MAKING OF 결 / BEHIND THE SCENES
It’s been a few weeks since my film 결 premiered on NOWNESS, and now it also lives on my Vimeo page. And it proudly wears a VIMEO STAFF PICK badge on the top left corner! What?!!! is what I said when I first saw the badge :)
From premiering on NOWNESS to being selected as VIMEO STAFF PICK, I’m foremost grateful. Especially because it is such a small film. It all birthed in my small living room where I conceptualized, set designed, filmed, edited, composited, colored, with no crew and no fancy equipment, and all the props were sourced either from a second-hand shop or from dumpsters. I don’t dumpster hunt often, but I enjoy it enough to know where I can find dumpsters full of fabrics and dumpsters full of flowers. And the rest, I picked them up from a shop which sells second-hand props from other productions. This way of prop searching required me to be flexible – I didn’t know what flowers I was going to find, I couldn’t choose the colors of the fabrics I was going to dig up, I couldn’t predict the things I was going to come across at a second-hand shop. Some might call this a challenge, but for me, this was a blessing because it gave a little boundary I had to work with which usually lacks in personal projects.
I didn’t take many behind-the-scenes photos while filming, because I was alone and I forgot to take photos. But here are some. Warning – it’s messy and heavily improvised with anything and everything I can find useful around the house, including a laundry drying rack, plant pots, books, canvas, record player, coffee tins, etc. Perhaps you will look at the film differently after seeing these making-of photos; you might be disappointed that there’s no spacious studio nor professional equipment; the film might lose its ‘magic.’ I hesitated, hesitated and hesitated. But I love watching other’s behind-the-scenes, I always learn from them, and somehow they motivate me to make films. So I share these in hope that you feel the same way.
Believe it or not, everything you see in this mess has a function ; )
To get the ball to roll down and stop right in front of the hole, I think I rolled the ball close to 100 times, or at least it felt like it. Also in reality, I only had this small block of red carpet, and the pink curtain didn’t cover the entire wall. That was a bit of the running theme while shooting, making things look bigger, larger and wider than what was available.
At 5.30AM, the tripod which should’ve been locked got shifted ever so slightly. Who kicked it?! Must’ve been me since I was alone : ( Tried for almost an hour to match the shots with no luck. I gave up when I saw the sun coming up and had a reshoot the day after.
It takes longer to set up lights and shoot when you are also in the film. Yes, it’s me you see in the film : )
Perhaps you want to watch the film one more time after seeing these making-of photos? And since the shoot, I promise my house is back in order!