G.C.F in Saipan - Director’s outlook
The following post is a personal interpretation of JK’s latest work ‘G.C.F in Saipan’, by a veteran film director. He’s a family friend of mine, has watched and shared his thoughts on the previous three GCF videos, and is an admirer of JK’s works. He is aware that BTS is a Kpop musician/idol group, are close friends, but other than that he has no knowledge of them. The context he gathered from watching GCFs is that BTS were on a mini vacation or working for a photoshoot. I did not elaborate on the context to him this time.
This post is his personal take on JK’s story-telling skills and technical prowess as a budding director. This is NOT an analysis nor a review of GCFs, but rather an outside opinion by a professional. Kindly DO NOT use this as fodder for ships or take it as a standard interpretation of GCFs. I am only posting this to share what a director’s outlook on JK’s videos looks like. Please take this as an opinion piece only. Everything mentioned here is the director’s own unbiased thoughts and interpretation, I have not included any of my own.
Links to the director’s background and opinions about the previous GCF videos:
(Prior to GCFs’s release, I had sent him the teaser video JK posted on Twitter, along with the song. Hence he was aware of the song lyrics before the watching the full video.)
“First of all, I don’t think this is the video that he originally intended to post. When I saw the preview he released I thought he would be continuing the narrative of his very first video (GCFt). This product is completely different. Looking at the preview, it seems like he had already finished the pre-final cut and was working on the post production, which is when he took the clip and shared it to the views, as a ‘teaser’. Naturally one would believe that the full video would be focused on the narrative he indicated in the preview, so I am quite surprised to see this result instead.”
Were you disappointed to see the final video be different from what was teased?
“Well, I wouldn’t say I was disappointed but I was looking forward to see how he would have continued the narrative of [GCFt] in this video. Hence this end result is quite unexpected.“
I felt that this video didn’t really have a proper narrative as his previous videos did. What do you think?
“It looks like this time he has omitted the storyline and focused on the cinematography instead. This is in stark contrast to the previous video he posted. That one had proper flow storyline-wise with all of his friends given balanced focus, and the narrative was defined. That video was a one time show with no promised sequel so I am wondering what is the purpose of him releasing this video right after.
To me, this initially looked like a mini vacation vlog, but there are only two major scenarios being shown. A vacation vlog would show more captured moments but this has very limited content, even more limited than the previous video (GCFu). I also see that he’s brought out his crutch again. So this can’t even be called a vacation vlog, but an amalgamation of ‘moments’ that were cut-and-pasted together. That and the fact that he wrote ‘Summer Package 2018’ at the end makes this look like a photoshoot catalogue of his friends in a place called Saipan. Maybe they went there for a outdoor photo-session and that is what this Summer Package is, I don’t know, but this gives off the image of a promotional video, with his friends as the focus (since they are the models) and Saipan as the backdrop.”
Odd factors in the narrative
“However, I see three ‘odd’ factors in this video which is making me think that he did not originally intend to make a promotional video.
The clips with his friend from the teaser.
The b-roll that he seems to have added in after the pre-final cut was made.”
(Song: Best of Me by John. K)
“The song choice here makes no sense to me. From his past works, I gathered that he is one who speaks through every aspect of his films, including the choice of music. However this song, looking at the lyrics, seems to be for two people and not a group. So his choice is weird. I think, that since he revealed his song choice by sharing the teaser preview beforehand, he had to go continue with it, to give the impression that the video he teased and the video he delivered are the same one. He probably thought to mask the fact that he had originally made a different type of video. Going by the teaser, it seems the song choice was made with the same intention as his first video (GCFt), meaning it was very likely intended for him and [JM]. That is why I expected a continuation of the (GCFt) narrative. Here however, it becomes an odd-ball because the song for once speaks against the story, not for it.“
2) Teaser clips don’t match the promotional-edit style:
“If he was going for a promotional video kind of outlook, then some of the clips with his friend [JM] do not fit. Those look more suited for home videos, or bloopers. I can understand why he included [JM’s] dancing clips, since they were showcased in the teaser so if he omitted them it would have been even more strange. But I find it interesting that he still inserted them in more or less the same time stamps as the teaser. Because this way he is giving a glimpse of the narrative that he may have originally intended to share. The placement of the song lyrics are also suggestive. So he’s contradicting the intent here, he shows the originally intended narrative using the blooper-like clips of his friend and the placement of the lyrics, and then goes back to the narrative-less promotional video style.”
“You see that shift in the way he switches focus from his friend dancing or boxing, to all of them gathered around having dinner. The dancing/boxing clips are from the teaser, hence pertaining to the original narrative. The eating clips are part of the promotional video style. He’s used a cinematography trick to show this here, but why he would intentionally give away the fact that he originally had a different narrative in mind, I don’t know.
After this we see the same promotional-video style being continued, until he brings in the odd blooper-like clips once again, again with the same friend [JM]. By now I can surely say this friend is his crutch, since he relies on him to push the storyline forward. In my opinion, he didn’t have to use a crutch if he’d meant to keep this a hundred percent promotion-video style, but for some reason he does. Also, the placement of the lyrics once again and the hyper-focus on his friend’s goofy expression (odd for a video that is meant for professional promotion) shows he’s bringing in the narrative from the teaser. Also notice how his other friends seem to interact with the camera, but this friend interacts with the cameraman, just like in the [GCFt] video.”
3) Extra b-roll added during post production:
“Some of the clips seemed to have been added AFTER he made the pre-final cut. Like the starting clip with his friend [TH] and some of the landscape shots. The starting clip looks to me like b-roll taken when he and [TH] went to shoot the sunrise maybe, since [TH] also has a camera. This clip was not meant to be included in the promotional-video edit.”
“Also, if you noticed the placement of the first clip [with TH] is in the same place as the teaser clip with his friend [JM]. So this b-roll was added in later to cut the flow of the narrative indicated in the teaser. He does the same trick in the second half, where he uses clips with another friend [JH].
To explain it in detail, let’s say the original narrative he intended to show from the teaser is T-narrative , and the promotional-video edit (the end product) is P-narrative.
He starts the video with P-narrative, then at 0.27 he brings in T-narrative (check placement of song lyrics also, that’s very important to the T-narrative). Then later, he uses jump-cuts to switch focus between T- and P-narratives, from 0.45 to 1.01, then continues on with P-narrative. Then in the second half he brings in T-narrative again at 1.47, then switches to P-narrative at 2.07 and continues it for the rest of the video.
This is another cinematography technique that is used to switch narratives within the same storyline. The reason it is odd here is because:
P-narrative has no storyline because it is used purely for promotional purpose.
The initial clip he used for P-narrative (the one with [TH] ) is b-roll that was not intended for this video, but he had to add it in for some reason. It could be the clip was meant to show sunrise perhaps, but in his opening clip, he already shows the sun risen, so the placement of this clip looks odd to me. The same goes for the landscape b-roll clips added in at 1.01 and 1.20.
If he had originally intended to hide the T-narrative, then doing this switch makes no sense. Seeing how all the clips he uses for the T-narrative are with his friend from the teaser [JM], I think these are all the clips he meant to include in the original video. The vibes of all the T-narrative clips are the same and again, the placement of the song lyrics is suggestive. He seems to use [JM] here as his crutch to convey the should-have-been-hidden original narrative.“
Many have begun to notice this bias towards using [JM] in his videos and mentioned that it’s particularly obvious in GCFs. Do you think so too, and if so why?
“Looking back on his previous three videos, all his other friends seem to ‘act’ for the camera except this guy. I mentioned before that this friend must be the one he’s filmed the most, and also the one he’s most comfortable filming (hence why I call [JM] his crutch). Some of his other friends, like the guy who comes in at the last [RM] and the one who was sleeping [YG] seems to be the least used to his filming, hence they appear awkward and their ‘acting’ is made more obvious. [JH] and [TH] seem a bit more natural in their ‘acting’ but their interactions are solely towards the camera in this video.
[JM] is the only one who interacts with the cameraman, and the one with the most ‘blooper-like’ clips. I’m guessing every b-roll he has of this guy would be the same. [JK] here seems to really like filming his playful side more, since 90% of [JM] clips i’ve seen in his videos so far are him being goofy.”
“Judging from the three odd factors I mentioned - the song choices, clips with his friend [JM] and the additional b-roll intentionally added after pre-final cut - I am thinking that he had originally intended to continue with the same narrative as his very first video (GCFt), but later had to change course. Had this video been released before (GCFu) I would not have paid much attention to this deviation. But as I mentioned before, (GCFu) had a very contradicting narrative, with him stuck in the past while playing clips of the present. This is of similar scale, except here the choice of song only would only fit the T-narrative.
This is just my guess, but I think he will continue to mask the T-narrative in his future videos. So far he’s working with limited resources, meaning he’s only focusing on filming his friends and the landscapes etc. I think he needs to expand his filming techniques a bit more. He’s done four videos now and that is enough experimentation. Also it looks like he won’t be able to convey the narrative he wants to freely with his current filming style, so in that case I think he should try out more styles. Like bringing in dialogues to speak his story instead of music. Or use narration instead.
This video - while it looks visually more aesthetic than his previous one (GCFu) - feels like I am chewing on pieces of cardboard sprinkled with pepper. Flavoured enough to keep the palate satisfied, but the hunger for real food will still remain.”
(P.S: to the anon who requested to add the ‘Keep reading’ divide, I’m sorry but it clashes with the format I want this post to have so I’m forgoing adding it in. Please enjoy it this way, thanks~)
