Speech
Radio: The Centre for Health Protection is investigating one-hundred additional confirmed case of COVID-19, taking the number of cases to 209370 in Hong Kong so far.
Announcement: Good evening, I must give the Hong Kong people a simple instruction – you must stay at home. You should not be meeting friends. You should not be meeting family members who do not live in your home. Thank you.
Announcement: Given that the situation of COVID-19 infection remains severe and that there is a continuous increase in the number of cases reported around the world, you are strongly urged to consume the provided health care products to stay healthy and save many thousands of lives. Kindy note that all lawbreakers will be imprisoned. Thank you.
Genre
fiction, dystopian
Synopsis
The video depicts a fictional world where the normal epidemic prevention measures are not effective enough to control the outbreak of COVID-19 and the skyrocketing amount of infection. Thus, the government launch a lockdown, that last for one month, to restrain the infection of disease via social activities.
All lawbreakers will be imprisoned.
Understanding that the lockdown and isolation may bring negative effects to health, the government delivers the so-called “health care products” to every apartment in Hong Kong and makes a great whoop and a holler about the reliability of the products in the name of kindness. People are required to drink the liquid medicine to stay healthy, both physically and mentally. Everyone is living under the fear, including the character, so the citizens choose to believe in the authority.
Those “medicines” create illusions in the citizens’ head. The virtual realm gives the character a misconception of living happily and able to contact with the outside world. One day, the character awakens and stops consuming the medicines. Once the character leaves the apartment, he discovers that the surveillance is not existed and the pandemic is over. The character gets back the true happiness in the real world while other people still staying in the apartment to continue their beautiful imaginations.
Objective
To reflect on the importance of connection to the real world during the pandemic. The reality and human beings should avoid come apart.
Reflection
To me, the projection or fantasy of people’s desire to go out is just like a film. Every person has a “reel time” in their brains. The government use “medicine” as a measure of control the human activities with public surveillance. Eliminating the fear of the citizens by creating hallucinations until they cannot distinguish the difference between the real time and the “reel time”.
However, the true fear is neither the pandemic, nor the isolation, but is the over-control society and citizens wear off the importance of self and rational thinking. I think this phenomenon can be regarded as “The Evil of Banality” as described by the philosopher Hannah Arendt (). It is an unquestioning obedience to the orders of the authority and an elimination of the ability of critical thinking by us. If we cannot awake to the problem like the character, we will become the accomplices of the irrationality in the control city. We leave the “reality effect replaces immediate reality”(AlSayyad, 2006). I agree that isolation does not equal to privacy.
Method of Research
According to Google Mobility Report of Hong Kong (2020), number of people going out during the pandemic decrease. Mobility rends or places like national parks,
public beaches, marinas, dog arks, plazas, and public gardens reduces 43%, while the mobility of retail and recreation, such as restaurants, cafes, shopping centres, theme parks, libraries, museums and movie theatres, reduce 35% compared to baseline.
How fear affect their daily preference to stay in the apartment or go out?
COVID-19 give raise to coronaphobia (Arora et al., 2020). Fear, anxiety, and worries have been the major psychological consequences. Various components and outcomes of COVID-19 fear have been reported such as functional impairment leading to hopelessness, suicidal ideation, and coping deficits.
Video Production
The video is shot by phone in a first-person viewpoint living in a control city.
Most of the scenes are still to give room to share the character’s inner thoughts to the audience. Filming in a high angle with spinning is used in the scene of the character producing illusion. In this scene, overlapping of the reality (lights on the ceiling) and the imagination (sun in the sky) is used.
Reference
Background Music
Glinka/Balakirev – The Lark (Kissin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxlf-ZmE8JI
Voice maker
https://voicechanger.io/voicemaker/#
Voice Generator
AlSayyad, N. (2006). Voyeuristic Modernity: the Lens, the Screen and the City. In
Cinematic urbanism: A history of the modern from reel to real (pp. 147-168). New
York: London: Routledge.
Arora, A., Jha, A. K., Alat, P., & Das, S. S. (2020). Understanding coronaphobia. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 54, 102384. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2020.102384
Google (2020). Hong Kong Mobility changes. COVID-19 community mobility report
Law Vanessa Lok Tung 3035825095
Hi, I like how you utilize different angles of view to convey the emotion of the character, for instance, the camera tilts up and down when he was in an illusion and also the dpinning shot on tree with diffuse light reinforces the feeling of delusion. Moreover, I appreciate the use of narration in the video, for example, a series of radio about the current situation and government policy of pandemic is played to create a stressful environment contrasts on a scene shot on a Fai Chun written “stay healthy” on the wall without sound which gives people a sense of intangible. All in all, I love your work.
LAI Man Ching 3035825083
I loved the concept!! You delivered your argument neat and well, particularly in the video. I enjoyed how you utilised a simple prop (such as teacup) as one of the narrative tools. Makes me wonder, does the tea affect the consumer’s body (and mind) differently according to its colour? To improve your writing, you can also “borrow” and bring the organisation from your essay to your writing. Reflecting upon or taking a position toward the paranoia from your own perspective could also enrich your essay.