SCMP video documentary series explores the evolution, emotional depth of Hong Kong protests

SCMP’s video documentary series, China’s Rebel City, provides a comprehensive account of the 2019 protests with immersive audio and visuals.

With on-the-ground footage and exclusive interviews with police, protestors, political organisations and the government, China’s Rebel City presents 2019’s civil unrest in its entirety .

Reading Time:4 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

“The Hong Kong Protests China Rebel City”, a documentary on the Hong Kong protest, a production of South China Morning Post (SCMP).

SCMP PR

Published: 4:50pm, 13 Jul 2022Updated: 4:52pm, 13 Jul 2022

This article was originally published on INMA’s ‘Audio & Video Innovations’ Blog on 21 December, 2020.

Written by: Mat Booth, Director of Video, SCMP

China’s Rebel City is a four-part documentary released by the South China Morning Post that tells the dramatic story of a city at the crossroads. It was published in its entirety on December 8, 2020.

The 2019 protests were among the world’s most visible political events, with local and international news media focusing on confrontations between protesters and police on any given day and time. We had amassed thousands of hours of extensive video footage and produced more than 450 news videos since June 2019, so we wanted to tell a more complete story by giving a fuller sense of the events and the complex story behind the news headlines.

Our YouTube channel had grown to more than 1 million subscribers primarily from publishing short-form videos, so we took the road less travelled by deciding to produce this showpiece hour-long documentary. The idea was to comprehensively chronicle the battle for Hong Kong’s soul with nuance and context, detailing a year of social and political upheaval that led to the passing of Hong Kong’s National Security Law.

Logically, this was a story that can only be told as a long-form video, but we are very aware of the video consumption habits of our online audience, which typically gravitates toward shorter videos, especially on social platforms. However, we were encouraged that viewers were showing more interest in long-form content over the past few years on YouTube, Facebook, and increasingly, Instagram’s IGTV, sometimes watching videos up to 20 minutes long.