At the very first beginning of starting the project- "A day of Amy", I felt kind of confused and frustrated about deciding the shooting formats and subject matters that will potentially involved in the shooting...And since there might be more or less some unpredictable factors/situations, I was quite worried that me and Becky would not be flexible enough...but things just went quite smoothly and we together dealt with some unsure and unpredictable matters as well. Thanks Becky!
"A day of Amy" is a video work, which tends more towards a piece of visual ethnography. During the shooting period, we observed the overall environment of Amy's house and activities of the family- Amy, her mum and sister; after getting a better image of their living style, me and Becky started to decide what to shoot. We looked and searched more and more potential subject matters other than originally focusing Amy's weekend routines and her interactions with her family members and beloved cat. And our camera languages are adjusted e.g using pan shots and still images since a lot of Amy's house environment deserves more attention and observation.
The shooting period is aim to collect all the images that potentially reveal Amy's life and important to Amy; which got us ready for the editing(selection) time. And during this period, we were not so sure if this piece is more towards to the documentary or visual ethnography...At the editing period, the footage collected showed a stronger potential towards a piece of visual ethnography and this tend to be piece that allows audiences to observe many things form their own discovery. We tried to show a n overall image of Amy's daily life yet we do not want to draw any conclusion and hope to provide some rooms for the audiences to think themselves.
Aside from our very obvious presence and observation of Amy and her cat, there are a few pictures of local daily culture that we started to see. The first thing we noticed is the power distribution in Amy's family. Amy's mum is the person in power in the house and meanwhile she respect the opinions and needs of other house members. Though Amy still has her own private drawers that she is free to decorate and store things, Amy's mum is in charge of most of the stuffs and furnitures' settings i.e. the kitchen and beds etc. And the way Amy and her cat "Green Green" response shows her mum's authority. And meanwhile she respects other family members' comments. In the dialogue between Amy and her mum, we can see that by the time her mum wants some food to eat, she concerns about Amy's need as well. Even though herself wanted a McDonald's meal set, she still wanted to satisfy Amy's wish of having Korean New Year Cake and Ice-cream. It shows the love and cares between mum and daughter. And from their body gestures and chatting tone which, they are hugging each other and having sweet talks; it reveals their close-relationship with each other.
Then we see the changes of local family values. Single-parent family is very common in our society. From the video we can see only 3 single beds for Amy, her mum and sister. And the open-structure of her house shows the audiences that it is not a place for the private time of a couple or the people who live at the house do not have the demand/need of it. And we started to see the importance of marriage is decreasing in our society since the boyfriend of Amy's mum is not living with them and just visit them a few times a week. It shows that their relationship may not is such a stable one that they both are not completely into one's life. One may not concern a marriage as important as the old days...
Next we see the changes of gender equality. From Amy's case, we can see that women are no longer dependent of men in their lives and are very independent. Amy and her family support their livings with their jobs and are fully independent of their lives. Even though Amy's mum and her sister are not too well-educated, they are able to work and maintain their basic livings without relying on any male. Our society nowadays welcome women to work and providing them fair salaries. Male are no longer placed in a higher position of women.
Also we see the immigration issues in Hong Kong. From the accent of Amy's mum, it shows that she's an . The majority of Hong Kog residents are not originally from Hong Kong and nowadays Hong Kong is still a popular place for immigrates who aim for better livings.
What's more, the labour policy is another issue that we noticed. We can see three different working formats that Amy and her family members are leading. Amy's working as a part-time private teacher for children during her leisure time and the pay is around $70-90 each hour. Working 6-12 hours a week provides her daily personal spending. And Amy's sister works around 11-11, 6 days a week as a full-time waitress is a higher-classed restaurant in Harbour City; with around $9000 paid each month. Her sister works long hour and is lacking of leisure time. Despite of the low paid salary, Amy's sister still responses parts of the family spending. Her job makes her having less and less time to communicate with friends and family and unable to expand her social networks other than her working group mates. And Amy's mum does not have to work during weekends which, provides her some family time spent with her beloved daughters and pet. I am not sure what her job and salary are though.
Hong Kong is very pricey and grassroots have no choice but to accept what government offers so to improve their living environment. Or paying a much higher rental fee for a small flat...Government is claiming to improve the living standards of grassroots but meanwhile not offering more efficient policies to maintain a reasonable house price.
From describing to analysing and interpreting a day of Amy, issues of Amy herself and our society are noticed; with deeper and more thoughtful thinking.
"A day of Amy" is a video work, which tends more towards a piece of visual ethnography. During the shooting period, we observed the overall environment of Amy's house and activities of the family- Amy, her mum and sister; after getting a better image of their living style, me and Becky started to decide what to shoot. We looked and searched more and more potential subject matters other than originally focusing Amy's weekend routines and her interactions with her family members and beloved cat. And our camera languages are adjusted e.g using pan shots and still images since a lot of Amy's house environment deserves more attention and observation.
The shooting period is aim to collect all the images that potentially reveal Amy's life and important to Amy; which got us ready for the editing(selection) time. And during this period, we were not so sure if this piece is more towards to the documentary or visual ethnography...At the editing period, the footage collected showed a stronger potential towards a piece of visual ethnography and this tend to be piece that allows audiences to observe many things form their own discovery. We tried to show a n overall image of Amy's daily life yet we do not want to draw any conclusion and hope to provide some rooms for the audiences to think themselves.
Aside from our very obvious presence and observation of Amy and her cat, there are a few pictures of local daily culture that we started to see. The first thing we noticed is the power distribution in Amy's family. Amy's mum is the person in power in the house and meanwhile she respect the opinions and needs of other house members. Though Amy still has her own private drawers that she is free to decorate and store things, Amy's mum is in charge of most of the stuffs and furnitures' settings i.e. the kitchen and beds etc. And the way Amy and her cat "Green Green" response shows her mum's authority. And meanwhile she respects other family members' comments. In the dialogue between Amy and her mum, we can see that by the time her mum wants some food to eat, she concerns about Amy's need as well. Even though herself wanted a McDonald's meal set, she still wanted to satisfy Amy's wish of having Korean New Year Cake and Ice-cream. It shows the love and cares between mum and daughter. And from their body gestures and chatting tone which, they are hugging each other and having sweet talks; it reveals their close-relationship with each other.
Then we see the changes of local family values. Single-parent family is very common in our society. From the video we can see only 3 single beds for Amy, her mum and sister. And the open-structure of her house shows the audiences that it is not a place for the private time of a couple or the people who live at the house do not have the demand/need of it. And we started to see the importance of marriage is decreasing in our society since the boyfriend of Amy's mum is not living with them and just visit them a few times a week. It shows that their relationship may not is such a stable one that they both are not completely into one's life. One may not concern a marriage as important as the old days...
Next we see the changes of gender equality. From Amy's case, we can see that women are no longer dependent of men in their lives and are very independent. Amy and her family support their livings with their jobs and are fully independent of their lives. Even though Amy's mum and her sister are not too well-educated, they are able to work and maintain their basic livings without relying on any male. Our society nowadays welcome women to work and providing them fair salaries. Male are no longer placed in a higher position of women.
Also we see the immigration issues in Hong Kong. From the accent of Amy's mum, it shows that she's an . The majority of Hong Kog residents are not originally from Hong Kong and nowadays Hong Kong is still a popular place for immigrates who aim for better livings.
What's more, the labour policy is another issue that we noticed. We can see three different working formats that Amy and her family members are leading. Amy's working as a part-time private teacher for children during her leisure time and the pay is around $70-90 each hour. Working 6-12 hours a week provides her daily personal spending. And Amy's sister works around 11-11, 6 days a week as a full-time waitress is a higher-classed restaurant in Harbour City; with around $9000 paid each month. Her sister works long hour and is lacking of leisure time. Despite of the low paid salary, Amy's sister still responses parts of the family spending. Her job makes her having less and less time to communicate with friends and family and unable to expand her social networks other than her working group mates. And Amy's mum does not have to work during weekends which, provides her some family time spent with her beloved daughters and pet. I am not sure what her job and salary are though.
Hong Kong is very pricey and grassroots have no choice but to accept what government offers so to improve their living environment. Or paying a much higher rental fee for a small flat...Government is claiming to improve the living standards of grassroots but meanwhile not offering more efficient policies to maintain a reasonable house price.
From describing to analysing and interpreting a day of Amy, issues of Amy herself and our society are noticed; with deeper and more thoughtful thinking.
