Cityscape Vs Landscape: Hong Kong by Alex Barnes

This weeks YouTube Highlight Cityscape Vs Landscape: Hong Kong comes from Alex Barnes, a British YouTuber currently working in Hong Kong, showcasing the landscapes via the drone technology. The video is very beautiful and well produced showing how the use of a drone can help achieve shots that were once only able to do be done by professional studios. It shows how far YouTube and its creator have come.

The use of drones, as well as being a great advancement, could maybe be seen as a risk to people’s privacy and security, but allows aspiring creators to experiment and showcase their skills. The shots of city look particular spectacular, with all the colours and vibrancy that shows off Hong Kong very well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAdk8rG3LOA

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This film within a film, created by Hazel Hayes aka ChewingSand, sees Hayes retelling the tragic events of when her zombie film set was attacked by real life zombies leaving only two survivors.

Starring Hayes as herself, the film features a good selection of well-known youtubers, which will appease many of their fans. The film is well shot and you can tell how much potential the bigger channels on YouTube have at creating high quality pieces of film. I like how the start of the zombie is seen through Hayes watching it on her camera screens. In addition, the film is very aware of this modern way of seeing tragedies through camera and videos as it even makes a joke of the crew filming Hayes as she has a directorial outburst.

There is a good bit of comedy, especially from Tom Ridgewell and Chris Kendall, which contrasts well against the jeopardy of the zombies’ attack. The fight sequences are also well shot and look very good. It is good to see these youtubers working together and showing how effective this next generation of creators is at bringing something like this to life.

I liked the twist at the end of the film and thought it worked well to end it on a dark note for the surviving characters. I think anyone who loves a spoof and many British youtubers will really enjoy Hayes’ first short film.