Background and inspiration:
Public housing estates in Hong Kong are government-subsidized residential buildings, which are crucial for providing low-income individuals and families with homes (Chiu, 2010). Over 3 million people, approximately 45% of Hong Kong’s population, will reside in public housing estates in 2021, and most of the housing units will be less than 40 square meters. Public housing occupants typically have a lower quality of life than those living in private housing under these situations (Huang et al., 2022), and the supply of facilities and services is primary. In addition, although the public housing program effectively provides good homes at a reasonable price for low-income people, the geographical concentration of poverty is unavoidable (Ng et al., 2018). I had never lived in a public housing estate or been there for a visit, and I was curious about the actual living condition of the people there, so I came out with the idea to personally go to a public housing estate to get to know the environment of the community and the environment inside the building. I chose to conduct the research in Lam Tin Estate in the Kwun Tong district. It was established in July 2009, and the estate has four buildings. The flat this video focuses on is Lam Bik House.
The filming methods and edition of the video:
I went to Lam Tin Estate at around 5 pm to conduct the research. I recorded videos about the outside and the inside of Lam Bik House, along with the community’s environment. Dolly in is used at the beginning of the video. In order to give viewers the impression that they are progressively approaching the subject item to be performed, it employs the camera to move forward(Zunzheng, 2021). I held the phone still while walking forward to show the viewers the angle of view of walking into the housing estate. Then I used tilt to shoot the entire building. It has the role of helping viewers understand the environment. This footage gives viewers a full view of the whole building. Next, I walked into the flat, walked around, and shot the corridor and the elevators so that viewers could know the layout of the households and the positions of the windows and elevators inside the flat. The arc shot highlights the passenger foot-bridge that connects the buildings and the badminton court. It provides multiple changing visual layers for a scene and can help shoot the whole subject. What is more, amusement facilities for small children and outdoor tables and chairs were also recorded in the video. I zoomed in to give a close-up of the words and illustrations on the amusement facility so that viewers can watch it clearly. Eventually, I stood on the second-floor terrace and recorded the community’s environment and people’s daily life state. I connected the short videos of different contents, used special effects to make the connection look less stiff, and added captions.
Observations:
At the beginning of the video, I shot the flat from both the front and the side to show the structure of it. It extends out in four directions in which there are households, and it is thirty-eight stories high in total. The arrangement of residences is very close. As I walked around the corridor, I counted the total number of households, and it was twenty, so we know that 760 households are living in one building, which is concentrated. The corridor is long and narrow, with only one window that sunlight can go through at the end, which is somehow gloomy when walking along the corridor. Moreover, twenty households share two elevators on one floor, and there are 38 floors in all, so it may take much time to wait for the elevators to come, and it may be crowded during peak times. It crowded as I waited for the elevator to the second floor as young people progressively left for the day, seniors came back from the market, and students who had just finished school entered. Outside the flat, there are some amusement facilities for residents to enjoy their community life, including the badminton court, leisure tables and chairs, and children’s playground so that residents can gather together to play and exercise without going further. We can see from the last few seconds of the video that the community is quiet, with good greenery and spacious roads, which is a comfortable environment to live in. The generous landscape planting in public housing estates and its rich species contributes significantly to urban biodiversity(Zhang&Jim, 2014). In summary, this public housing estate has a relatively good living environment, although the living space is quite narrow.
References:
Chiu, Rebecca LH. “The transferability of Hong Kong’s public housing policy.” International Journal of Housing Policy 10.3 (2010): 301-323.
Huang, Jianxiang, et al. “Heat stress and outdoor activities in open spaces of public housing estates in Hong Kong: A perspective of the elderly community.” Indoor and Built Environment 31.6 (2022): 1447-1463.
Ng, S. L., et al. “Living environment and quality of life in Hong Kong.” Asian Geographer 35.1 (2018): 35-51.
Zhang, Hao, and Chi Yung Jim. “Contributions of landscape trees in public housing estates to urban biodiversity in Hong Kong.” Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 13.2 (2014): 272-284.
Zunzheng(2021).https://zunzheng.com/news/archives/21931
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