Theme and content
Ma On Shan park is an excellent example of how urban parks can contribute to the slower pace of the city by promoting a more sustainable and conscious way of life. The park provides a green oasis in the fast paced city, offering visitors a chance to slow down and connect with nature.
One of the key ways that Ma On Shan park promotes slow living pace is its emphasis on pedestrian-friendly design. The park features wide, well-maintained footpaths that encourage visitors to walk and explore at a leisurely pace. This promotes a more sustainable and healthy means of transportation while reducing the carbon footprint of the city.
In addition, Ma On Shan park offers a range of recreational activities that promote a slower, more conscious way of life. Aside from various playgrounds that allow visitors to entertain themselves, there are also numbers of quiet spots for meditation or static activities such as yoga, allowing visitors to escape the noise and stress of the city and find a sense of inner peace.
In conclusion, Ma On Shan park in Hong Kong is a shining example of how urban parks can contribute to the concept of “slow city” by promoting a more sustainable and conscious way of life. By emphasizing pedestrian-friendly design, recreation, and sustainability, the park provides visitors with a peaceful retreat from the fast-paced city and serves as a model for sustainable urban design.
Production method
The production of the video requires multiple steps. The first step is to choose an appropriate park to conduct the fieldwork. I chose the Ma On Shan park as the venue of shooting because the park is relatively large in size, and the park contains so many features that an urban park should, for example a well-planned path, recreational space and a seashore next to it. I can film all of the components of my video in one place conveniently. And these features also make the park a perfect demonstration of how urban park contribute to slower the pace of people in this fast paced city.
As for the shooting method, I used an iPhone for video taking. While shooting, I intentionally move the camera in a very slow motion. By doing this, I hope to construct the atmosphere of a slow living pace, so the audience could feel the relaxing and contemplating vibe of walking in the urban park. The immersive experience emphasizes the theme of this video, which is “slow city”. I put a time-lapse video of the central in the beginning, which symbolizes the living pace of Hong Kongers in urban areas. The video has been a great contrast to those in the park, as to show the relaxing effect of the park and again, emphasize the importance of these places for people to respite from the busy city.
Talking about the time-lapse, aside from the fast city time lapse in the beginning of the video, I also utilized time-lapse shooting inside the park. In the video, I put 2 time-lapse video. The first one was the shot of me walking through the walking path in the park, and the second one was me finding my way out inside the maze in the park.The reason I used times lapse in both of these scene is because I wanted to show the audience what it’s like to slowly walk through this places, but at the same time I don’t want to spend too much air time in one places due to the limitation of the video length. Therefore I used time-lapse, where I can compress as many frames as I want in a very short time. The usage of time-lapse also make this video more vibrant, instead of having the whole video in the same pace which would be a little bit boring.
Reflection
In the process of making this video, I truly gained a lot of knowledge about urban parks in Hong Kong. It seems that urban parks weren’t a special place for us as we walk through them everyday, but I found it more than just a random place in our city. When I conduct the fieldwork inside Ma On Shan park, I discover many details that I used to overlook before. I realized how beautiful this place is and how the architectural feature of the park was specifically designed for people to relax and connect with each other. This is also related to what I think is one of my biggest takeaways from this course, which is to rethink the purpose of every ordinary thing you walk past. Every design, every minor feature exists for a reason, and it would be good for us to appreciate and understand these.
Li Yat Him
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You have shown different activities in Ma On Shan park and how it offers a slower pace for people in the city. There is some spatial analysis such as the meandering of the pathways, but can be further elaborated to elicit more insights of park spaces. More research is needed to strengthen your points on sustainable design. You may also want to structure your video in a different manner to offer more diversity of camera angles to have a more hollistic view of the park space.