UPTOWN — About two years ago, Devin Vaughn awoke to the sound of gunshots outside his Uptown apartment and a man screaming in pain.
He ran to the window, but couldn't see what was happening because of the porch overhang. While the whole situation was over in a couple minutes, the memory stuck with him, he said.
"Before I could call the police, a couple EMTs from the nearby fire station ran to the scene, and then the police came. I saw the victim carried away, sitting up and clutching his leg, on a stretcher," said Vaughn, a senior graphics editor at The Onion. "Then I went about my day like normal, but affected by what I had witnessed."
The shooting in the 4600 block on North Racine Avenue on May 8, 2014 would eventually inspire his short film "Uptown," which he released on Vimeo earlier this month. The film explored the incident with observations he noticed from living close to street violence, he said.
"For me, this movie was about acknowledging the sadness that comes with numbing yourself to street violence and the conditions that cause it. I wanted the main character to go through the rationalizations one contrives after experiencing something like that, and I wanted to show that taking an emotional toll," said Vaughn, 29, who now lives in Ravenswood.
Vaughn grew up in Downstate Princeton and began making films in high school before studying film at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. He moved to Chicago about four years ago, but has been mostly making wedding videos.
The film begins with the main character, Laura, played by Atra Asdou, waking up to the shooting and being questioned by police, an interaction "consistent with what actually happened." And the rest of the film follows the build-up to a party scheduled at Laura's apartment.
While he can't speak for everyone, he feels residents often process violence by normalizing it and putting it in the background.
"A shooting will happen nearby, and everyone will say 'That's terrible,' but then we move on with our day and put it in the background, because we don't know what else to do," he said.
"After it happens so many times, you just start to view street violence like this in a very casual way, because it doesn't directly affect you. It's someone else's problem. It just becomes normal. You expect to hear about a shooting down the block every so often, because that's just what happens," he said.
While the video focuses on a shooting in Uptown, he sees violence as a national problem.
"As bad as Chicago has it, when you look at the national homicide rate by city, Chicago isn't even in the top ten. This story could have been told the same way in a number of different neighborhoods in a number of different cities. Uptown was just where I experienced it," Vaughn said.
"I love Uptown. It's a great neighborhood with great people and a lot of cultural jewels. It just also has its rough side, too," he said.
The 18-minute film can be watched below:
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