edie
Hybrid city
Hong Kong was a charming name in the old days, and there are many distinctive or historically significant buildings in this city. A long time ago, I vaguely watched the movie “Chongqing Forest” directed by Wong Kar wai. In addition to being attracted by the ambiguous story and romance, I also noticed the building where a part of the story happened – the Chongqing Building. The strange and chaotic appearance of this building attracted me to constantly explore it. Mongkok Nathan Road, its location. When I saw it for the first time, its old building body didn’t fit in with the modern buildings nearby, which surprised me. At the beginning, Chongqing Tower was a synonym for luxury and high-end. Now, as times change, it has also changed with some history. After entering the building, the first floor is a variety of food or grocery stores operated by many Southeast Asians. This place has gradually become a living and working place for these ethnic groups since the previous renovation, with nearly 5000 people gathering in this small city. I believe this is a microcosm of Hong Kong’s mixed culture and mixture. Pacing up, there are various hotels upstairs. The prices of hotels are extremely cheap compared to normal hotels, but the cost is the unbearable environment and the shadow and fog caused by rumors such as homicides.
In order to shoot the Chongqing Building, I arrived at the exit of Mong Kok around 3 pm, and then walked into the building from a distance with a camera from the first perspective. Seeing the overall appearance of the building added a sense of anticipation to the audience. As I was preparing to enter, I filmed the surroundings around the door. As the camera enters the building, the camera roughly looks around to understand the surrounding environment and situation. Without focusing on a specific person, it seems like everyone is living in this small world with no significant differences. Then I filmed a remote corner, where the closed store seemed to tell me that the world is not static, and something will leave.
At around 8 o’clock in the evening, I once again came to Chongqing Building to take photos of the night time. The whole building did not have much visible light, and the most unique thing was that there were many people standing at the entrance of the building, looking like Southeast Asians. They were constantly talking to passersby, and in order to understand what they were doing, I secretly drove the camera to communicate with them and found that they were soliciting customers to provide massage services. At this point, the vaguely romantic Chongqing Tower in my impression has been completely shattered, replaced by its highly mixed buildings, where people from different countries live together in small buildings and survive in their own way in this integrated city. They blend in with the crowd and constantly strive.
Take the video and photos, and then edit and edit the video. Due to my limited experience in video editing technology, I first searched online for basic software and methods for video editing. I chose the software “Clipping”, which is free and provides some basic materials. I will first arrange some pictures to demonstrate a sense of progress from far to near, while also showcasing the building from the bottom to the top. I added transitions between the various images to make their connections more natural and fluid. After adding the original video I shot, I did not eliminate the original audio frequency of one of the videos, allowing the audience to hear the people coming and going near the building at night. The other videos eliminated the original sound. On the one hand, the background sound was relatively loud, and on the other hand, I wanted to add some of my own commentary and soundtrack. After completing the basic video construction, I started adding text tracks to briefly describe the meaning of the images. Then, in order to improve the monotony of some individual images, I began recording myself as audio material, equivalent to shooting from the first perspective and exploring the building with the audience from the third perspective. But I encountered many problems during the recording, such as poor time control and varying sound sizes. However, I directly adjusted the decibel and cropped the image time to make the overall harmony. In this process, I wanted to add appropriate background music in specific places. I discovered the characteristics of multiple tracks, and background music was the result of my consideration of different choices. I believe that the moonlight in the city of Chongqing Forest is more suitable for the desolation in the bustling night buildings, and at the same time, I used the soundtrack materials of Chongqing Forest to respond to the stagnant buildings in the fast-paced city.
But there are still many areas of dissatisfaction. I should join aerial photography, observe from a bird’s-eye perspective, or shoot long original videos, accelerate, and create a sense of passage.
CHEN KEXU
3036104371
I appreciate your effort in conducting field trips to Chungking Mansion and understanding the relevant stories around the building (i.e. Chungking Express). However, your video serves more as an introductory video of the building explaining what is inside and what the people inside do rather than a spatial analysis or making any statements or arguments. You should also avoid stereotyping racial character.
You should have more observation rather than drawing conclusion too quickly. Being genuine in learning a building is more beneficial than doing fieldwork without prejudice. Moreover, I am a bit confused if the footages / stills are from original materials by you?
Please also note that accuracy is of a very high priority, especially working in a historical context – you have three names for your site ‘Chungking Building’, ‘Chongqing Building’ as well as ‘Chongqing Tower’ but the English name for your site is ‘Chungking Mansions’. Please pay attention to this kind of important detail.