[Video Essay] Mobile City

Title: Mobile City

Youtube Video Link: https://youtu.be/5Mo7J4dnvxg

Synopsis and theme

• The given site is ‘subway passage’, and this is a documentary-style video about the ‘mobility’ of the city by focusing on its underground tunnel amid COVID-19.
• The foreground of this video is the subway station called ‘Daxinggong Station’ in Nanjing, China, one of the busiest exchange stations in the city. Residents here use the subway as the main means of transportation in moving from one place to another in daily life. When the pandemic first breaks out, people have reduced their usage of the subway. But amid the crisis, the city moves quickly to control infection in the station. Gradually, people feeling assured return back to the subway.
• In sum, this video explores the ‘mobility’ of Nanjing city through two layers – not only its ability to move residents freely but also its ability to move and adapt quickly to new situations brought by the pandemic.

Script

Whenever you walk in here in a day, you may always find yourself surrounded by crowds of people moving from different districts to their destination in the city, for work, school, entertainment, or back home. This is Daxinggong Station, one of the busiest exchange stations in the city, Nanjing, China. As reported by Nanjing Metropolitan Government, the subway carries around 220,000 passengers throughout its operation each day.

As the central transfer station of the two busiest metro lines 2 and 3, Daxinggong is almost always on the passenger’s moving route to any random places in the city, such as governmental organizations, the city library, central restaurants. The subway passage is designed into a special T shape for transfer purposes, such that passengers could move easily through elevators or stairs to switch between metro lines.

Every day, residents of Nanjing move around the city using the subway passage.

But COVID-19, which began to spread in Nanjing in April last year, has destroyed many residents’ daily lives. The social anxiety grows due to fear of being with strangers in a confined space. Therefore, the number of Nanjing metro passengers has reduced significantly.

However, just within a few months of the lock-down, the city has quickly mobilized its resources to control infection in the subway amid the post-COVID era. Cleaning staff with masks are seen from time to time wiping places where passengers may have more contact. The Government orders to disinfect facilities every four hours, five times per day to make sure passengers could travel safely. Besides, masks, temperature check, and QR codes scan that help trace recent contacts are required for each passenger before entering the station.

The city shows great mobility in coping with the unprecedented epidemic. Feeling assured, residents of Nanjing are slowly but gradually returning back, back to the subway passage, and back to their old mobile life in the city.

This is the mobile city, Nanjing.

Methods of research and documentation

• The essay is investigated both by primary and secondary research.
• Born and raised in Nanjing, Daxinggong is the station in Nanjing that I am most familiar with in terms of its special setting and metro passage, so I decide to use it as the foreground of this video.
• I further research on the internet to combine my primary experience with detailed secondary news, or statistics published by Nanjing Metropolitan Government, especially in relation to its latest controlling policy after COVID-19.
• The given site is ‘subway passage’, and I finally focus on the feature of ‘mobility’ of city.
• Before documenting the video, I write out the script and shooting plans. At the site, I incorporate photographic skills such as close-up, far-off, moving, or still scenes. Contrast is also used to show the situation of subway passage before and after COVID-19.

 Reflections

• I really enjoy the step-by-step process of writing out plans, shooting, editing, and recording narratives for the video. It feels so novice and interesting to apply theoretical skills learned in lectures to filming fieldwork. Overall, this is a very fulfilling experience.

Bibliography

Daxinggong Metro Station – Nanjing Metro. Metro Line Map. (n.d.). Retrieved May 15, 2022, from https://www.metrolinemap.com/station/nanjing/daxinggong/

Mozur, P. (2021, July 30). An outbreak of the Delta variant tests China’s zero-tolerance approach to the virus. The New York Times. Retrieved May 15, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/30/world/nanjing-china-covid.html

Directed by: Mengdie Zhou (3035918191)