South China Morning Post
A South Korean director has teamed up with Apple to create a short film shot entirely on one of the latest iPhones.
The 21-minute Life is But a Dream, directed by Oldboy’s Park Chan-wook, is part fantasy, part martial arts and part musical.
It uses pansori (a traditional Korean musical narrative) and madanggeuk (a traditional Korean outdoor play) to tell a supernatural tale that features both a ghost wedding and funeral.
The story, shot on the iPhone 13 Pro, follows an undertaker (Yoo Hai-jin) who digs up an abandoned grave to steal a coffin for a warrior (Kim Ok-vin) who died saving a village.
He accidentally awakens the ghost of an ancient swordsman (Park Jeong-min). When the ghost tries to take back its coffin, it rouses the warrior’s spirit as well. The two fight over the coffin before eventually deciding to get married and share it.
“It’s not easy to dive deeper into genre experiments in a full-length feature film because it costs a lot of money and there is a lot of pressure. When making short films, I have creative freedom,” director Park said during an online press conference.
Park is best known for his feature films such as Oldboy, Thirst and The Handmaiden, but he has continued to make short movies even after his success at the box office.
“In 2011, my brother [Park Chan-kyong] and I made a 33-minute long film, Night Fishing, on an iPhone 4. I have great memories about working on a short film, and they motivate me to keep making more short films,” he said. Night Fishing won the Golden Bear for best short film at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival.
Coming up with a great film title is always tough. Life is But a Dream has two meanings based on how you interpret it – either life can be empty but beautiful, or life is beautiful but somehow empty, he explained.
Park, and cinematographer Kim Woo-hyung, used the iPhone 13 Pro to capture visually stunning scenes. The two have previously worked together on television series The Little Drummer Girl.
“Everyone wants to work with Park. It was an honour to work with him again,” Kim said. “Shooting with an iPhone 13 Pro was a fun experience. The biggest difference is that the iPhone doesn’t require any [extra] pieces of equipment. It was very lightweight, which made it very accessible for any situation that came up.”
The production team employed several features of Apple’s iPhone 13 Pro, including the cinematic mode, macro video, night mode, ultra-wide camera and optical image stabilisation. “We were able to create cinematic shots and moods just like the movies when they use traditional camera equipment,” the cinematographer added.
Actor Yoo said collaborating with Park was one of his dreams as an actor. On appearing in a film shot with a smartphone, he said: “Honestly, I didn’t have high expectations about the final product of the film. I wasn’t so confident about the quality of the film, but I realised that it was just my needless worrying.”
Kim Ok-vin, who rose to fame in Park’s Thirst, said the filming process was different when shot with a smartphone.
“I initially had some doubts about whether the small lenses of an iPhone would be able to capture the scenes properly or not,” she said. “But I came to enjoy working with the iPhones on set due to their mobility. I became less conscious of the cameras’ presence, and that helped me focus more on my performance.”
Life is But a Dream can be streamed for free on Apple’s official YouTube channel and AppleTV+.
Park will be directing HBO’s upcoming series The Sympathizer.
Read the full story at The Korea Times