Analysis of Lee Joon-ik's Films

Films that we interact with in our everyday life, requires people from various fields to communicate and cooperate in order to produce the best quality. A director is a person that is responsible for all the aspects of the film and its production; in other words, the center pole of the film production. They work along all the way through all the production phases: pre-production, production, and post-production with different people in diverse areas. They needs to have a strong vision and be considerate on decision-making, since they choose where to locate the camera, what props to use, how the characters will play on scenes and etc. Simply saying, they are in charge of overseeing the whole film production process and the final film itself.

Lee Joon Ik, a South Korean film director, is well-known for his creation of film pieces that includes a variety of realistic stories for to communicate with a wide range of audiences. In order to effectively convey his vision towards a story, he mainly focuses on three different components in the production processes. He makes sure to give his actors space to experience the story and their characters, as well as tries to direct different types of camera movements to show rather than tell. Furthermore, he importanizes “realism” in his creations, by considering the different feelings the audiences may feel sympathetic to, and keep having the question of “how can we interact through a film piece” in his mind. 2013 “Hope” is a movie based on a real incident of a young girl in South Korea. The overall storyline involves detailed actings for to display “realism” of the actual incident, in which Lee Joon-Ik mainly focused on providing a safe space for the actors to express their characters. From one of his interviews about this film, he mentioned “I tried to avoid extreme close ups for some scenes to let the actors more focused on their actings.”

Another film directed by Lee Joon-Ik, 2006 “Radio Star” draws a story of an absent singer experiencing hope and joy by restarting as a radio DJ, with the support of his friend. In order for to draw out the actual “feeling” of happiness and love in the movie, Lee Joon-Ik focused on directing the actors and camera shots effectively. He believed that interacting with the audience through a piece of film is important, as for them to feel the same emotions as the actors and be engaged throughout the story plot. Taking a deeper look into his creations, we as audiences are able to notice his intentions. Here, from the film “Hope” the father of a young girl is looking over the surgery door after speaking to the doctor about her conditions. In most films, directors and cinematographers use medium or extreme close ups in order to further specifically show the character’s emotions towards the audiences. However, most of the scenes from this film “Hope” utilizes some kind of an object or a person on either side of the scene apart from the main character in order to give them space and create a feeling of the “audience’s perspective” : The Rule of Thirds. By considering the rule of thirds, Lee Joon-Ik not only opens up some space for the actors to concentrate on their emotions, but also creates a feeling as if we are actually part of the scene viewing the situation of the scene. As an example in this other scene, Lee Joon-Ik purposely directs the camera focus to match the rule of thirds for to give the actor space to act as if it is “real,” as well as allows us the audiences to view this character from the girl’s point of view watching her father suffer. Lee Joon-Ik’s intention of opening the space for the actors is not only shown in the film “Hope.” From his other creation “Radio Star,” Lee Joon-Ik keeps on utilizing The Rule of Thirds in purpose for a better development of the storyline. As viewed, this scene also shows to characters talking to each other, however the camera focuses on the further character of the scene while creating a blur on the closer. Since one of the characters are acting and talking through, Lee Joon-Ik purposely gave space to the actor, while the audiences view the scene as if it was just a “The Rule of Thirds.”

The scenes of the film not only shows that as a director, he is trying to cooperate along with the actors but also demonstrates his ability and understandings of how things are seen on screen and also creates an aesthetic balance. The camera movements that Lee Joon-Ik directs in his films is unique, since it enables the story to be shown than rather told. The following scene from “Hope” shows the actual camera perspective of the scene. This is truly unique, since it allows the audience to be engaged by viewing the scene as if they are an actual character of the movie. Lee Joon-Ik not only portrays his idea of the story as an perspective of a director, but also gives the audience a chance to imagine and judge the story on what they “see” in screen. One other scene from “Hope” gives us a different feeling than before, but also utilizes the unique directions of camera movements. As this scene plays, the camera here works as two different roles. Firstly, it gives the audience the feeling of running as if they are the “father” in the movie. Also, it acts as if the audiences are one of the cameramans trying to capture the situation. Here, Lee Joon-Ik’s intention develops two different perspectives and situations of society in which allows the audiences to feel free and imagine beyond a limited perspective. From his other film “Radio Star,” his intentions towards unique camera movements are shown. In this creation, he mainly focuses to direct on providing two different characters’ viewpoints from the same scene. Here, the unique part is that he directs the details of each scene so that he could utilize his intentions in one camera flow movement, instead of using jump cuts on edit. As an example, this following scene shows two different situations of two different characters in one camera flow, in which gives the audiences a feeling of them actually viewing the situation.

Lee Joon-Ik keeps his focus to interact with his audiences as much as possible, for to communicate the story not only from a limited perspective but as different people from society. Lee Joon-Ik is famous for his creations based on the “real” world, which he keeps point on “realism” as much as possible for to enable the audiences to feel sympathetic and realize the “real society” that they live in. The movie “Hope” is actually based on a real incident, in which Lee Joon-Ik focused on collaborating more with the actors, cinematographers, screenwriters and etc. to develop the “realism” of the story at its maximum. When looking at the scene, we as audiences are able to realize the true side of the story. Here, from Lee Joon-Ik’s detailed directions, we can see on screen how people only think about their benefits, and realize how serious the incident was as a South Korean citizen. The details of the actors, camera flashes, and the balance of the scene (including the Rule of Thirds) are all combined are creates a unique but also a very “realistic” display. Another scene, we are able to view the same situation but in a limited perspective as a real citizen. Lee Joon-Ik intentions to these scenes, show the contrast of the real world and what we see limited. Here, the same situation is displayed through a television. Through this television we as audiences can feel how miserable the actual truth is different from what we think and see normally. Through these visuals, Lee Joon-Ik as a director wanted to show the different people in real society and communicate with the audiences about these issues on screen. A scene from “Radio Star” also demonstrates “realism” of Lee Joon-Ik, however in different moods. This scene conveys the theme as well as enables the audiences to feel as if they are actually part of the audience of the scene (concert). Contrastingly, this scene shows how parents feel and act towards their loving child in real. This allows certain audiences to feel sympathetic and understand / interact with the story better. Even the actings of the actors, as well as the “realism” behind, fully displays for us audiences to see and read the characters’ thoughts of the scene. Lee Joon-Ik directs all of these components in full detail in order to create the best visual as possible for to interact with his audience effectively.

Lee Joon-Ik is highly impactful in the film industry in the area of director, since he uniquely develops the story into visuals for to interact with the audiences. As investigated in this video, he importanizes the “real” emotions and actings of the actors in which tries to collaborate effectively with people to create the best display. Also, he works very close with the cinematographer for to create new and unique camera movements in detail as well as draws out the idea of “realism” for to portray the society or even lifestyles of thoughts people have in common for sympathy. I would like to learn more about director Lee Joon-Ik in order to know more about directing efficiently as well as to work collaboratively with the other members for the upcoming long-term project. Being inspired by his concepts and intentions in his filmworks, I would also like to further realize how I could communicate effectively through a piece of media with my audience.