On Valentine’s Day, the Golden Horse Award art director Man Lim Chung publicly shared his recent series of short films “さよなら私の愛” (Sayonara Watashi No Ai) shot with the Cinematic Mode of iPhone 13 Pro Max, presented in a black and white style, humorously depicting a clandestine meeting between a pair of ambiguous men and women, a short 4-minute film showcasing master-level cinematography skills!
The director of the film personally handled the script, directing, filming, and production, creating a humorous love story that will make people smile. The roles of the funny and ambiguous couple are played by the members of the group “Twenty-Four Flavors,” Sir JBS (Brian Siswojo) and his wife Annie. The director and Brian met during an early film project and thought he was a very funny and highly adaptable actor. Additionally, his wife was once part of a popular idol group in Korea and enjoys performing, which led to this collaboration.
Influenced by the Hong Kong Cantonese films of the 60s and 70s and Japanese black and white movies, director Wen Nian has always had a preference for black and white photography, particularly admiring Japanese film directors Kojiro MIZOGUCHI and Yasujiro OZU. Holding an iPhone 13 Pro Max in his hand, he used its Cinematic Mode effect to shoot a black and white style short film, satisfying his craving. Despite using a phone to film, the director’s mastery of the film mode is still evident.
In the text, the choice of location for shooting is the Castle Peak Reservoir. In addition to the excellent black and white texture produced by that environment, there is a particularly thick tree trunk in one location. When the main character passes by the tree trunk, the “movie effect” mode automatically switches the depth of field between the foreground and background, resulting in a particularly effective visual effect.
The “Cinematic mode” of the iPhone 13 camera allows users to record videos with shallow depth of field and beautiful focus transitions, enabling the creation of professional-level “depth transition” and cinematic videos. In terms of post-production editing, in addition to standard editing applicable to all videos, users can adjust depth of field and focus for videos, making it easy for filmmakers to shoot and produce.
The director stated that this work is different from the fast-paced and quickly edited online short films nowadays. He intentionally slowed down the pace of the story and added more dialogue, all with the aim of allowing the audience to savor the inner world of the characters. In the end of the story, when the male lead tries to stop the female lead from leaving, he accidentally calls out the wrong name, creating a comical scene that eases the previous tension and makes the viewers chuckle.
The professionalism of the short film makes it completely unnoticeable that it was produced by a mobile phone. If you are interested in making your own romantic microfilm like Wen Nian, you might as well try using the movie shooting function of the iPhone 13 Pro Max!
Image and video source: instagram@manlimchung, apple
