[Field-Homework 3] Private City

Title: Private City

Place: Apartment

Director: Hu Junya

Background music: Aruarian Dance by Nujabes

YouTube link: https://youtu.be/W3yiQZAVXmk

Theme: 

In recent years, privacy has been a key issue in today’s society (Wuyts et al., 2014). With the urban development of society, dwellings in multi-story apartment buildings (MSABs) have increased dramatically as a percentage of the city’s housing stock (Yousif & Aziz, 2021). At the same time, the privacy of an apartment is highly valued by citizens. According to a research conducted by Kennedy et al., there were 60% of residents consider privacy as “important” or “very important”, and 31% considered privacy to be “extremely important” (2015). As a resident who has lived in the current MSAB for almost ten years, I’m satisfied with both the aural and visual privacy of my apartment. In this video, I aim to show how private my hometown Wenzhou is by shooting my apartment; and what I do as a citizen to protect privacy.

My hometown Wenzhou locates near the middle of the East China Sea coastline, is the economic, cultural, and transportation center of southern Zhejiang Province. Millions of merchants from Wenzhou have emigrated and started businesses throughout the world. The city is, therefore, a famous hometown of overseas Chinese. Because of the epidemic, I observed that both businessmen and office workers tend to work from home and spend more time with their families compared to the days before the COVID-19. As a result, citizens may have higher requirements for privacy in their apartments. 

Method:

I initially chose the keyword “Information”, but since the apartment is not a public area, information could only be received from common technologies (mobile phones, TV, …) at home. That keyword no longer attracted me. Then, I found that “private” can be closely matched to the identity of apartments, so I decided to shoot a video to reveal the “private” characteristic of my city and apartment. 

The video can be divided into five parts. Firstly, I invited my mom to be the guest to ring the doorbell, and I had a short conversation with her just as how I treated guests or strangers as usual. I ran to the front of the video door phone while holding the camera. Video Door Phone is one of the best replacements for traditional doorbells to keep unwanted visitors away from our homes to ensure safety and privacy (Oh et al., 2006). The scene may seem unstable because I couldn’t control the lens during the POV shot. Secondly, I took shots of the fingerprint lock of the gate to show the high security of my apartment. According to Chang and Wang, fingerprint access effectively enhances the safety and reliability of electronic password systems (2013). For this part of the video, I used two filming ways. The first one is the same as the last part — the POV shot, so the stability was not guaranteed. Then, I set the second angle inside my apartment to film the scene I entered, which was a medium shot. I also framed multiple subjects in the background and space simultaneously. 

For shooting the third part, I was inspired by the two concepts — “voyeurism” and “male gaze” from the readings that have been discussed in tutorials. In this part, I was standing in the same position as the voyeurs to observe the other apartments; however, because of the long distance and curtains, I could only see the exterior part of their apartments but not the inner view. This part is composed of zoom, pedestal, and medium shots. Pedestal shot was utilized in two excerpts of shooting the window view, and zoom shot is when I zoomed in the window view and tried to see inside the apartments.

The fourth part is mostly full shots that show my entire body with a tripod, plus a few close-up shots of my hands when drawing the curtains and turning on the TV. This part contains my postures when sitting on the sofa and reactions while watching TV. In both excerpts, I expressed the real me and acted most comfortably. I tried to reveal that home may be the most relaxed place for everyone, and when they are at home, they can do everything and dress everything without caring how others will think of them. It, therefore, reveals the privacy of this personal space. 

Lastly, the fifth part is almost set identically to the second part. This part involves the scene in that I used a marker to cover up the information in my parcel before throwing it. This is what citizens do to protect their privacy.

Reflection: 

Through this video project, I realized that I should focus on observing the surrounding environment instead of looking at the screens all day. When I was thinking about how to reveal this characteristic through shooting my daily life, I was initially confused. However, after carefully recalling the routines I have done every day and observing every corner of my apartment, I thought of the above ideas. However, I found it difficult to relate this theme to COVID-19 because the interior part of my apartment has not affected so much by the virus. 

Bibliography:

AlSayyad, N. (2006). Voyeuristic Modernity: the Lens, the Screen and the City. In Cinematic urbanism: A history of the modern from reel to real (pp. 147-168). New York: London: Routledge.

Chang, F., & Wang, C. (2013). New Bank Electronic Combination Lock System. Applied Mechanics and Materials, 397-400, 1790-1793.

Guinness, K. M. (2021). The 16 Types of Camera Shots & Angles (Video Guide). https://boords.com/blog/16-types-of-camera-shots-and-angles-with-gifs

Kennedy, R., Buys, L., & Miller, E. (2015). Residents’ Experiences of Privacy and Comfort in Multi-Storey Apartment Dwellings in Subtropical Brisbane. Sustainability (Basel, Switzerland), 7(6), 7741-7761.

Madanipour, A. (2003). Public and private spaces of the city. London ; New York: Routledge.

Oh, Y., Paik, E., & Park, K. (2006). Design of a Video Door Phone Service Providing Personal Mobility Based on Home Gateway System. Information Networking. Advances in Data Communications and Wireless Networks, 815-822.

ONODA, Y., KITANO, H., KANNO, M., & SAKAGUCHI, T. (2009). THE TRANSFIGURATION OF RESIDENTS’ SPACE SETTING AND PRIVACY IN THE COMMUNITY ORIENTED APARTMENT HOUSE. Nihon Kenchiku Gakkai Keikakukei Ronbunshū, 74(642), 1699-1705.

Porro, A. (2018). Dwelling in Doubt: Do Tenants Have a Reasonable Expectation of Privacy in the Common Areas of Their Apartment Buildings? The University of Chicago Legal Forum, 2018, 333.

Schultz, T. (1972). Privacy for Apartment Dwellers. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 51(1A), 128.

Wuyts, K., Scandariato, R., & Joosen, W. (2014). Empirical evaluation of a privacy-focused threat modeling methodology. The Journal of Systems and Software, 96, 122-138.

Yousif, M., & Aziz, A. (2021). AN EVALUATION OF VISUAL PRIVACY LEVEL IN RESIDENTIAL UNIT’S LAYOUTS IN KHARTOUM, SUDAN. Journal of Islamic Architecture, 6(4), 349-359.

 

Hu Junya, 3035918086