Chongqing — a City Recovering
He Yifu
This is an empty teaching room in Chongqing Polytech University, it is noon on Friday, yet the building is empty.
This is the canteen at the university. Due to the health crisis, they only serve take-out and forbid people to eat in.
It seems that the crisis is still severe, yet when looking at other angles of the city, you will notice it is already recovering.
This is the city bus, you could see that there are a few masks-wearing people on it. This shows the transport still functions and the city is coming back.
In this video, we could see tons of riders waiting for the food they are about to deliver. The renaissance in the take out business shows the renaissance of the city.
This is the supermarket. Although people are still wearing masks, they go out for grocery shopping as usual.
In this video, I moved my camera to follow the man ordering food. As the camera moving, we could see more in the canteen. The preparing area is almost empty, only two cooks still work there serving the take out food. The dining area is blocked by warning lines, and people are banned from eating there. The canteen used to be crowded, yet due to the crisis, it seems “deserted”.
I also intentionally kept the sound of the video(as you may notice, I muted most of my videos) to make the “beep” sound clearly heard. A canteen this size is normally throng and noisy, yet now it is empty and quiet.
He Yifu 3035533836
Appreciate the variety of cityscapes offered in your videos, as well as the mix of urban architecture and human flow. Choosing to focus on the “recovering” of a city is an interesting and yet ironic theme in your collection. However, the collection will be much more compelling and communicate the difference between empty spaces and reviving spaces during the ongoing pandemic even more strongly if you incorporate relevant camera techniques for the individual videos. Curating the sequence of this collection would also help convey the idea. At the moment, the transitions and differences of clips are not that apparent. A suggestion would be actively composing the each clip. For example, zoom into the subject more when conveying the reviving activities of a city. Further, appreciate your sensibility in using sounds to highlight movements and indicate the coming back of activities. Do continue to develop this sensibility for your final assignment.