Solitary City: A Way to Escape from Pier…?
By ZHAO LANYAN
The thematic expression of this video concentrates on ‘solitary city’. And the main sites of filming are pier-related spaces in Hong Kong.
The content of video is divided into three parts.
The first part—voiceover introduction of solitude, is used as a hook to set the cold tone of alienation and lay the foundation of ‘solitary city’. This introduction is somewhat ‘stream-of-consciousness-like’. In other words, every thought, every action, create ripples through this indefinite field of consciousness. ‘Solitude’ is depicted from multifaceted perspectives: individual separated from rest of the crowd, groups of people detached from surrounding space, humans isolated from metallic cyberpunk-like steel forest, mortals alienated from inner reality…In a word, mankind, truly resembling withering flower petals in water, are solitary ephemeras. The inspiration of the first shot came from The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick, for which wide-angle shots filming on escalators were constantly used to portray the isolation of Sean Penn’s character from the crowd and steel forest. Thus, a wide-angle shot on the escalator in Palace Museum was ultimately chosen to depict individual loneliness. The second escalator shot in the Palace Museum, which carries a sense of geometrical order via lateral movement on a plane, intends to showcase people’s detachment from surrounding space. The third shot, featuring this isolated cosmopolis with metallic tone, was inspired from Metropolis by Fritz Lang. Corresponding to dystopian-like sentiments, the scene taken from the 13th floor of High Court in Admiralty was used, rather than its alternative taken from Edinburgh Place in Central. The fourth shot was taken in Man Mo Temple in Sheung Wan, for which burning incense was used as a metaphor on the yearning and longing on inner tranquility. This further sketches the remoteness between harsh reality and intrinsic pursuit of mortals. The last scene in the ‘hook’ tends to be the outline of mankind dilemma due to modernity.
The second section mainly foreshadows for the final ‘escape’ section on piers, featuring scenes from Star Ferry Dock in Tsim Sha Tsui, Cargo Unloading Dock in West Kowloon and abandoned embarkment marina in Sheung Wan. In order to naturalize narration and echo with the theme, the timeline of escape was also taken into consideration. My everlasting aim is to depict the solitude-induced despair and modernity-incurred perplexity, under the external background of pier-related space.
The last part narrates an unknown journey of possible escapement. Despite not knowing the journey nor where it leads, we should still head forward and embrace every moment of it. The shots were taken on the shipping line between Sai Wan Ho and Kwun Tong. Detailed scenes on nostalgic ferries at 1’30, ‘home’ of ‘homeless dock sleepers’ at 1’50, typhoon shelter at 2’11, together enhance the sense of solitude in an imperceptible manner.
It is evident that voiceover has been a crucial narrative device in introduction and the second section. The written and spoken style of voiceover has been inspired by the sense of melancholy in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life and the sense of mystery in Jòhann Jòhannsson’s Last and First Men. Relative musicality and rhythmic symmetry of voiceover is also referenced from the style of Wes Anderson’s screenplay. At the ending part of voiceover, quotation comes from the screenplay of Dune directed by Denis Villeneuve. I used this quote intending to directly point out the filmic clue of escapement.
Despite of voiceover used in the first two parts, I deliberately discarded subtitles after considerable contemplation. Rather than solely focusing on the language narrative, I expect audiences to feel the unexplainable sentiments blended by auditory and visual aesthetics. Initially, I utilized 10 seconds of sound effects in Dune to emphasize the clue of ‘escape’ amid the quotation in the screenplay. However, after deciding to use Ennio Morricone’s La Donna Romantica as the background music, I realized that overall musical ambiance contains more intrinsic tensions than single sound effects.
Regarding camera movement, shots are taken mainly in statics rather than in dynamics. On one hand, moving scenes especially wide-angle lens taken by my filming device iPhone 12 were easily distorted. This could be disastrous as it violates my pursuit of naturalistic restoration. On the other hand, immature techniques and incompatibility of camera movement with thematic expression should be avoided. Amid my filming process, I have been very cautious to manipulate the style of dynamic shots: to resemble films rather than entertaining vlogs.
On the aspect of color palette, naturalistic restoration is my pursuit. I am fully aware of the importance of color as it directly serves for the narrative and influences people’s impression at first glance. As humans are visual creatures, eye-catching and naturalistic visual aesthetics is one of the most important elements in filmmaking. In some of the shots, I applied filters so that the color tone would be more prone to convey coldness rather than brightness or warmth, which conforms to the thematic expression of ‘solitude’.
Overall, I have honed my skills on literary narration, editing, photography and scoring selection, under the constraint of device resolution.
Name: ZHAO LANYAN
UID: 3035977202