nadao’s upcoming blackout series
so first off here’s the trailer (i don’t see any eng subs yet, sorry!) and the plot is basically sort of like a what happened last night/whodunit type mystery/suspense in which some friends blacked out at a party not knowing where they are, how they got there and how to get out, and find that someone’s been stabbed. the selling point of the series, though, is that it’s shot vertically (among other things which i’ve translated below). since it’s on AIS play i don’t know what this means for international fans, i’m U.S.-based so i’m in the same boat as y’all 😭
with that said, i’m translating some interesting things from the announcement earlier today because i think the concept is WILD and it sounds like something that would be absurdly difficult to pull of:
p’ping said the idea for the vertical series is inspired by the fact that we consume a lot more vertical content than we think, especially through social media (like instagram stories)
p’net (co-directing with p’ping i believe) said that while doing research about what other countries have done in terms of vertical media, it’s been mostly short films about 10-15 minutes but they wanted to try to make it into a series; and since the vertical perspective gives the audience a feeling of discomfort–like you can’t see everything–they decided to go for a more suspenseful vibe which then influenced the story they developed
things that make the series super interesting (and also, wildly challenging to create): each episode is one long take (!!) + vertical + able to sync four phones to see everything happening simultaneously from different perspectives (and sometimes they come together to create one scene)
there are eight episodes in the series (and each episode can be viewed from four perspectives); because there was so much going on behind the scenes, the documentary of the series has almost double the number of episodes
re: syncing the four phones–p’ping said they didn’t film the whole thing horizontally and then just cut it into four vertical parts, since that wouldn’t be very exciting to sync it all together. it’s more like for each episode, there are four parts (from each character’s perspective, shot separately each time), and it’s a long take where one camera follows each character around for each part, and at certain points they all come together in the same scene where the syncing ability would allow you to see the whole scene where you can maybe see your character move from one screen to the other, your character on one screen touching another character on another screen, etc. since all four parts of each episode are simultaneous
they emphasize that you do not need four phones (lol) to watch the series but that if you wanted to experience seeing the fuller picture, that’s where the four phones would come in (as sort of like an activity to do with your family while in quarantine type of thing); p’ping tweeted that you should watch each part of each episode, and once you’ve done that, syncing it all together is optional and might give you a new perspective/let you see something you may not have seen from watching the individual vertical videos
even though each of the four parts is happening at the same time, since they follow each character around, they had to shoot it four different times since only one camera could follow one character around at a time to show that character’s perspective–which meant the cast had to keep re-enacting their scenes for all those four parts
since it’s a vertical series, blocking was super important and members of the team had to workshop and film examples of the blocking for where the characters should be positioned for the scenes before the actual filming of the series; and since they filmed in long takes, the cast also had to remember the blocking to some degree too
the long takes were challenging because everyone (cast, camera, lighting, director, etc.) had to move together as one; one slip-up by anyone and you had to start over from the top, so if you made it all the way to almost 20 minutes into the long take, and one person makes a mistake, everyone had to do it over; and they couldn’t get mad at each other for it because everyone messed up at some point–sometimes it was an issue with acting, sometimes with the camera, sometimes they just weren’t in sync, etc.
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stormborns
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