Read on Twitter
film references of #BoysLockdown thread https://twitter.com/alingsue_san/status/1326460740572745729
actually when i started the treatment for the show i didnt set out to pay homage to any particular title. but instead to work in an entire tradition. and that mode wasnt just film but film & manga. sharing with u some slides from that initial deck which i started in july
there were 2 main reasons for the choice. one reason was covid-19. i had to think of a style that would lend itself well to the peculiarities of new normal shooting i.e. "no tracking shots" meant less equipment, less people, less moving about & more working space
but the first reason was @danicemaepsison's script. in order to talk about this we have to talk about boys love & romance genre in general and in particular, danice's view of conflict, which is that it's not how the west has weaned us on what conflict should be. these are big
topics so ask me about it again if u wanna hear more. but to illustrate briefly, lets just say that in our show the story moves along not when somebody gets killed or whatever but when somebody glances. so it needed a style that can express minute interiorities
with actors in masks most of the time i wasnt sure (this was before the actors workshops) how much nuance i could capture. the sequential nature of manga & montage of anime meant i could create meaning even if the facial aspects were limited
i want to say here that ive forgotten some of the titles of the pegs ive used. but that gif was from ocean waves, the cheapest & gayest studio ghibli movie. as u can see before anybody in the team got inspired by the epic big budget your names, my aims started rather modest
i'll add here that i was after a particular acting style that could be both cartoon & natural. it was a very thin edge between two ravines. obviously too: expressiveness with bodies & eyes that could maybe be a little bit more than usual because you know, masks!
we worked with acting coach renante bustamante & all actors were incredibly game. but i also want to note that i was already on the lookout for these requirements as early as casting
later in editing weve pushed the concept of manga frames by employing many slide transitions and at one point an iris, emphasizing the "framiness". also crudely seen here how i planned to do frames within frames
i'll add here that we were not after pastiche. i didnt want people to go, hey anime! i was also totally fine if people went, hey this is familiar but this is also weird.
how we framed limbs. there is a youthfulness captured when bodies are framed this way. i can grab shots from the series that practically replicate these but im tinatamad now. note the pet and note the way the upshirt slightly exposes skin
im very proud of this one: nature!
you know the climate outside even when youre indoors and foliage peeking just so. in these examples of western films with an asian touch: a thai cinematographer in italy & a japanese director in france
the concept of how to play with nature in limited setups was just so interesting to me. and it made sense within the boys love genre, using natural bodies & beauty of actors to express what the show was about without saying in words or even plot what the show was about
theres a shot of key in #BoysLockdownEP4 thats sort of framed like this
anyway these were the pegs in july. of course it evolved because of collaboration & process. production designer @popodiaz summed up the look in a word - "summery" - because it also made sense that the philippine lockdown happened in the heat of summer
here is a thread by director of photography @teyclamor on her process https://twitter.com/darwinmariano/status/1321019247842054145?s=20
on my next ted talk (charot): finding the cinematic equivalent of the multitude of modes of communication during lockdown plus depicting the clash between gen z and the apocalypse. charot lang napagod ako
