Alleyways are a staple of the Hong Kong urban landscape, and through this essay I aim to value them as an important element of the cityscape of the city. The video is a short take on alleyways, how they are a lot more than simple narrow passageways if one takes the time to reflect upon them.
My original plan was to film the streets of Hong Kong and discuss their diversity in terms of looks and quantity of sights to be seen on them. The streets in Hong Kong truly are a unique identifier of the city’s landscape which is why I believed it could have been something interesting to discuss. Whilst filming I came across several alleyways and began filming them as well, categorising them as streets. As the day went on I found myself filming alleyways more and more until by the end of the filming day, I was only shooting alleyways. I had amassed almost solely clips of alleyways and I realised the fascination I nurtured for them; for their subtle aura of mystery and un-officialness, and came to the conclusion I should’ve created my essay on the alleyways. The more thought about it, the more I was assaulted by a barrage of creative ideas on how I could have structured video essay, the points I should have discussed and the different sights I should’ve captured. I believe alleyways to be a too-often overlooked architectural feature so I figured it might’ve also been an interesting topic to discuss. Moreover, coming from another country where alleyways are completely different in terms of what they look like and of what happens in them, I believe this was interesting reality to capture on video; something extremely unique to Hong Kong.
I thus decided to go out a second day to film again at different locations, this time, only alleyways. I had already written a very preliminary script which gave me a basic idea of what I was looking for. I initially sticked to filming clips of alleyways which were inline with my script however I soon began just filming all the alleyways I came across. The more I filmed, the more ideas I was coming up with and my initial plan soon began to fade given new found realisations. I initially went through the Hong Kong Island. I walked from Kennedy Town to Sheung Wan from where I took the mtr to Tin Hau, once again walking to Quarry Bay. From there I then went to Kwun Tong where I looked for more alleyways, before finally going to the Prince Edward station and filming around there and the Mong Kok area. Walking around a variety of locations gave me the ability to capture different local realities in Hong Kong; not only in terms of how the alleyways were constructed, but also in what one could witness in them. Once interesting instance I distinctly remember was when I was walking from Prince Edward towards Mong Kok for the filming. I took an anonymous side alleyway, not thinking much of it. I was filming through it, and once I exited it through the other end I unexpectedly found myself in the middle fo the Mong Kok Goldfish, completely dumbfounded as to how I got there. What struck me was that I had no conception of where I was until I exited the alleyway, there was no way of knowing I was being lead to the Gold Fish market in spite of its distinctiveness.
Once having collected a vast amount of short clips I re-wrote the script guided by the new ideas that came to my mind. I wanted to illustrate a new way of envisioning alleyways, a new way the viewer could conceive of them in their daily lives. I tried my best to make my script as in-line with this goal as possible. I then selected clips from my collections which were in-line with the narration; this wasn’t always possible however so I also had to add other clips which didn’t necessarily follow the narration. I decided to keep the montage simple and add no music as this would distort the attention away from not only the narration, but also the subtle background sounds of the alleyways.
Lorenzo Pacchiarotti 3035986605
Heyy! I realy like your choice of topic and the narratives that led the audience to concentrate on alleyways we usually see but not appreciate. Specifically, the short recordings of the alleyways, such as the man smoking and the man taking a nap, showed a very lively image of Hong Kong under urbanization. However, maybe the video could be better if narrative and footage stop simultaneously, not a black screen with only the narratives.
I enjoyed your video and your reflections of alleyway spaces in Hong Kong. I liked how you analyzed them as a substratum of paths that diverge into the facades along the street. Your filming is also consistent and depicts the tight spaces of the alleyways effectively. You have analyzed the difference in spatial quality within the alleyways and how they serve as in-between spaces. Introducing some ideas and research in your text will help concretize your main arguments.