Background Information:
Seoul is the capital of South Korea and the most developed city in South Korea. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Seoul, different from other cities, was full of city lights at night. Thus, the nighttime view was beautiful in Seoul. However, pandemic had led the government to announce the business operation restriction after 10:00PM (KST). Therefore, the city lights from buildings and highways at night disappeared in Seoul.
Method of Research:
Before start filming the video, I’ve read various news articles to understand the changes in Seoul after COVID-19 and decide which urban characteristics of Seoul that I should focused on. Then, I’ve visited the actual site (rooftop) several time in order to figure out how to film it, such as which camera angle and methods I should use in the video.
Synopsis (Video and objectives):
In this video, I’ve focused on the changes due to the business operation restriction after 10:00PM and how people coped with this government guideline. Restriction on operation hours has changed people lives a lot. To be specific, self-employed people, who runs the restaurants, bars or clubs started to face financial tough times. The reason for this is that they usually had more customers at night, but now, they can’t receive any customers at night according to the government guidelines. However, nowadays, people are working twice as hard in the morning and afternoon as they know this is the only way to cope with current situation. Not only the disappearance of city lights, disappearance of noises and laughter has been shown in this video as well.
The video begins by me looking down the city from rooftop. From rooftop, I’ve used zoom-in technique to view the changes in city. Through zoom-in technique, I showed that the buildings, restaurants, bars and clubs were all closed after 10:00PM. I did not only film my video on rooftop but changed the camera angle to sidewalk from rooftop and back to rooftop from sidewalk. I intentionally filmed my video in this way to show that I am standing in a higher place to view the whole city in one glance. Moreover, scenes of me walking down the street are filmed in my personal point of view. This point of view was important since I was the main character that should be focused in the video. At the end of the video, zoom-out technique was used in order to reinforce that I have been always viewing and discussing the changes of whole city from rooftop.
Reflections:
During this project, I actually felt a lot of changes of Seoul while walking down the street. This was because there were too few people on the street at night. For me, this was a big surprise since I knew that the street in Seoul is usually loud and noisy at night. This project was a great opportunity for me to understand how COVID-19 has affected/changed the city and realize how to cope with the current situation.
Word Count: 494
Bibliography:
“Our Top 10 Lists.” Our Top 10 Lists | The Official Travel Guide to Seoul, english.visitseoul.net/top10/Top-10-Seouls-City-Lights-at-Night?indexSn=1§ionSn=737.
Busan – Best Nighttime Viewpoints says: “5 Of Seoul’s Best Nighttime Viewpoints: South Korea.” Go Travel Your World, 23 Feb. 2021, gotravelyourworld.com/seouls-best-nighttime-viewpoints/.
I Seoul U. “Level 2 Social Distancing for Three More Weeks Until May. 23 – .” 서울시영문, 3 May 2021, english.seoul.go.kr/level-2-social-distancing-for-two-more-weeks-until-mar-28/.
Hermesauto. “Coronavirus: South Korea to Ease Social Distancing to Help Small Business.” The Straits Times, 13 Feb. 2021, www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/coronavirus-south-korea-to-ease-social-distancing-to-help-small-business.
Dighe, Amy, et al. “Response to COVID-19 in South Korea and Implications for Lifting Stringent Interventions.” BMC Medicine, BioMed Central, 9 Oct. 2020, bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-020-01791-8.
Hyokyung Nam, 3035740764
I really enjoyed your video. South Korea is well-known for its nightlife like the Itaewon and Dongdaemun Night Market. Your video vividly showed the cold scene and disappearance of the wondrous and exciting Korea. I really hope to see the populated moments there again. Talking back to the content of the video, it tells me how other cities are coping with COVID-19 and how Korea try to fight the pandemic. I think you can add some previous videos showing the energetic cities in Korea when there was no COVID, where people can still stay outside until late at night to show a better contrast. Nonetheless, your video is definitely a great one, with clear narration and a clear message to me as a viewer. Thank you.
The background music of the video really makes me enjoy the video. I have been to South Korea before the pandemic and South Korea is an international place. A lot of people in South Korea will go out at night to eat dinner and shopping. However, after the pandemic starts, the activities at night reduce a lot. The situation in Hong Kong is the same as South Korea a few months ago, all of the shops need to close before 22:00. Therefore, I can totally understand the feeling of Korean. And the video is really good.
It is nice that you use contrast as a technique to highlight how Seoul has changed after the pandemic hit. You mainly filmed in two locations – the rooftop and the street. In fact, for a more rigorous research, you may want to stick to analysing and filming on rooftop. Street and rooftop are very different spaces that they allow you to understand the city very differently. Street is mostly the place where a lot of interactions between people happen yet rooftop can be more private, providing a bird-eye view to observe the happenings in the city. Right now your video lacks certain coherence as it suddenly jumps from the rooftop to the street and then goes back to the rooftop. It would definitely be enriched by a focused approach and research.