Video
I produce, shoot and edit video packages, including features, video explainers and Facebook Live videos. Below is a section of my video work with the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong.
Charm Charm Chu
A story shot with the great video journalist Shan Shan Kao, crammed into a tiny rehearsal room to record an interview with Hong Kong’s premier Cantonese language thrash metal act Charm Charm Chu. Like most heavy metal musicians I’ve met over the years these guys were lovely people and absolutely hilarious.
Riz Farooqi & Denise Ho
I brought together two prominent Hong Kong musicians making vastly different music to discuss issues confronting them both. Riz fronts King Ly Chee, a trilingual hardcore punk act; Denise Ho is a singer/songwriter whose support for the 2014 Occupy movement got her banned from touring in China and dropped from her record label.
Australian election explainer
A piece to camera I did recapping just how many Prime Ministers Australia had been through in the past few years – as well as the major issues facing the nation in the lead-up to the 2019 Federal election. I didn’t make any prescient predictions in this, other than noting the influence of right-wing white supremacists in Australian politics has grown substantially.
Five things to watch for in China’s ‘Two Sessions’: military spending, economic plans, Trump, Brexit, and Hong Kong
A video explainer scripted for the 2017 ‘Two Sessions’ in Beijing and animated by Shan Shan Kao.
Darth Vader in Hong Kong: A love of Star Wars shared from father to sons
With the imminent arrival of the film Star Wars: the Force Awakens in 2015 we found a man whose fascination with the series since watching the first film in 1977 lead him to scour the world to find, buy and build for himself an authentic Darth Vader outfit. I ran the sound and second camera on this but it was the legendary Robin Fall who rejoiced in using all the 70s style screen wipes while editing the piece.
Asia's largest mural unveiled on side of Hong Kong hotel by street artist stern rockwell
This New York born artist was there in the early days of the explosion and development of graffiti and has participated in its evolution into ‘street art’ ever since. These days Stern Rockwell is a resident of Hong Kong, and a local legend in the street art scene. His works adorn the inside and outside of businesses across Hong Kong but this was his most audacious and gruelling job in his career to date: to paint a mural 27 storeys high. Finding and editing the drone footage for this was an absolute joy.
Facebook Live
I’ve been training presenters and shooting/producing Facebook Live broadcasts at the South China Morning Post since 2016.
We’ve done them from all manner of news-making and cultural events in Hong Kong: from street protests and election-night counts to the closing nights of the busker’s paradise Sai Yeung Choi Street, tattoo conventions and world famous chef Gaggan Anand’s mission to eat from a legendary Hong Kong bamboo noodle restaurant before it closed.
We’ve also done broadcasts from events in Beijing, Shanghai and Kuala Lumpur.
This compilation was created for a presentation I made at the 2019 Hong Kong Foreign Correspondent’s Club journalism conference.
Follow the South China Morning Post on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scmp/
using drones and 360 video
One of my roles as Specialist Digital Editor at the South China Morning Post is to take new technologies and media platforms and use them to develop new projects, test out new workflows, and explore their potential for storytelling.
I developed this project for the SCMP venture into the 360/VR field, commissioning a professional drone company to supply us with high quality 360 video to match the story I put together telling Hong Kong’s history starting the British planted their flag on at Possession Point and began the process that would see the transformation of a fishing village and ‘fragrant harbour’ into one of the busiest ports in the world and ‘Asia’s international city’.
I strongly urge you to visit the entire multimedia project the South China Morning Post team developed – it’s a tremendous collaborations of video, archival photos from the SCMP’s own files as well Hong Kong’s official archive office, illustrations and maps to tell the fascinating story of Hong Kong. Here’s the link:
The evolution of Hong Kong: from possession to handover… and beyond
