[VideoEssay] Subdivided City: Hi Neighbor!

Subdivided City: Hi Neighbor!

Original video drawings

Subdivided City: Hi Neighbor! (Original video drawings)

Synopsis

In the video essay, my space is set in housing estates and I set my title to be subdivided cities. It is because when talking about housing estate, my mind comes out with a lot of words like subdivided flat and neighbor. Nowadays, there are lots of housing units in a housing estate. Compared to the walled villages, housing estate seems more indifferent in between neighbors. We just like being subdivided. Therefore, I decided to set my video message as the neighborhood. I would like to show that neighbors are not just a person living next to us and also not a stranger. We can pay more attention to concern and connect with our neighbors.

In the video essay, I would like to show the relationship changing between “me” and neighbor. We are first strangers to each other. However, there are some things that happened, and we start to have the connection. And finally, we become neighbors and friends.

I have chosen Tin Shui Wai as my video location. It is because there are over 20 housing estates in Tin Shui Wai. When you try to stand in Tin Shui Wai and turn around, you can find that housing estates are all around you.

For visual effect, I have chosen to use the first-person perspective to increase the immersion to let the audience feel they are being with us and connect with their neighbors. In the beginning part of the video. I would like to use a zoom-in vision to zoom from the earth to Tin Shui Wai. However, I can just use google earth because of my budget.

For sound effects, I would like to show a big contrast in my video. Therefore, I use slow violin music at the beginning and fast piano music at the end. Also, I have added some heartbeats in the first part of the video to increase the sense of tension that when we first meet our neighbors.

For the video making, I use Movavi Video Editor 15 Plus to create my video essay.

For the reflection, after filming this video essay, I have really thought about the problem of neighborhood. In the past, just like in some movies, people always have a friendly relationship with their neighbors. They always help each other when they need. However, nowadays, most of us just become strangers or even an enemy. There is more and more news is about the struggle between neighbors in recent years. For example, a person has used a building shaker to harass his neighbors for over a year as revenge in a dispute. We are very easy to have some dispute with our neighbors. We may complain or even curse them. However, I think that we should give more concerns to our neighbors more tolerance and try to understand their thoughts.

Li Chi Kin Zachery (3035691535)

4 thoughts on “[VideoEssay] Subdivided City: Hi Neighbor!

  1. u3582948 says:

    Your video is meaningful and interesting. There is a clear structure of your story, I can see the change of the relationship between your neighbor and you. From your video, i realize the importance of neighbors, they can give us a helping hand when we are in need. The end of the video echoes your title and impressed me. thank u 🙂

    Reply
  2. u3579700 says:

    The idea of this video is brilliant. It takes only two minutes to express clearly the message that the director wants to convey. Even if the content does not have a straightforward explanation, but the metaphorical way still makes people very intuitive to understand the plot of the story, which indicates that the director is very good at camera language. And the first-person perspective makes the audience feel immersed in it. Appropriate soundtracks, including piano, violin, and heartbeat, all make the video emotional.
    However, the video still has shortcomings in plot. The subdivided feature that the director wanted to express at the beginning, which neighbors are strange and prepared to each other, is not unique to the covid-19 pandemic, but is always existed in modern urban life. Although the plot includes the content of sharing masks, it is still not enough to illustrate the characteristics of Hong Kong as a subdivided city under the pandemic.
    The director’s belief in the video that neighbours should help each other instead of being suspicious and taking precautions deserves our deeper reflection.

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  3. Christina TSOI says:

    Your video essay is really meaningful, it let me rethink my relationship with my neighbor. The video essay shows the relationship between two households. The video tried to define the relationship of neighbors. It shows the changes of the attitude towards the neighbor. I agree that the people are now indifferent in the neighborhood. However, since housing estate is the place with people of different classes, I think being indifferent with neighbors is the way of self protection. Anyway, it is good to see the close relationship between neighbors, making the city not subdivided anymore.

    Reply
  4. Jen Lam says:

    It is a fun and on-point video. I wonder if this is really the case between you and your neighbour? What about other residents in the building? To make a good research video, you may want to investigate something beyond your own discovery. For example, is befriending neighbours common in Hong Kong? In what type of building? Why did the layout help people encounter their neighbours? These are all questions that you can ask and look into to get draw more inspiring conclusion than limiting your video to your own experience. You had a great idea to start with but a more rigorous research will enrich your project.

    Reply

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