┆ ⤿ 💌 ⌗ LYN - POETRY THE ALBUM: I TOLD YOU THINGS
Human Resource: ₍^. .^₎⟆
Information: ✩°｡🧸
This sequence holds the most underlying meaning. The train station represents the emotional pathway that the artist Lyn usually uses to be able to reach the man addressed in the song “I Told You Things,” the place where her feelings, thoughts, and secrets travel to find comfort in that same person. The beginning of this sequence is all about being able to capture the excitement and the thrill of seeing him once again, mostly out of the habit of “playing it safe” (lyrics mentioned in the pre-chorus) and always finding her way back to him. However, when the train comes, signifying the opportunity to truly communicate her attachment that still lingers, Lyn finds herself frozen in front of the sliding door. This indicates how her own integrity and self-respect stopped her from once again repeating the same mistake that caused her pain. This scene is highly important as it is what gives the story a sense of relief, and somewhat an open-ending to what will happen next.
I have always planned for this scene to be associated with the actress’s best look throughout the entire music video because I believe it works better to have the character desiring to look more presentable when meeting her love interest, demonstrating how much she longs for their interaction. From the character design, it was concluded that Tina (my actress for this role) would be wearing a long dress at ankle length, as it encodes a more composed vibe.
I began to look on Instagram for where I could rent this type of outfit and got down to 3 choices from this shop in District 3, HCMC. Each was offered with a 500k deposit.
Price: 180k/day
Price: 270k/day
Price: 180k/day
Through some consideration, I decided to lose the black dress as the dark tone didn’t match the color scheme. However, before I managed to decide between the 2 white ones, I actually found a different, blue dress in my own personal wardrobe that was just the right shade of lightness. Therefore, I ended up using my own clothes for the scene and saved on production budget.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UURNdtJ09gU
We started at the stairs of the metro station - a long shot with the tracking motion of Tina running to the top from a high angle with her back towards the camera.
It was quite hard to do as Tina was struggling to run in her heels because, as I later found out, the heels weren’t her size, making it difficult for her to move naturally. It took us around 7 tries to get a proper shot. However, after finishing the fourth try and while preparing for the next attempt, we were approached by one of the older security men who actually told us that filming at the staircase wasn’t allowed. I did raise the fact that there was no one other than us using that specific staircase, as it wasn’t rush hour, and I deliberately decided on that spot to make sure we weren’t bothering anyone, but still, we were asked to complete what we were doing quickly and leave. I did manage to smooth the conversation over and to make sure the problem wasn’t going to get out of hand before he went back to his post; however, I wasn’t going to give up on getting the best shot I could get. That is how we got to the seventh video and were ultimately told off once more:)
For the next part, I sort of went around the rules and started the next shot right where the stairs ended:) A medium tracking sequence of Tina running to stand right where the door of the train should open up, encoding her sense of anticipation. Once again, running was a little too demanding due to the fit of the shoes. This time, I told Tina to take it off since the shot does not have her feet visible, and since it is now taken at a closer proximity, I desperately wanted it to appear as natural as possible. The attempts that accumulated to approximately 10 tries earned us another reminder of a policy violation.
(This was me directing her on her performance; P/s: you could kinda see the man in the background in uniform who shooed us away)