-Scene Analysis-

Movie <Collective Intention>, 2015, directed by Oh-Kwang Kwon

Movie Trailer:

The movie is about the main character Gu who becomes a half-man, half-fish after a participation in testing for big pharmaceutical company Ganmi Medical goes disastrously awry when he sprouts scales, webbed hands and a fish’s head. After Gu’s transformation to a ‘Fishman’, the movie described his journey from fame and peak merchandising potential until being spurned by the society.

Scene chose(from 47:25 ~ 50:05):

Instead of choosing a new movie I haven’t seen before, I chose a movie I have seen but didn’t focus too much on its cinematography, the only thing I remember was the colour tone was grey and gloomy overall. After studying this course, I noticed a lot more than the first time I watched this movie.

(First shot of this scene – wide shot)

The chosen scene was about the main character Gu’s journey of a ‘fish-man’ has passed the peak, negative voices gradually spread out in the society, he was even framed as ‘jerked off’ in front of a married woman. Overall, this scene is much darker than the other scene in throughout the movie with a cool tone(purple and blue), if we look at the first shot of this scene, we can hardly see the actor’s side face, the lightest light source came from the ceiling where we see the reflection on the old man’s forehead and the actor’s nose sitting on the left. There are two key light sources I can see in from the first shot, ceiling light and light source outside the window. They are both very soft but I can tell the key lighting is the light on the ceiling. However, even the light sources in this scene are very soft and grey, but the details can still be seen in each shot especially in character’s mid close-up.

(Character close-up )

As is shown in the first shot, the key light source is above where the actor stands. there isn’t any light source close to where the camera is set because of the fish-man Gu’s side face has no filled lighting in the wide shot. However, when I rewind to watch the scene for multiple times, I discovered there is actually another light source in this scene but it’s very soft and adjusted in the same cool colour tone which the audience never realised. There were two clues where I discovered the extra light source, firstly, the direction of the key light source has changed. If there isn’t any extra light source, the area close to where the camera is set including Gu’s left face would be in the dark as is shown in the wide shot, the light source came from the ceiling is being reflected on the old man’s forehead. However, when we look at Gu’s mid close-up shot, we can see his left face is lit up with soft light but is much lighter than the wide shot, details are shown including Gu’s fish scale.

Secondly, I can also tell there is the extra light source used in this scene, in the wide shot, the door behind the actor who is standing has no lighting whereas in the character’s mid close-up I can see light reflected on the door behind him above the television. The actor’s both shoulder is lit up in the close-up whereas his left shoulder is shaded by the wide shot.

Group 2(Jacky, Aria, Dan, Brews, Sylvia, Rachel, Kris) – Exercise 3; 5(scene 7)

I think the purpose of exercise 3 is two actually apply what we have learnt so far on lighting into an actual scene. Secondly, by manipulating camera, lighting and sounds etc. learn to connect two shots together that was completely filmed in different places. Lastly, get everyone to get used to working in a team and be familiar with how to deal with unexpected problems during shooting.

Time controlling issue. We all know in an actual filming schedule, time controlling is another key issue that actually exists in a lot of producing team. We shot the exercise 3 externally until 12 o’clock, which left 10 minutes only for exercise 5 when we completed to set up for exercise 5. It is always unexpectable issues happening during the progression, we cannot avoid them coming, something a production team need is collaboration. Collaborate well will allow us to solve a problem as soon as it appears, and this is another challenge we have faced in today’s exercise. Everyone has their own way to film, different thoughts and idea even we are looking at the same script, we are very unused and not even familiar with each other, collaborating to film within a short period of time is actually a challenge to most of us.

Moreover, things usually don’t end up to be what we have expected it to be, for example, since there is a large number of unexpectable things happening during the process so director/ producer need a storyboard before and during shooting. This challenge is what always exist for me, why I have used a storyboard, but things are still continuing and non-stoped changing. For example, Brews is the director of exercise 3, he has decided where he wanted to shoot before class and he went to the spot already.

Reflection as a camera person:

Light management is another challenge for us. Under my understanding, a camera manipulator supposed to use their knowledge on camera to assist what the director wants. Brews was the director of this scene, he went to the shooting location before Monday. However, the lighting was much stronger than want he was expecting from this location, where he was planned to let the two actors sit was facing directly to the sun. I have tried to adjust the aperture to avoid the overexposed, but since the lighting is too hard that directed towards the actors’ face which we cannot control by manipulating the camera. We ended up to choose somewhere that didn’t have sun directed with softer lightings to complete this scene.

Overall, I really like this exercise because this exercise has brought me back to experience what is like to film and work in a production team. The two studios I have chosen last year was 80% individual exercise, it’s been a long time since my last team production.

– Week 3 class – 

I am not sure if I am the only one who felt this way, I love photography and I carry my camera along with me most of the time, I understand what each technical terms mean but when we say for example: ‘ the longer the focal length, the shallower the depth of field’ this sentence always took me ages to get my head around. I don’t know if it’s the language problem or is it just I wasn’t familiar enough with the terms. To make sure I can understand what we have learnt so far, I have discovered an effective strategy to understand all those rules. I need my camera out, for example, ‘the longer the focal length’ I will set my camera at 35 mm and take a photo to compare with the 18mm focal length.

 – Class Exercise 2 – 

I used to hate standing in front of a camera and act no matter for what reason, I understand that we are taking turns to act or to control the camera as we are students. What Robin said in this class really gave me a huge impact, he first said that as media makers we might not have a lot of chance to ‘act’ in front of the camera in the future, so is really a good opportunity to experience as an actor. I applied this during our exercise, I imagined what I will adjust the camera if I am manipulating the camera. As the result, we completed this exercise in a short time, we cooperated very well which myself will determine where should I stand for each rule, the other two camera people will double check from the camera and adjust the three factors (focal length; lens aperture; distance the lens focused).

– Daily observation on lightings – 

Observation 1 – This is the second floor of my house, the windows are facing the west which made my house look amazing at sunsets. I took a lot of photographs during sunsets, and I am starting to record this moment with short video clips either. Before I participate in this course, I didn’t realise I have focused on lightings a lot more than I thought in my photographs, but as Robin said: “If there is an exposure, then there are lightings in this piece”.

In the second shot in the video above is sunlight from my bathroom window at sunset, the window has a frosted glass that makes the amount of light came through seemed to be softer than the amount of light that came through an ordinary window glass in my bedroom. The sunlight  in my house reminded me Robin’s demonstration in class when Robin put on the gel ND filter, the light seemed to be softer with the gel filter, so I was pretty sure that the frosted window glass worked the same way as the ND filter because they both seemed to change the quality of light — made it softer.

However, in order to make sure that I didn’t misunderstand this two cases, I still asked Robin for a correct answer. The fact is that I did misunderstand these two cases, the light can seem to be softer only because the gel ND filter has reduced the volume of light, but it doesn’t actually change the quality of light. Whereas in the case of my bathroom window, the frosted glass window did change the quality of light, it has made the light softer.

Observation 2 – There is a small room at first floor where we used to storage drinks, the window is facing the same direction as the two windows we mentioned on the second floor, the window glass is also been frosted. I really like to take photographs especially selfies, girls will know sunlight is extremely helpful for selfies. The sunlight always comes through soft, and since the sunlight comes from a high angle so it seems highlighting the subject’s facial expression. Here are some examples my friend took for me with an instant film camera. 

Since the lighting comes from the window on the top of the room so the line which divides the sunlight and shadow is lining on my shoulder, if I will consider using this place with this lighting in a movie, I think the sunlight suits a lot of different type of film but I think the sunlight can highlight the subject’s facial expression, even the subject isn’t a person I think it can also use to highlight the key element in a scene.