Artist
Chen

Director of Photography
Myeongje Kim

This is a music video for the title track of Chen's solo album, one of the members of the Korean idol group EXO.
I loved it the first time I listened to this song
I was excited about working on a music video for a ballad.
Although I have shot a lot of music videos focusing on hip-hop or dance genres for a while, I was thirsty for lyrical and emotional videos.

The director told me that the story of a man and a woman in the music video wanted to look like fragmentary images and portraits rather than as descriptive as dramas.
I did not try to narrow the gap between the camera and the protagonist and emphasize the emotion or express it directly, but rather keep the gaze as if I were the audience while maintaining a sense of distance. So most of the shots were taken with a fix shot. However, the night seaside sequences [a man and a woman running and fireworks scenes] what the emotions of a man and a woman are heightened were taken with the hand-held, judging that it would be better for the camera to be emotionally involved at the peak of the moment, unlike other sequences.

I thought this music video was a good match for anamorphic proportions. It was also a ratio where the cinematic feeling was outstanding, and it was also suitable for expressing the 1: 1 relationship between men and women. The director was worried that the size of the characters would be too tight because of the narrow space we will film (we did not make a set, but rented a real house). In this music video, I didn't think we have to shoot the full-shot if I could keep the right distance between the characters and the camera. I also told the director that if we made full use of the space, such as the camera's position from outside the window, we could show the space well.

I uses Alexa mini and the Hawk Vintage 74 lens. The combination of the two was enough to enrich the texture of the music video.
And I shot sequences of a man and a woman with ISO 1250. When shooting with Arri Alexa series, increasing the ISO (I think ISO 1250 is appropriate) reduces the dynamic range of the dark areas, producing a slight noise, which can be effective for enriching the texture of the screen like film.

The director wanted the happy days of a man and a woman in the music video to look like a time flow of one day.
Like the lyrics of the song, the night is a time when the peak of happiness is expressed and on the other hand, it is a time when they feel sorry that time goes by.
I thought the feeling that they want the moment to stop because they are so happy is one of the hidden meanings in this music video.
And I think Chen's time in the music video doesn't stop at night(the time when the happiness of a man and woman is at its peak and wants to stop), and eventually time passes by and it becomes morning.
I don't think this means a negative ending. It's just an open ending. An open ending that the audience can make up the next story. Like the feeling of a song.