Walking in... single shot videos of city life

February 13, 2015 10:45 PM

Kees Colijn's "Walking in..." project is a series of fascinating single shot videos, each up to two hours long, filmed as he walks through cities such as Yangon in Myanmar, Varanasi in India, Makassar in Indonesia and Pokhara in Nepal (Youtube links). See and hear everyday life in these places, not just the slick travel show version.
posted by AnnaRat (15 comments total)

This is pretty awesome. I like to watch train videos on YouTube - where someone captures an entire route in HD. There is also a poster on YouTube that walks around various obscure Japanese towns and makes videos.

I kind of wish there was one for the Philippines.
posted by Nevin at 2:13 AM on February 14, 2015

Going to Yangon in a week! Need to hold off on watching this...but thanks for posting! These look great.
posted by mdonley at 2:35 AM on February 14, 2015

The complete Youtube video collection is here. New videos are still being added (maybe the Philippines will come after Indonesia?), but current videos coverage includes:
Indonesia - Balikpapan, Pontianak, Palu, Makassar, Surabaya, Jakarta
Myanmar - Yangon, Mawlamyine, Ye, Myeik
South East Asia - Singapore, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Vientiane (Laos), Ao Nang (Thailand), Bangkok (Thailand)
Vietnam - Hanoi, Da Nang, Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City (bicycling)
India - Kolkata, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Amritsar, Manali, Leh (Ladakh), Old Delhi, New Delhi
Nepal - Pokhara, Kathmandu
China - Kowloon, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Shanghai Bund, Shanghai
Netherlands - Rotterdam, Amersfoort, Utrecht, Haarlem, Amsterdam
Others - Cairo, Addis Ababa
posted by AnnaRat at 3:04 AM on February 14, 2015 [8 favorites]

OMG so awesome, thank you for posting
posted by XMLicious at 4:29 AM on February 14, 2015

Awsome!
posted by mumimor at 4:34 AM on February 14, 2015

That is basically a list of places I want to visit someday, so this is wonderful.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:47 AM on February 14, 2015

Oh, that one filmed near Petaling Street makes me rather miss Malaysia.
posted by dazed_one at 7:51 AM on February 14, 2015

Spectacular and hypnotic. I've been to a few of these cities and these videos capture the sense of place so much better than any photo or (not surprisingly) more produced video. The camera here becomes a proxy for the way we actually see these places.
posted by bassomatic at 9:17 AM on February 14, 2015

I can finally live life vicariously as a tall!

He's Dutch, so I'm assuming he's normal Dutch person height and not using a fancy camera/pole setup.

I used to start up Skyrim and do this when bored. This is so much better.
posted by fiercekitten at 9:24 AM on February 14, 2015

Awesome! I can flaneur-by-proxy all over the world.
posted by Happy Dave at 10:23 AM on February 14, 2015

Thanks so much for these. I stayed up unfeasibly late watching some.

I actually nodded off toward the end of Varanasi one - not out of boredom, but because it was kind of hypnotic (and well after 3 a.m. EST).

I was jolted awake by the horn from either a pedicab or a motorcycle. I love walking around cities just to look around. Headed to Amsterdam later this year, so appreciated seeing the Vondelpark walk around he did. Key takeaway - it's lovely, but watch for people on bikes!
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:55 AM on February 14, 2015

I've been watching these for some time now. They're very enjoyable, except for his tendency to walk outside the appropriate pedestrian zone (particularly the Nederlands vids). It squigs me out. I keep hearing this voice in my head going "To the right... to the right.... to the...".
posted by humboldt32 at 11:59 AM on February 14, 2015

It squigs me out.

Yeah, I was finding that pretty stressful. Especially when you have no kinetic control over what's happening. "Dude. Get over on the other side of those bollards...aw, c'mon man, what are you doing. Not cool. Not cool."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:03 PM on February 14, 2015

Some of those cities have such a DIY look, and such intimate use of space, the residential alleys, the proximity of traffic and pedestrians. This is such great coverage I almost seemed to smell the places, but no the neighbors are running a smoker.
posted by Oyéah at 8:21 PM on February 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

Are there videos for some of these cities 10 or 50 years ago? Given how quickly some of them have changed, comparing them would be really interesting.
posted by glass origami robot at 5:51 PM on February 16, 2015