You may recall a few days ago
we brought you the news that
Park Chan-Wook, Korean director of Old Boy, was shooting a short film entirely with his iPhone 4. At the time there was little info on the ambitious project except that he would be treating it as a normal production, with everything that entails just using a much smaller camera and a title - Paranmanjang - which literally translates as 'Ups and Downs'. Here's a brief rundown on the plot;
Paranmanjang is a fantastical tale about a man who, whilst out fishing one evening, catches the body of a woman dressed in white. While trying to untangle the line he faints and wakes up wearing the clothes that the woman was wearing.
Well, now the U.K. title for the film has been announced,
Night Fishing, and you can see a short teaser below. Intriguing. It certainly looks freaky, but what do you think about the quality? Obviously taking into account the camera used, I'm quite impressed. If you want to peep behind the curtain at the production process then there's a short making of, in Korean of course, but fascinating nevertheless; So now you have a slightly better idea of how this was all put together. Although the iphone4 was used as the camera an attached
OWLE Bubo mount was used during filming, along with proper lighting and what sounds like a sizeable crew. Some people may see this as cheating, but do remember that Park Chan Wook did say it was a normal production process otherwise. As said before, he is not the first film-maker to experiment with shooting on the slinky handset, not even in Korea and this has led to the holding of an iPhone 4 Film festival, the first of which was held in October 2010 and featured a short directed by Hong Gyeong-Pyo, the DP on Bong Joon hoo's terrific Mother. Chan wook's effort is surely the highest profile so far though and has been invited to the Berlin International Film Festival's Shorts section. I'm looking forward to seeing this bizarre little curiosity and to see what other people come up with on the device. Hell, I might have a go myself. How about you?