nadaoās upcoming blackout series
so first off hereās the trailer (i donāt 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 someoneās been stabbed. the selling point of the series, though, is that itās shot vertically (among other things which iāve translated below). since itās on AIS play i donāt know what this means for international fans, iām U.S.-based so iām in the same boat as yāall š
with that said, iām translating some interesting things from the announcementĀ earlier today because i think the concept is WILD and it sounds like something that would be absurdly difficult to pull of:
pāping 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)
pānet (co-directing with pāping i believe) said that while doing research about what other countries have done in terms of vertical media, itās 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 discomfortālike you canāt see everythingāthey 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 phonesāpāping said they didnāt film the whole thing horizontally and then just cut it into four vertical parts, since that wouldnāt be very exciting to sync it all together. itās more like for each episode, there are four parts (from each characterās perspective, shot separately each time), and itās 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, thatās where the four phones would come in (as sort of like an activity to do with your family while in quarantine type of thing); pāping tweeted that you should watch each part of each episode, and once youāve 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 characterās perspectiveāwhich meant the cast had to keep re-enacting their scenes for all those four parts
since itās 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 couldnāt get mad at each other for it because everyone messed up at some pointāsometimes it was an issue with acting, sometimes with the camera, sometimes they just werenāt in sync, etc.
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