One high-five, then a jump cut to a new place, then another high-five: Marie and Haakon’s holiday video Singafive strings their trip to Singapore together with a single repeated gesture. Every time their hands meet, the background changes, and the city flashes past in a cheerful rhythm.

Singapore in High-Fives, photo 1

Watch Singafive

The idea is simple and very effective. Instead of a slow sequence of views, the film gives you one action to follow. The high-five is the stable element, Marie and Haakon are always in the frame, and Singapore supplies the variety. Within a few cuts you recognise the pattern and start looking forward to where the next one will land.

Singapore in brief

Singapore is a city-state of about 744 square kilometres at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, home to roughly 6.1 million people. Stamford Raffles arrived in 1819 and set up a British trading post, though the island had a much longer history as Temasek and the Kingdom of Singapura. Singapore became self-governing in 1959 and an independent republic on 9 August 1965, after separating from Malaysia. Its four official languages are English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil, with Malay as the national language.

The climate is tropical all year, usually between 23 and 32 °C with high humidity. The wetter monsoon season runs from November to February, and haze from fires in Indonesia can occur between July and October. Most visitors arrive at Changi Airport, which opened in 1981.

Places for your own high-five montage

  • Gardens by the Bay: opened in 2012, this 105-hectare waterfront park has 18 Supertrees, vertical gardens 25 to 50 metres tall that light up in the Garden Rhapsody show at 7:45 pm and 8:45 pm each night. The Flower Dome is the world’s largest columnless glasshouse, and the Cloud Forest has a 35-metre indoor waterfall. The outdoor gardens are free; the conservatories are ticketed.
  • Marina Bay Sands: Moshe Safdie’s three 55-storey towers, opened in 2010, are joined at the top by a 340-metre SkyPark with an infinity pool about 150 metres long, 191 metres above the ground.
  • Singapore Botanic Gardens: founded in 1859 and inscribed as Singapore’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015. The 82-hectare gardens are free and open from 5 am to midnight; only the National Orchid Garden, with more than 1,000 species and 2,000 hybrids, charges admission.

How to film a gesture travel montage

  • Pick one gesture that is easy to repeat anywhere: a high-five, a wave, a hand over the lens.
  • Keep the camera consistent. Same height, same distance and the two of you in the same part of the frame make the cuts flow.
  • Record a little before and after each gesture, so you have room to choose the exact cut later.
  • Cut on contact. In the edit, cut at the moment the hands meet, so the movement seems to continue into the next place.
  • Use music you have the right to share, and check the first two clips early so you can fix framing while it is still easy.

Choose spots that are already on your itinerary, and keep each take short so the trip stays the priority. For another easy format, try a five-second travel diary, and if you are still agreeing on the trip itself, see our couples’ planning guide.

Related reading: Matt, Jessica and Georgie: The Early Years of a Sailing Life; FollowMeTo in India: Murad and Nataly Osmann’s Travel Photography; How Far From Home: Chanel and Stevo’s Early Travel Photo Diary; Freedom Cove: Wayne Adams and Catherine King’s Floating Home; Cheetah Platt and Rhiann Woodyard’s Around-the-World Wedding Photo Project; Jay Alvarrez and Alexis Ren: A Historical Travel Photo Collection; Tiny House Giant Journey: Guillaume Dutilh and Jenna Spesard’s Road Story; HoneyTrek: Mike and Anne Howard’s Extended Honeymoon; FollowMeTo: Murad and Nataly Osmann’s Early Travel-Photography Series.

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