Have you ever think about that Phone is not just for chatting anymore, it also could be used for filmmaking. The short film, Three Minutes (2018) was directed by Peter Chan who is a famous director and producer from China, which the whole movie was filmed by iPhone X. The background of this film was in Chinese New Year 2018, and the theme is that each family has its own unique reunion tradition.
The film starts from several scenery shots with a short monologue of the main character. A mother who is a conductor in the train was in charge the longest route from south to north in China. Because she is almost on duty during Chinese new year all the time, she could not celebrate with her son for many years. Fortunately, the train would stop at her home station for a brief three minutes, thus she plans to meet with her son this year. After the monologue, I have started wondering what would they make it this year, and what is going to happen? Peter Chan is such a clever storyteller because he has picked the most important spirit of Chinese new year which is a reunion, and he has chosen to show it to the public in the first day of Chinese new year.
Although this film only 7 minutes, the dramatic structure of the story makes people drop tears. First of all, the inciting incident; because the mother could not be with her little son during such important holiday, the mother’s sister going to take the boy to train station for three minutes reunite. Second, at first, the son stood too close to the entrance and did not find his mother, because he missed his mother’s exit point. After the train stopped, he went through the crowd of people to find his mother. After all the son been through, they finally mate on the platform. They seem had so many words to say, but after a hug, they were both in a silence. When audiences expected the son start tearing, but he did something that surprised everyone. The boy starting reciting the multiplication table in front of his mother. The boy remembered that his mother wished he could memorize the multiplication table before his mother left last time, thus he wanted to show it to his mother. With the end of the multiplication table, it also is time to say goodbye. The mother got back to the train, and the son waved hands with tears and smiles. There was no emotional dialogue in the film, but the arrangement of the story can strike a chord with the audience.
The whole film was taken in a train station and it was based on the real story, thus sets, costumes, props, set dressing and even hair or makeup made as real as possible. The film crew had to block a whole platform for fill with the number of extra talents. They also borrowed a functional train for scenes where they need to be filmed inside of a train. In addition, due to the main character was a conductor, all her clothes, props and hairstyle were completely realistic.
The highlight of this film was that all scenes were recorded by an iPhone X, therefore, it seems a huge challenge for cinematography. Using iPhone for video is not that new for the public, and there are many Youtubers working on their phone. During filmmaking, they had to figure out how to use a phone to create the movie style. Actually, besides the main camera, iPhone, they have combined different lenses and equipment to achieve the film. Another interesting recording method is that, when DP filming that the boy goes through the number of people on the platform, they let the boy actor hold iPhone X to film that how he actually walk through on the platform, thus audience could feel the difficulty for looking for his mother.
There is only limited dialogue in the film, but every word is just perfect for that emotion and moment. Music and song are two ways to express the emotion even clearly. The nature tone gives a real situation to the audiences.
Editing did a great job in the film, the editor uses a unique way to make this movie smooth developing. The more strong feeling that I get is emotion. My emotion changes follow the continuity approach. Simply but Intensively.
I have learned that storytelling is the core to a film, the cinematography is the viewer’s eyes to watch the story, but the post-production likes the colour pens to make the movie better. However, the different theme has a different tone, not every movie should use all the skills. When we select the tone, shooting angle, lighting sets, prop sets, etc. All the elements setting depends on what story do we talk.
He Li Mastery Journal 