Today's blog will be about a movie called Black Belt Officer (I know you're getting sick of this, but TRUST THE PROCESS🥸). To make things more interesting, I will change things up a bit, something that's more SPICY (this is a lifetime special for you!). I'm going to explore a brand new domain that we have not yet discussed, the mis-en-scene. I will analyze five of the most significant elements in this movie and explain how they help convey the meaning that the director wants to express. With that being said, let's RUN into today's content!!🏃🏻♀️➡️👟
Mis-en-Scene
Jeong-do's father's chicken place (based in Korea)
The FIRST MOST important mis-en-scene element would be location. Black Belt Officer is an action movie that is based on a true story in South Korea. By choosing South Korea to be the film's location, the production team was able to achieve the realism they awaited. In addition, the director makes sure he delivers the story in the MOST detailed way possible, as the matching between the filming location and the real-life location suggests the team's dedication to properly spreading this heroic story to the world. In addition, although filming in a studio is considered to be more complicated and expensive, the production team's decision to film at real locations added an authenticity to the film that would have been difficult to achieve in a studio setting. This definitely was a fair trade since they managed to capture some of the most realistic shots that allow the viewers to DEEPLY immerse in the story.
Kim Woo-bin's portrayal of Jeong-do
The SECOND MOST important mis-en-scene element has to be actors. Casting actors is considered to be the most important process, as casting the "right" actors is CRUCIAL; not only the acting talent is required but also the "look" they offer to the character. Kim Woo-bin's portrayal of Jeong-do in Black Belt Officer will be the PERFECT example: Kim Woo-bin, who naturally has an "on-point"kind yet innocent look, but his duality to portray a determined and fearless expression in this scene accurately captured the real Jeong-do, who willingly SACRIFICED himself for justice. Kim Woo-bin's appearance and acting skill truly tie the story together, making his casting a keyfactor in the film's success and overall enhancing the impact of the movie.
Low key lighting with a pink incidental light
I will give lighting the THIRD MOST important mis-en-scene element in this movie. Lighting can make a HUGE impact on how the audience perceives the character; depending on the intensity, color and harshness of the light, it can reflect the character's emotional state. In this scene, the director decided to include low key lighting, which resulted in high contrast that added a more dramatic feeling. Beside that, it appeared like the director played around with color psychology; the pink incidental light that shined on the character is in a hot color family (closest to red), which is often associated with strength and bravery. This inclusion of the pink incidental LED light conveys an admirable mood from the overwhelming perseverance shown. The use of low key lighting and strategic color choices SIGNIFICANTLY impacted the audience's perception of the character, enhancing the emotional depth of the scene.
Joeng-do and a prop, taser
I will crown the FOURTH MOST important mis-en-scene element to props. Props are not simply an object that placed onto the scene; they help add character to the character and improve narrative. This scene well supports these two facts; the electric taser adds a bit of cheeky and mischievous personality elements to the kind hearted Jeong-do we have always known. This portrait is a side of Jeong-do that the viewers have never seen; this charismatic persona might ATTRACT more viewers, all thanks to this new captivating element. Moreover, the electric taser also contributed to the narrative's development; this is the turning point where our main lead, Jeong-do, started to gain more interest in his temporary job after witnessing the possible EXCITING JOURNEY awaiting for him. Overall, the use of the electric taser not only adds depth to Jeong-do's character but also sets the stage for the dramaticplot twists later on (hushh..this is our secret🤫.)
Actors and props are positioned in the center
Lastly, the LEAST important mis-en-scene element among the five is framing. Although it's the least important, it's still one of the important elements in this movie. Framing, which refers to the placement of actors and props within the setting, allows the camera to pick up PRECISELY what is required to convey the meaning to the viewers. In this particular scene, the actors and props were positioned directly in the center, with a Korean symbol of civil union in the back. This provides the viewers with context clues of what the certificate is about (even without a direct translation of the certificate). Furthermore, by strategically placing elements within the frame, filmmakers can direct the viewer's attention and improve the storytelling component.
Today's blog will be something that's a bit more familiar to you (YES!! I do care about you, besties🥹). If you follow my post regularly, you won't be too unfamiliar with a movie called "Officer Black Belt" (I did a movie analysis on this Netflix movie a while back, so check it out now if you haven't). Today I will create a mood board for this fantastic movie, which is often done before the entire production process. I will mainly discuss how the pictures convey the overall mood and feel of the movie. With that being said, let's DIVE into today's blog content!!🌊
Officer Black Belt's Mood Board
For this mood board, I selectively choose pictures that represent different themes in the movie in order to correctly convey a specific mood. For instance, I added pictures of important elements in the movie, such as a chicken restaurant, an ankle monitor, and a police car chase scene. Which are all related to our main character, Lee Jeong-do. These elements indicate the SIGNIFICANT changes that Jeong-do experienced in his life, from being a delivery guy for his father's chicken restaurant to being an ankle monitor officer who ultimately caught the MOST dangerous sex offender (sorry for the spoiler besties😅). This overall suggests the desire personality traits that the making team indented to build for Jeong-do (which I included in the text boxes: passion and determination). Additionally, I purposely added pictures of multiple martial arts as an attempt to indicate Jeong-do's natural talent, "the martial arts prodigy,"(YES!! this is my boy right here😍) which is also the reason he was given an opportunity to be an ankle monitor officer in the first place.
Furthermore, I chose to include 4 particular pictures at the top of the mood board to convey the 2 most important themes: brotherhood and sex crime. This movie was partially created to CRITICIZE the lack of discipline within the Korean justice system regarding sex crime, as various outrageous sex offenders got LOW or almost NOTHING jail time as their punishments (even though they involved in cruel minor sex trafficking, this is very disappointing😔). Beside that, brotherhood's theme was evenly distributed throughout the movie, from the brotherhood Jeong-do developed with his friends to the brotherhood Jeong-do built with his colleagues and boss. This reflects his caring and attentive nature, which will lead us to the reason behind the rest of the images. I included pictures of different characters from various movies to get bits and pieces of each personality trait to build our main character's "perfect" representation, from the innocent yet brave Jung Ba Reum to the fierce and determined spider man. Overall, these pictures combined create the Jeong-do's pre-look, which helps us set expectations of how this movie will turn out as well as its mood (most importantly, this also plays an crucial role in assisting with the casting process.)
Today's blog will be about a recent sound layering project I did in class, since I SLAYED so hard in the project (your girl got FULL mark😁); I will walk you through the experience I had while editing, and of course it will include the editing software as well as the origin of all the sound effects (I GOT your back, girly😏). With that being said, let's JUMP STRAIGHT to today's content!!!
Sound Story Project
Sound layering visual example
This project is mainly composed of three different parts: the script and the foley stage video (and YESS, we have to create at least 4 sound effects by ourselves🥲) and lastly, the sound project itself. This project required my blood and tears🫠, and I'm not kidding you when I said it took me 8 HOURS for everything. Now, since you got the idea of my endless suffering, let's start with the script!!
The Script
This is our newest member, Gau🐻
The objective of this project is to conveya story using mainly sound; we have a word limit of 7 words. After hearing the instructions, me and my partner immediately thought about a journey of us going home and feeding my cats (yes, my PRECIOUS babies (we adopted another one🥰)); however, things didn't turn out to be so well, as we had to exclude the feeding part due to the time limit. I was disappointed but grateful at the same time. As you may or may not know, my baby doesn't meow that much. She's a bit reserved and quite compared to other cats. It will be quite TEDIOUS if we were to record her sound. Overall, we didn't struggle as hard in this part compared to the rest; I will rate this experience an easy-peasy/10.
P/S:I will insert our script below so you can slowly comprehend our creative/genius plan😏
TIME PERIOD: 0:00 - 0:39 SETTING: Classroom
(last period) - Soft
chatter of students - Clock
ticking - Pages
flipping - Books
being closed - Zipper of
a backpack - Sound of
books being stuffed in backpack - Chairs scraping
as student stand - Clock
ticking fastens -> bell rings
TIME PERIOD: 0:40-0:58 SETTING:
School hallway -> Student parking lot - Footsteps - Students
chatting - Door
creaking open - Wind
rushes past - Bird chirping - Humming - Car unlock
sound - Dialogue
“Bye, see you” - Car door
open - Car door
close - Car engine
starts
TIME PERIOD: 0:59-1:53 SETTING:
On the road driving home - Button
sound (to turn on music) - Background
music - Car seat
belt warning - Putting
seat belt on (warning stop) - Car
driving sound - Traffic - Turing
signal sound (blinker ticking) - Car’s
slowing down sound -> come to complete stop - Grab key -> key jingling - Car door
close - Car lock
sound - Foot step
sound (walking toward the house) - House door
open - House door
close
The Foley Stage Video
Filming ourselves creating these sound effects was fairly easy for us. We filmed this quite late as night—after the script and the sound story video—therefore we decided to do something simple with our cars since they kind of line up with our script. All of our effects were car related except for the last one, the door close sound effect (yall girls tried to be different here😅). Filming these effects took only a few minutes; however, if I ever get the chance to redo this project, I would've filmed the door close sound effect inside the house to limit most of the unwanted background noise. Beside that, the editing stage was NO SWEAT!! With the experience from the past editing project that I did, this reduced the editing time tremendously. Overall, I would rate the editing experience on these foley stages a light work/10😤
P/S: I will insert the 'foley stage' video below, so you can check out my flawless work😏
The Sound Story Video
This section is the reason why my hairline is RECEDING😇. Layering all the sounds took me7 HOURS(let's all say bye to my precious nap time🥲), although the nature of the project wasn't difficult. Since this is my first time dealing with all the sound layering, this unexpectedly turned out to be the MOST tedious part. Thanks to CapCut, the editing software I often use to edit video, this process didn't take all night and this is another day of saving myself, a day closer to a restless death🥹. Even though it took me a while to figure out CapCut's sound layering mechanism, from ways to extract audio from a video to ways to lower and increase volume ("sound fade" to guarantee a smoothest transition), things went so much more effortlessly after the first 4 TORTURING hours. Despite all the advantages CapCut carried, its sound effect selection is extremely limited to our standard (YES!! your girls are going ALL out). After debating different choices, the best option we came up with is to screen record the sound effects from YouTube, then use CapCut's sound extraction feature to get the CRISPEST sound. Well, if we exclude all the misery I have been through, this project surely is the most educational yet interesting, and it definitely gave me an opportunity to learn new skills that might be useful in the near future. Overall, I will rate this section a never-again/10 (I AM NOT doing through all that pain again🫠).
P/S: I will insert our sound story video below so you can see the product of my blood and tears.
