[ 25.02.2024 ]

DAY 3 OF SHOOTING

DANCING SEQUEL, LIP - SYNCING
AND THE REST OF THE ACTING SCENES. 

                                                                                ✭

Location : Vinschool Central Park Highschool 

Date : 25.02.2024

Time : 12am - 5pm

Members : Na ( Le Nam Khanh ), Nub ( Nguyen Bao Kien ) and Anna ( Duong Khanh Linh )

Sets : Multi-purpose room, Media Room and the School Ground.

Gears and props : 

Artisan Prime Lens 50mm f1.2 

. 

Sony A6000 Stock 18-55mm Zoom Lens

.

Moza Aircross 2 Gimbal

.

Tripods

.

Paper cigarette

This is the last day of our MV production. We supposed to finish our production on the 17th of February, yet, due to the bike accident that I got from the 11th of February, which causes my leg injury, therefore, we have to move to 25/02/2024. The reason why I called it the last day since we only have dancing sequel, lip-syncing ( the scene that not taking too much time ) and only one acting scene left. We did the process for nearly 5 hours straight, therefore, we actually finish the all the footages that we need for the music video. The details of the process will be go through and explained below. 

                                                                    ★ DANCING SEQUEL

For the dancing sequel, it was conducted in two locations, which are my school multi-purpose room and the small hall way beside it. The multi - purpose room, which is wide and big enough for the dancer to swung his arms and legs, in order for the camera to captured the dance moves clear, clean and smooth. Since the main purpose of the dance is to express the most painful and hurt feelings, therefore, I insists the dancer to reimagine the moments that he ever felt restless and sad, therefore express it through his dancing (body) language. We have quite a conversation, and a stimulation before we started filming. We calculate the angles and test the gimbal for the stabilization and the movement of the dancer, in order to have a clear directions and paths for the camera to captured. 

Me, having a short conversation with the dancer about the dance.

The dancing sequel in the multi - purpose room depicted the period when the butterfly still in its full health, in order to keep the human characters alive. The movement of his arms and feet were extended as its widest, and also the expression of the dancer were also been captured, mostly with medium close - up shots, along with some motions can actually leveled up the tension, it make us feels like as the world still going around, and everything seems to be pretty much normal, but our mental state and emotion still not stable, it still rumbling, numbing and always try its best to find its inner peace, which is not easy. The most intense part of the dancing sequel is the part the dancer push himself along with his arms and his body, in which portrays the butterfly use up all of its energy to push away the negativity and threats away from its body, which can affected badly to the human. .

The detailed behind the scenes video of 

our process for the first half of the dance sequel

The second part of the dancing sequel was taken place in the hallway beside the multi - purpose room. The space was much tighter and smaller than the multi - purpose room, in which matched with our intention for the last part. The reason why we choose the hallway as our another location for the dance sequel since we have reached to the part when the butterfly was almost run out of it energy and still try its best to keep the human lively as possible. Another things that we also considered about this part is that we decided to film it without any manipulation from the big lights, only relied on the natural light, which is captured from the outside. Due to the limited sources of light that we have, which not reflected on the dancer, therefore, the dancer was film as a moving silhouette in the middle of no where, in which there are no light emphasizes on his body, and filmed as a completely black figure. 

The image of the dancer in this part was completely blackout, become a moving
silhouette in the middle of no where. 

The idea of the silhouette was quite new since it just been discussed between me and the D.O.P member a week before we film. We want to create the final scene with the most suspense, but also including the element of privacy. The silhouette represent the act of hiding ourself from everyone else, and keep their mindset of thinking that we're still fine and ok. Yet, inside the silhouette is an utterly mess, unstable and unhealthy figure who still have to stand up and fight for its life. The reality itself is so ugly that even a  butterfly can't stand it but don't know how it can still alive until now, in which it can be considered as a life achievement. 

The idea was actually borrowed from a small footage from "Bittersweet - Mingyu & Wonwoo ( ft. LeeHi ) music video, when Mingyu stand in the middle of the road, with no lighting emphasize on his body, he was filmed as a completely silhouette standing on the road. The difference between them is that there are more motions in our footages. 

The shot from our footage and the reference from the music video.

The dance went quite smoothly, even though there are some cuts in between, since we have to film different parts separately, and of course, there are some bloopers occurs, mostly is the adjustment of the dance to fit with the lyrics. Fortunately, the dancers and me didn't take so much time to think of some dance moves and we still able to films all of the bits for the first part of the dance sequel. 

I also reflected the process of our D.O.P member, this is what he thinks about the filming process

"Dancer's movement was on point, had the flow and was very captivating, a few environmental disadvantages but also many advantages"

.

"Several areas while filming in school was had spot-on lighting"

I'm grateful that Nub, the D.O.P member also have contribute to the process, since he also give me some great suggestion and ideas that we could experimenting and adjusted. During the process of filming the dance, some of parts he corporate with me and directed the dance as well. In the middle of the shoot, we change the tool from a gimbal to a tripod, since the gimbal was quite uncontrollable, and often winging back and forth, which the stabilization didn't seem to be fixed and stable. The tripod, however, is much harder to use in terms of filming the motion, but he's still try his best to filming in different angles, different position, and different shots. Despite for the stabilization, all of the dancers' moves were captured. He's also the one who suggest some new angles or camera shots in order to suit with the script descriptions. As I have mentioned before, me and him have some online conversation during the pre - production, therefore our insights and ideas were firmed.

                                                                  ★ ACTING SEQUEL

For the acting sequel, we proceed to film the montage, the post - credits scene, and also a refilm of the second part of the song, due to the errors from the lighting. We record it in the Media room which have the green screen to manipulate the background. The first acting scene we record is the second verse of the song, where the human characters' soul was separate and been trapped into a place that nothing, completely black, only a light in the middle. Most of her body was numb, especially her feet as there are bruises all around her feet. This may results in the consequence of the acts of hurting herself. The scene was film at the middle most of the time, in order to film the motion of the human. 

There are some tracking shots, used for captured the shaky and stagger moves of the human character, since she is limping while seeing what's happening to her and also keep her legs safe from other injuries. This scenes was recorded quite long, therefore, a part of it will be used in the bridge part of the song. Most of the shots were shaky, some of them are a bit statics in order to ensure the stabilizer stable as possible. 

Compared to the previous trial, there were not much changes, the only different of the shoot is that we filmed with lights, and the sitting position in the first minute was changed from sitting in the middle to sitting from the side ( the side that show the right side profile of the face ). There are some adjustments and suggestions of the acting that I got from the dancer, in which he's more professional than me. The process went smoothly, as the acting have been improved and the footages can captured all the details. 

     

The second part that we record is the post - credit scene. The scene followed after the death of the butterfly, in which its soul have been attached to the human character as the last call for her to protect herself from any sarcasms, criticisms, or any hatred that she encountered in life. Also, in this very scene, the human character also going through a transformation, from a butterfly to a dragon. This can be fictional and unreal, yet, this could emphasize a big transformation, in which the human character have more strengths and beliefs to destroyed and abolished any obstacles, objects or individuals that blocked her way to stay true to herself and pursue her ambition. The scene was also filmed at the same position from the previous scene, but instead of sitting, she's lying down as to continue the scene that the butterfly falls down and die. 

Tracking shots are the most essential elements as it records her motion of waking up from the sudden collapse, standing up to stretch her body, and then realize that her arms have some scales, which address that she has turned into a dragon. 

Close - up shots are also used as it captured the part of the arm that have the scales on it. The dragon scales will be edited in the post - production as it needs visual effects in order to achieve the realness of the scales. 

           

The last part of the acting scene is the montage, which was taken at the school ground. The school ground is vast that day, which is convenience for us to take wide shots, long shots and medium close up shots. According to the script, this is the scene where the human character have a chance to reflected herself along with her residue effects of how mental illnesses have tormented over the past few months, which lead her to an intention of smoking a cigarette. She kind of believes that's smoking is the only way that she can partially escape and forget some of the bad memories. However, an awareness of health rise again in her heart, as she remembered that if she smoke, she gonna get addicted easily, which can cause a huge consequences towards her health, especially her lungs. After all of that thoughts, she fall down into her knees and have a good cry. 

The montage is the part that we take the most of the time to shoot, since it requires stable close - up shots and also keep track with the lighter as the flame can be blew at no time. The first few seconds captured myself  sitting in front of the school front, hold and turn on the lighter. The eyes stare completely at the flame and entirely spacing out. The time for this scene is approximately midnight and my face have been dried and swollen by the tears, which is much more worse, in compared with the first part of the song. For this footages, close - up shots were used to capture the flame, then transited to the shot of my swollen face. The purpose of this scene is to create a metaphor, to distract the audience on thinking that this character have a mindset of a psychopath, in which she have a decision of burning the school down.

The next few minutes is when the audience will know the reason why she hold the lighter and keep staring at it. As the next shots captured the motion of myself turning the lighter off, sigh and spacing for 6 -7 seconds. Then look at the school nametag and have a deep thought. I shake my hands and wiping the face by my hand as to keep myself be conscious as possible. I stand up and walk away from the stairs, there will be a part when I stop with my left hand holding a completely new, unburnt cigarette. I let my hand become loose gradually for the cigarette to fall down and smash it by my foot. Depth of field were used to focus on the cigarette, which emphasize the purpose of this scene, is to give the audience the answer why she have the lighter with her. She's not burn the school down, she just on the state of deciding whether to have a cigarette or not. At the end, she dismiss it right away since it can have a bad consequences to my health. The set was supposed to be at night, however, due to the permission that we got from the school and our parents, we have to shoot it in the afternoon. The scenes will be color graded and edit into night time like atmosphere, which can be more convincing.

Most of the scenes were recorded in manual mode, which we have to create focuses on the shot by our own. We use the Artisan Prime Lens 50mm f1.2, which is a manual lens. This led us have to film the close up from a near distance, and try to film it as much quality as possible. Despite to the difficulty that we have in which there are many bloopers, however, our aim for the shots is to film it in low light, which could make the editing process easier since we want to achieve the Wong Kar Wai effect, more specifically is the color grading from Fallen Angels. The lightning from our footage is natural, in which the color could also blend into it quite smoothly.

                                                                    ★ LIP - SYNCING

Lip - synching is also an essential part of the music video. At first, I was quite shy at first as I have record myself singing to the lyrics and try my best to sing the Korean lyrics as clearest as possible. The scene was also take inside the media, filming myself in front of the greenscreen. The shots mostly consists of medium close-up, to captured my lip and also my facial expressions while I'm singing. Overall, this is the most simplest shoot since we don't have to done much things for this. Another thing that I supposed to do is I have to stand up and moving around as the expressions can come out with a stronger effect, however, due to my leg injury and I was advised from the doctor to avoid standing up and moving around too long, therefore I was lip-synching while sitting on a chair, which was quite pitiful when I can't express it more and give all of it into the performance.