Wenrui Ye, the winner of the Global Aerial Photography of the Year Award in the SkyPixel 7th Anniversary Aerial Photo and Video Contest. His work, “The City in the Middle,” was unanimously recognized by the judges and the audience.
It is a short film about Guangzhou’s urban villages. Having lived in Guangzhou for nearly thirty years, Ye has visited and documented nearly twenty representative urban villages and presents a visual exploration from the perspective of an urban dancer.
https://www.skypixel.com/videos/f3deb627-9bbd-430f-b8ca-d80932a3aced
Why did you choose to film an urban village?
I have been planning to make a film on the subject of urban villages for two years, both because I have always been interested in documenting the humanities, and because when I was a graduate student in architecture abroad, I was studying the development and transformation of urban villages in China.
“Who is not one of the city’s most important symbionts, with feet on the same wet ground and a blue sky?” This is the theme of my work.
What do you think is unique about urban villages?
In the broadest sense of the word, an urban village is a residential area that lags behind the pace of urban development, is outside of modern urban management, and has a low standard of living.
Each of these villages is self-sufficient and functions smoothly, seemingly sharing a piece of land with the neon-lit CBD outside.
There are white-collar workers earning tens of thousands of dollars a month in commercial centers who disdain the manual workers earning thousands of dollars a month in urban villages, and there are white coats with slippers who smile at the tens of millions of dollars in compensation for demolition in urban villages. The term “urban village” seems to be naturally associated with the word “magic” in big cities, but it is undeniable that to a certain extent, urban villages do give these people the opportunity to make a class leap in the city, which is also a different way of urban inclusion.
The conflicting contrasts between the city and the village make everything imaginative and provoke us to think about the future of the city.
What are some of the most memorable things that happened to you during the shoot?
Although I wouldn’t say that I would communicate with them or listen to their stories while shooting, I think that from their facial expressions or their behavior, we can associate a story that we can’t see behind the scenes. I prefer to imagine the stories behind them, because every frame is a human being.
What problems has DJI helped you with in your filming?
DJI Mavic 3 has a much stronger signal than its predecessors, especially as it can fly smoothly around such complex architectural structures in the urban village.
Also, there is a sequence of footage from the rooftops of the town center, pulling back all the way to the streets of the town center, with constant flickering, which was shot with DJI track time lapse. You may end up seeing 1 second of footage, but I actually shot 44 shots and probably used over 3,000 shots in total to finally complete this stunning moment. So I’m grateful to have excellent equipment to help me with the creation.
What other places have you visited and what stories have you filmed with DJI products?
I have traveled to more than 20 countries in Europe with DJI products, and I have traveled to countless places with magnificent mountains and rivers, but when I really stand at the top of the Himalayas, at the very tip of the earth, and look at the romantic starry river of countless galaxies in the distance, I look at the remote control screen of the drone in front of me, and see myself standing on this beautiful planet. Even though I look so small, I am still moved by the greatness of life. For me, every frame that makes a picture of a starry night is a great one.
For me, every single frame that makes me feel that I have lived my life in vain brings tears to my eyes and will never be forgotten in this lifetime.
What are your future shooting plans?
I hope to continue my wandering documentary journey, travelling to every continent on earth and documenting my life’s journey with images.
