[UNMARRIED] Ending this Project

It’s a romance film. The story starts with a drunk woman at a wedding and she tells the story of her past relationship with a stranger. She is in her late 20s, she tells the stranger about her ex-boyfriend, the ups and downs of their relationship, and reveals that they broke up because of marriage and that he wanted to get married, but she didn’t through flashbacks. The whole time, the stranger doesn’t respond. In the end, she gives up and regretfully goes back to admiring the happy couple/wedding atmosphere. To the audience, other than to entertain, we want to show the struggles of a career-minded Asian Woman, and the strain she puts on her relationships when she and her lover disagree on whether to get married. We want to let other women like her know that there could be more to life than just finding love and setting down.

In this project, I took on various roles as Scriptwriter, Producer and Sound Designer, and my roles influenced them in various ways in each production stage. In the Pre-Production, the roles of Scriptwriter and Producer were the biggest. I provided the most basic idea of this project script. As I was thinking about this FMP project, I thought it would be good to make it based on my experience, and based on that, I came up with the initial idea of the script. So I decided on the idea of 'unmarried' and did various research on the subject. In general, there have been many movies that dealt with 'marriage', but on the contrary, the story of those who oppose marriage is not covered much in the drama. The drama WWW that I saw while researching the subject dealt with this subject briefly, but the end result of the drama was a happy ending of giving up the person who doesn't want to get married thoughts for the sake of love. However, I knew that the reality was not so, and I wanted to portray such an honest reality in this film. So, with a clear topic of Unmarried and the real world', I made a detailed part of the script with Taime. In the process, I tried to reflect on real society well in the script by watching a documentary on YouTube about why modern people think of non-marriage. After that, we finished our first script, and as a producer, gathering the crew and actors was the next most important thing I did. I made a poster for the recruitment of crews and actors and put it on the wall of the ET building to promote it. And I thought of people with whom I was in connection who would fit this role well, I contacted them and asked about their intentions. That way, we were able to gather 2 main actors, 3 extras, and 6 crew members. After the crew and actors gathered, a group chat room was created to explain the first greeting, share roles, the production we were going to do, meetings and other information. I arranged the first meeting for them to fit in their available time, and at the meeting, I and Taime handed out scripts and presented our plans, basic information about the project, and a storyboard. After meetings with them, I started making production docs to be received from actors and crews such as actors’ portrait rights, crews’ basic information and contact. In addition to this, I wrote a production plan, shooting plan and other agreements. This is the first document I've ever written, so I researched while looking at the documents written by the producer of Slice, a project I had done before. As a sound director, I rented sound equipment in advance according to the shooting date and prepared a sound list and plan around this time. Specifically, what kind of microphone and recorder to use, I made the necessary configuration for each scene. Two weeks later we were able to start filming. The filming took place in a private house that I made a reservation for after seeing directly through the website. The most important things to consider when selecting the place were the dining room and bedroom because we were going to film the most important arguing scene in that place. So, I think I picked it up after looking a lot about whether there was enough filming space, what the background was, and what the atmosphere was like with the dining table and bed. And the rest of the outdoor filming locations were chosen not too far away from the house and matched the mood the director wanted as much as possible. That's how filming started, during the production process, I played the role of Catering and Assistant in various roles such as helping with sound recording, props setting and moving equipment. During filming, the actors and crews received autographs and information necessary for the production doc. Filming took place over three days. After the editor's rough cut was done, I was handed it over for the sound editing. I tried to reduce unnecessary background noise as much as possible. I did some research on YouTube and learned a new way to use the Multi Compressor sound effect, which I always used to make the sound clearer. There was a scene in the movie where the main character, Emily, had a phone call with her mother, and I did research to convert the separately recorded mother's voice in that part into the voice on the phone by using the Walki Talki effect of the Multi Compressor. The next thing I paid attention to was the background music, but the most difficult part was that I was making a drama-type movie with a lot of lines, so if I added background music, it could not hear the lines clearly, but it might be awkward to not include them. I had no experience in making a movie with a lot of dialogue in this type of drama, so I thought about what should I do while watching many dramas with various lines. With reference to that part, the arguing part, which is important to the movie, I did not include background music to make the lines more clearly heard, but rather, soft music was put in the dinner scene to create a more contrasting atmosphere for dinner. After the sound editing, finally, we can go for colour grading, and then the video was completed. When I look back after finishing all the projects, there are things I was good at and, on the opposite, I was disappointed in. Overall, even when I was confused because there were so many roles on me, I made a plan and proceeded with it well. But, it is a little disappointing that I was not able to proceed with the rehearsal as a producer. It was difficult to keep up with the time because all the crews had their own projects, and it was a pity that the place was only used for two days. Also, the filming did not go as planned a bit. I had to lead the team by strictly following the filming schedule and I should have thought about that in advance. It seems to have been lacking in the recruitment part as well. The last twist part was supposed to be filmed with the cat and Emily. However, It was difficult to hire a cat, so I ended up changing it to a duck it created confusion in the storyline, and I should have prepared various options in advance in the casting part. If there is a next time, I will prepare more than one option for props and casting. Also, Prepare everything to be able to deal with situations where something has to happen to change them without panicking. Also, I think the schedule should be made more leisurely, and it wouldn't be bad to take a longer filming period for our production.

To promote our film, I made posters and promotional content and revealed them on social media. Specifically, I made a poster, divided it into 6 parts, and uploaded it with the behind-the-scenes together in the feed to people can see it by swiping. And by setting a period in the content upload cycle, I tried to attract attention by posting another poster when people's curiosity grew. And since I just created a business account, few people saw this post, so I tried to expose it to people by using hashtags and sharing this business account post on the Instagram account I was using. And for the trailer, same as the poster that I mentioned before, putting the picture first and then posting the trailer that is included with a voice on the second page to clearly tell people what kind of movie this is. I put a link to my business website on my Instagram profile so people could see the progress of this project while also viewing my other projects. When I was researching marketing strategy, I found one skill that these days, in dramas, a lot of strategies are being used to show the results of a bit of ending and make the viewers curious. For example, the main character (She, if presuming) is seeing two protagonists and people don't know who is going to be her husband. But the film showed them the main character will be married to someone. So, people watch the drama while assuming whether the main character will eventually get married to whom. I found this method to be very effective because I saw even people who are not interested in or not watching the drama, they put a lot of posts and comments that predict who the main character will be with on SNS. In that way, this is a successful marketing strategy. So, I wanted to use this part to get people's attention by hiding who will eventually marry David. Emily doesn't want to get married, however, David gets married at the end of the film. Therefore, the Audience can guess and wonder if he's going to get along back with Emily or if she's someone else. To amplify the audience’s curiosity, I made David's wedding invitation as a poster hiding the face and name of the woman who get married. This makes people watch our film. In addition, I put an introduction for the characters Emily, David, Kelly and Peter with their pictures. After that, I put some still cuts to show what the film will look like for the waiting audience.

Looking at the whole project, I think the production result is quite satisfactory. I think the visual beauty, sound, colour, set, acting of actors, and angle is all above average. However, as with all projects, once it is done, regrets tend to remain, and there are parts that are lacking. First of all, as we initially planned, if we succeeded in recruiting a cat, and had filmed with Emily, I think it would have a more advanced final Twist part. And secondly, the angle of the first scene where Emily is drunk and talking to the person next to her looks a bit awkward. It is difficult for people to predict that there is a person next to her because the angle and her gaze do not match properly. It may be confusing to those who see this video for the first time. If that part had been made more attentively and if a real cat appeared at the end, it would have been a lot more realistic and like a real movie. The third is a party scene in the middle. The party scene is brought footage from the website. As a result, the colour and the atmosphere of the movie didn't match properly and it felt out of place. After consulting with the director, it would be better to include it in terms of content, and as a result, it was included, but it seems that awkwardness is inevitable. The initial plan was to shoot a scene where Peter, Kell and David were having a party, but it was raining on the day of filming, so we couldn't shoot outdoors. We tried to reschedule another day, but Peter and Kelly couldn't make the time. So, due to sudden problems, I decided to remove this part and replace it with a sound effect. However, after considering it deeply in the end, we decided to put some footage from the website. I should have made a plan by looking at the weather in advance and have taken the filming period with a little more leeway. It's a pity that I missed that part. Also, the reason that the editing was difficult in the process of applying the colour is that even though the colours were matched while filming as much as possible, as we were filming outdoors during the day, the position of the sun changed over time and the colours captured by the camera were all different, so it was a little difficult to correct the colour. So, as a result, the colours seem to come out slightly different. The colours were supposed to be the same in one scene to give a sense of unity in one scene, but that part was insufficient. If given an opportunity like this next time, I will definitely have to use the lighting and camera settings to match the colours and proceed with the shoot more carefully. I needed to think about how it will be shown on a screen. As for the sound part, I and Sound Assistant recorded with the same microphone and tried to match the volume and quality in the editing, but in particular, in the dinner scene part, the location was spacious and there were 4 people in one scene, so it was difficult to get all of their voices clearly because I had to move the microphone toward the person speaking. Also, it was difficult to edit, especially when they were speaking at the same time. The one person's sound was very clear but echoed by another one. I tried to use two or three microphones, but hard to avoid catching the camera. I tried my best in editing, but it was very disappointing that I can still hear that part sound difference in the final video. And since it's a movie with a lot of dialogue, I couldn't put as much background music as in a music video or an experimental film, so it sounded that even a little error in the sound could be heard clearly. I reflect on whether a clearer sound could have come out if I had studied and researched a bit more on this part. Still, there were many shortcomings, but I think this video is quite creative, realistic, and reflects society well. I think being creative means seeing from a new perspective and going down a path that others don't. Processing this whole project, I tried to make the film about a topic that people don't want to deal with, a barely chosen and quite a sensitive subject. At that point, I think this film occupies a fairly important part in the current media industry. These days, many people like stimulating videos and media. Because these are easy, fun and light to watch. In addition, that means easy to gather the money. For example, a Youtube Channel needs to get money from a number of viewers. If they put sensitive and boring content, no one wants to watch it. People require more fun, interesting things. However, on the other hand, even if it’s not worth it, there are still people who are making films about social problems and perspectives. Media can be a medium between viewers and makers. Viewers can understand what the makers want to say in their media. So, in that way, the media has a lot of influence on people. Therefore, what makers say in the contents is very important. Sometimes It reminded people or lets people understand different others and recognize current societal issues. That could be a key to solving the problems, moving people and realizing people. Currently, the media is overflowing with provocative stuff. So, I hope that there will be more media about having meaning and critical media than just for fun. So, I think the UNMARRIED has become a very small hole in the current media industry to lead this way.