Slow City: Tin Shui Wai’s Tram Story
Director: CHEN LIHENG
Theme and Subject
This video reveals a hidden corner in Hong Kong where the slow pace of lifestyle dominates, Tin Shui Wai. Tin Shui Wai features its unique public transportation, the tram. The tram plays a significant role in residents’ daily lives. It serves the community by connecting the private residential areas and the public facilities, including parks, malls, and the MTR station. The light railway finally forms a circle in Tin Shui Wai and merges with the community harmoniously. The interactions between the residents and the landscape showcase a sustainable relationship between natural environment preservation and the process of suburbanization (Lau, 2010). A typical example is the railway cuts through the Locwood Garden in the middle but appears to be covered in greens.
The video opens by describing the daily routine of a school day, focusing on elaborating on the fast pace and repeated commute. This part builds the settings for the whole video and contrasts with the part delivered later in Tin Shui Wai. The repeated commute contributes to accumulating emotion both for the audience and the main character. The accumulation of boredom and numbness finally triggers the main character to break the daily routine in search of a place with a slow lifestyle to breathe out of the fixed circle.
In conclusion, the video concentrates on contrasting the commute facilities in Hong Kong Island and Tin Shui Wai to demonstrate and introduce the unique slow pace of the lifestyle in Tin Shui Wai.
Method of Conducting the Research
Firstly, I located Tin Shui Wai and its tram system as my target to interpret the topic of a slow city. I referred to both historical and contemporary images of the urban planning of Tin Shui Wai to get a better understanding of its structure (Ng, 1992). Historical images are searched and collected from some academic articles, and contemporary ones are browsed from Google Maps and Google Earth.
Secondly, I read several articles whose authors conducted various investigations into the urban planning of Tin Shui Wai to gain a deeper insight into the rationale behind the current urban environment of Tin Shui Wai and its train system (Holliday, 2014).
Thirdly, I focused on investigating the lifestyle of the residents. I referred to a case study which analyzed the influence of suburbanization in Tin Shui Wai on the access to employment of workers (Lau, 2010). It provided me with an initial picture of the employment and job markets for local residents in the community. Meanwhiles, I also researched and watched several dialogues between the journalist and local residents (philahk, 2010). Different sources of research broaden my knowledge regarding the community as well as urban design.
Method of Producing the Video
The video is produced with a combination of visual effects and sound effects.
This video uses a flashback narrative method to start. The first scene is the arriving scene in Tin Shui Wai, which also appears later in the film. A J-cut is used to transform from the first scene to present the fast pace daily routine.
To demonstrate the nervousness and accumulate the sense of numbness in the fast pace daily routine, I expedited the video clips and collected symmetric components of two different parts of the daily routine, from Kennedey Town to HKU and from HKU to Kennedey Town. I distinguished the above two parts by the demonstration of opposite directions in the two different journeys. Mixed cut and Montage are utilized to accumulate the emotion and push the atmosphere of numbness to a climax (xu, 2020).
In the following part, I symbolize the action of escaping from the fast pace lifestyle by turning around while exiting the HKU station, this action leads to the transition between the fast and slow pace.
After the transition, I present the tram system of Tin Shui Wai with several clips of different tram stops with different angles and views. I use closing-up filming and also film by reflection in the mirror to provide interesting views to admire the slow pace of lifestyle. A few shots from static points try to use mise en scène to showcase the interactions between residents and the tram system (Kurniawan, 2020).
Sound effects are also designed for the video. In the first scene and the transition scene, the sound of the red traffic light is used to create a sense of slowing down. In the part of the demonstration of the fast pace daily routine, a gradually louder sound of the green traffic light is used to present the sense of hurry. The two opposite sound effects contrast to each other and create dramatic effects (Anestis et al., 2015).
Reflection
The production of the video essay equips me with a better understanding of urban design in Hong Kong. It enables me to learn and utilize different visual techniques to a film in formulating a comprehensive analysis of the urban environment and the function of a city. It also inspires me to develop skillsets of perceiving the rational combination of film elements.
Reference
Anestis, A. G., & Gousios, C. A. (2015). How Cinema Sounds Affect the Perception of a Motion Picture. Universal Journal of Psychology, 3(5), 147-152. https://doi.org/10.13189/ujp.2015.030503
Bouffard, D., Mowris, R. P., Eisenberg, S., & Cook, S. M. (2013). Investigating the Relationships between Urban Design, Microeconomics, and Livability: A Case Study of Hong Kong.
Chan, S.-y., & 陳承欣. (2002). Environmental planning of new towns in Hong Kong: a case study : Tin Shui Wai.
Holliday, A. J., Eccles, B., Wu, J. T., & Ford, N. D. (2014). The Effect of Urban Design on the Community and Society in Hong Kong’s New Towns: A Study of Sha Tin and Tin Shui Wai.
Kan, Z., Kwan, M.-P., Ng, M. K., & Tieben, H. (2022). The Impacts of Housing Characteristics and Built-Environment Features on Mental Health. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(9), 5143. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19095143
Kurniawan, D. (2020). Storytelling through the Mise en Scene in the film The Grand Budapest Hotel. Proceeding of International Conference on Business, Economics, Social Sciences, and Humanities.
Lau, J. (2010). The influence of suburbanization on the access to employment of workers in the new towns: A case study of Tin Shui Wai, Hong Kong. Habitat International, 34, 38-45.
Ng, S., & 伍樹雄. (1992). A transport corridor planning in relation to the development of Tin Shui Wai in Northwest New Territories.
philahk. (2010). Tin Shui Wai story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo3Klr4c7OE
philahk. (2010). Tin Shui Wai story profile https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FBOuZewpqA
Song, H. Y., & Siu, K. W. M. (2013). Public Spaces and Public Design at Night for Ordinary People: A Case Study of Tin Shui Wai in Hong Kong. The international journal of the constructed environment, 3, 1-26.
xu, S. (2020, 2020-07-09T05:13:54.000Z). Exploring the Use of Montage in Chinese Films.
Name: Chen Liheng
UID: 3035844948
After watching Slow City: Tin Shui Wai’s Tram Story, I like how you showcase the rare glimpse into the hidden corner of Tin Shui Wai. You showcased how the slow pace of life dominates Tin Shui Wai and the public transportation system plays a significant role in the daily lives of its residents.
I was impressed by the director’s method of conducting research, which involved a thorough analysis of historical and contemporary images, as well as articles and case studies, providing a comprehensive understanding of the community and its residents. Additionally, the video’s message about the importance of taking a break from the daily routine and appreciating the slow pace of life is inspiring and thought-provoking.
Overall, I believe the Slow City: Tin Shui Wai’s Tram Story video is a beautiful video that offers a unique perspective on Hong Kong’s trams.
I love this video. The attention paid to sound design is unexpected and very well executed. The contrast between the red and green light sounds, compared with the fast paced montage really lends a sense of urgency to the video. I also like that you used some raw audio for the first half of the video, instead of just muting the original track and playing music on top of it. The raw audio feels very immersive and yet again makes the video feel more urgent. This in turn contrasts nicely with the slow paced music in the latter half, making the “slow city” vibe stand out that much more. Also your essay is really well written and detailed so I partially based mine on yours :3
As you told the story about your daily life in the video, I was very impressed with how well you presented it. You convey veracity through the narration of the video, demonstrating its factual nature through your tone. Your story conveys an understanding of the order and structure of the narration in writing and storytelling. It made me feel that the story was working to its maximum potential through the use of storytelling techniques. My favorite aspect of the story is the contrast between fast and slow pace life, reflected in the background sounds and music.
You have an interesting storyline and you have demonstrated the contrast between Tin Shui Wai and the fast-paced lifestyle in your video well. However, the video works more like a statement of what kinds of lifestyles people should pursue rather than a spatial analysis on the MTR system or the urban environment. I am slightly confused on your research focus.
I recommend you to provide more clarity of your research subject – are you looking at the urban design of Tin Shui Wai? If so, explain why the urban landscape of that area is so much different from the urban center. What are the architectural / spatial components in the city center making it to be so fast and what elements make Tin Shui Wai so slow?