog to walk into the frame and take over the narration.
This season, Bog won’t be in front of the camera as much.
“I am experimenting with just letting the neighborhoods speak for themselves, and also seeing if I can kind of speak through the craft of filmmaking. I find that when I shut up, my filmmaking says more.”
That means viewers can expect episodes that feel more like “The Run,” in which residents of tuckedaway Four Mile Run talk about their 11-year battle with the city over flooding that prevented them from exiting their main road.
Part of city officials’ solution was a new road running right through the neighborhood that sits beneath Interstate 376 by Greenfield. Open to e-bikes and shuttles, the road was a concession to local technology companies, according to residents.
“I’m not a journalist,” Bog said. “I think that it’s a little inappropriate or cringy for me as this middle-class white kid to produce a video about a neighborhood where so many people are dealing with systemic racism and poverty and I can kind of go in, do my little dance, and leave. So if I do touch on those topics, I’m trying to do it with more respect.”
Although he prefers to work solo, Bog’s shattered ankle has prompted him to seek an assistant who can carry his cameras and other equipment. He has posted a “Help Wanted” video on YouTube and a link with an application.
He plans to continue to film “Neighborhoods” through the summer while working as a freelance videographer for weddings and events. The weekend
gig work leaves weekdays free for his urban documentaries, he said.
“I owe it to people to at least be working toward something that I can share with folks. There is pressure there to put something out.
“But in my gut, as long as I’m working on ‘Neighborhoods’ or something people can enjoy, then I feel OK.”