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"H" ....aka MURMURS (2002)FORMAT: 35mm Anamorphic Location: South Korea "H" is a psychological thriller (original title = "MURMURS"). It is a 35mm anamorphic feature film being shot for the Korean company, B.O.M. Film Productions Co. Ltd. which is a well-known company in this part of the world with a great reputation for box-office returns. The director is LEE Jong Hyuk, and the producer is RYU Jin-ok (who I've worked with before). The language of the film is Korean. Apart from the D.P., the cast and crew are entirely Korean. I arrived in Korea on 4th November for pre-production, and the shoot itself started just before Christmas (on 22nd December, 2001). They are planning a 6 month shoot through to about mid-June, 2002 ...... so a very, very long shoot. We are shooting mostly in Pusan (or Busan = new spelling). Busan is a port city (pop. 4 million), and Korea's second largest city after Seoul (....it actually reminds me a little bit of Sydney where I used to live). Other locations are Cheju Island and Kôje Island off the southern coast of South Korea, and the capital, Seoul. For my last feature film in Korea (THREE FRIENDS in 1996), I shot with one of the slowest, fine-grained film stocks available (5248). But the visual style for this movie is very different, and therefore needed a radically different approach. It goes more in the film noir direction, so I swung to the opposite extreme and chose the fastest emulsion that Kodak currently manufactures (Kodak Vision 5289, E.I. 800 Tungsten). I love this film stock. It allows me to light with very soft light at extremely low lighting levels. The low lighting levels is the key here, as it allows me to control the light spill from soft sources, so I can make strong contrast when needed. This stock makes this possible, like no other. I can light certain shots with nothing more than flashlights held by the actors, such as the shot of the police running up a stairwell. I can work at light levels that my spot meter can barely detect. For one scene, the light levels were all below 2 or 3 footcandles ..... as our star descended a very dark stairway into a eery basement. It just amazes me that this is possible. Things have changed a lot during the course of my filmmaking career. Things that were once thought impossible, are now achievable. Because of the very low lighting levels, I find myself lighting the actors more from the direction of the camera position. This is something I avoid doing normally, as it produces flat-looking images. But the idea of backlight, key, and fill, doesn't apply as strongly as it does with a higher-key lighting set up. So I find myself breaking one of my cardinal rules, so to speak. I have to remind myself that there are no unbreakable rules in lighting design. The movie is anamorphic. I love the anamorphic format (just like the original "Cinemascope"). This is one of the few anamorphic features ever to be shot in Korea, and the first in several decades. And it is one of the first features to be shot with the brand new ELITE anamorphic lenses from a renowned Russian manufacturer. A wide range of focal lengths, and amazingly fast for this class of lens (mostly T2.2). The results are impressive. A good product at a very reasonable price. The main challenge of this movie is to achieve an extraordinarily large number of camera and lighting setups. The director's style is a fast cutting montage, requiring extensive coverage for each and every scene. This makes it a long and hard shoot, requiring an exceptionally long shooting period. A shoot of about six month is anticipated. Interestingly, these very long shooting periods are becoming commonplace for the larger-budget productions in the Korean film industry these days.
Left Photo: Detective Kim Mi Yun (.....played by Yum Jung-Ah) Center Photo: The three main actors in SWAT gear, with the director center-left (sun glasses), and producer center-right. Right Photo: Official launch of the movie hosted by Pusan city officials.
Peter Gray
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