Final Video Essay
Disappearing City: Telephone Booth
Director: Wang Yi 3036268024
The main theme of the video is about the disappearing old telephone booths in Hong Kong. The main locations of the video are in Central and Shek Tong Tsui, Hong Kong. The current situation of some old telephone booths is filmed to show the impact of urbanization on telephone booths.
Hong Kong’s telephone booths are iconic and striking in their unique design. These compact phone booths are made of sturdy metal construction with large glass panels and lockable doors for privacy. The kiosks are equipped with public telephones with numeric keypads and handsets, and usually accept coins or pre-paid phone cards. These phone booths are located throughout the city, especially in busy areas and transport hubs, and are a convenient point of communication. Although the use of these phone booths has declined with the rise of mobile telephony, they still symbolize a bygone era of public communication, as well as a cultural icon of Hong Kong’s rich history.
In the early days of Hong Kong life, telephone booths played an important role as a link between people and the outside world. Providing people with the convenience of communication, whether for business exchanges, family liaison or social communication, telephone booths provided an important communication node, connecting Hong Kong with the world. And phone booths are transparent boxes containing telephone equipment, often thought to separate the caller’s body from the noise of the street and ensure the intimacy of the conversation. The concept of a conversation isolated from its surroundings allows people to comfortably work remotely in an office or private space, or use their own mobile phones, without the distraction of noise and other people. For some telecoms veterans, memories flood back to the comforting phone booths that once dotted Hong Kong’s narrow urban areas. However, now Hong Kong’s district councils are debating whether to remove these once vital phone booths. That’s because the average Hong Konger owns more than 2.5 mobile phones, one of the highest rates of mobile phone penetration in the world.
The two main locations for the scenes in the video are in Central, Hong Kong Island and Shek Tong Tsui. These are places where local life is more abundant. The film is introduced by a telephone booth standing at the foot of a hill, bringing out the loneliness and neglect of the booth. The public, immersed in the fast-paced urbanized life, has long since stopped using it. From the narrator’s introduction, we learn that telephone booths have disappeared and gradually withdrawn from Hong Kong culture. This video explores the dispensability of the telephone booth through an exploration of the role it played in the lives of the masses, captured on camera. Opening the door of a dusty phone booth, the old telephone sets are covered with dust and service suspension notices to show the despondency of phone booths.
When I shot this video, I started with an overhead view from a hillside, zooming in on the main phone booth to show the viewer the main subject of the video. There are two shots that scan the overall appearance of the phone booths in Hong Kong from top to bottom, so that the viewer can see that the decoration of the phone booths is rather old-fashioned, and they do not look like they are cleaned regularly. It also shows that with urbanization and technological development, telephone booths are rarely used as public infrastructure in Hong Kong. When we follow the camera into the interior of the phone booths, we can see that the interior is still labelled with the way to use the phone booths, and one of them is even labelled with the suspension of service. This is a direct reflection of the fact that phone booths have been abandoned by the times and have become a part of Hong Kong’s culture in the past.
Whilst photographing telephone booths in Hong Kong, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of nostalgia and appreciation for these iconic structures. As I visited different locations and observed these phone booths, I realized how they represent a link to the past – a time when public telephones were an essential means of communication. Photographing phone booths also allowed me to demonstrate the evolving nature of technology and its impact on society. The contrast between these traditional phone booths and the popularity of mobile phones highlights the rapid development of communication technology and the ever-changing ways in which we stay connected.
Another potential regret of photographing phone booths in Hong Kong is that it does not adequately show the urban environment surrounding them. Phone booths are not isolated individuals, but integral parts of a bustling urban landscape. Failure to photograph phone booths in conjunction with their vibrant surroundings of busy streets, iconic buildings or diverse neighborhoods can result in a lack of visual storytelling and a missed opportunity to convey the significance of phone booths in the wider context of Hong Kong. There was also no opportunity to use professional camera equipment and a lens stabilizer, which would have resulted in a slightly shaky and less-than-perfect image.
Bibliography
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Great video! Very nice use of spatial movement in the filming of the phone booth to show multiple angles of the phone booth. The object of the phone booth is also a good match for the title of Disappearing City, which makes people think further about the meaning of the phone booth.