Civil rights activist Hu Jia was held under house arrest from 2004 to 2008 in the upscale eastern suburbs of Beijing. One day Hu picked up a video camera and began to document things outside the window: his watchers, shepherds tending their flocks, spiders in the rain, and his fellow activist and wife, Zeng Jinyan, going to and from work under the unnervingly close watch of plainclothes police.