Screenshot from the music video of 'Who Else' from 'Áh Boys to Men 3: Frogmen'
For most film writers, talking about equipment
and technology is downright unsexy. Film writers talk content and dramaturgy:
what the film is about, what the characters’ motivations are, what the politics
and context is. Everyone understands story. Craft is dry in comparison.
However, it must be understood that every good
piece of artistic work is 50/50 Dionysian and Apollonian. It is both emotional
and intellectual. Even works as expressive and emotional such as a Jackson
Pollock painting carry a balance of rationale amidst the impulsive randomness.
There’s a process of intellectual choice and not reflexive Id.
Speaking about craft is also complicated, as
great film craft would often be interweaved with all the other elements to
become almost inseparable. It is why when people talk about how great the shots
look in a film, most of the time, they also actually mean set design, make-up
and wardrobe as well as lighting, choice of lenses, blocking and camera
movement. In speaking about one, you mean to speak about all.
Here is a fun fact about noticing craft in a
film. If you are able to notice it, chances are it is a bad film.
And something has emerged in the market over the
last 5 years that screams ‘CRAFT’ in capital letters. No amount of engaging
drama can distract you from noticing it in a film. Drones.
In fact, it is getting so common, the issue
should be renamed Clones.
The problem is not with the drone itself. It is
a wonderful and frankly, outstanding piece of engineering and craft. You can
get a consumer drone, such as the recently released DJI Spark, for as cheap as
600 dollars and it fits in your bag! Good drone footage can elevate the
cinematic quality of a film. Nobody can forget Maria von Trapp singing ‘The
Sound of Music’ on top of the mountains with the camera gliding towards her,
even though technically that was a helicopter (but the effect is the same).
Coverage of the Olympics owes half its glory to drones. 007 too.
The problem is when one uses drones like MSG,
throwing in a little dash of it to earn some Hollywood creds or thinking it
could be the money shot of your film. Let’s put the microscope (telescope
rather) on some local films and see if drone shots are making you drool or
drowsy.
Arguably Jack Neo is the grandfather of drone
cinema in Singapore. The first feature film that used drones in a major way was
We Not Naughty (2012). Jack Neo hatched this
idea of bad guys using student-invented drones to smuggle money across borders.
Jarring as a plot element but works out in a Jack Neo sort of way. Ironically,
drone shots were limited in the film. Perhaps this was a rehearsal for his next
film which was Singapore’s biggest love affair with drones - Ah Boys to Men.
Jack Neo outdid himself with Ah Boys to Men as far as technicality is
concerned. Not only did he create moderately realistic war scenes, he gave a
360 view of war, much of it created by drones. Despite the graininess of some
of the drone shots, great shot ideas abound in this film.
Jack Neo must have taken the idea and run a
thousand miles with it. After Ah Boys to
Men, he ‘droned-up’ Lion Men, as
well as Long Long Time Ago. Some
hits. Some misses. But looking at Long
Long Time Ago, I guess there was no other way to do a grand Kampung establishing shot, other than
using our handy mini aircraft.
Screenshot from the trailer of 'Long Long Time Ago'
As the proud grandfather of drone
cinematography, Jack has spawned many drone fan-boys who joined this peculiar
school of filmmaking. Check out Ang TengKee, an entry to this year’s edition of the ciNE65 short film competition.
You are looking at the end of the film in which the drone pulls out from the
living room, out the window, away from the block. While seamlessly executed,
its purpose is questionable. Is there one? In fact, the drone gives the film a
cookie-cutter TV commercial finishing.
Here is a recently shot short film for the Hari
Raya festive season called Bebas
(‘Freedom’ in Malay). The film is a about a drug-offender who spends his first
Hari Raya out of prison and is missing his mother who passed away when he was
behind bars. The last scene with him visiting his mother’s grave at the
cemetery, features a drone shot which soars above him as the film’s closing. It
just convinces me these filmmakers love pulling out at the end! (don’t mean to
be crude)
Here is another micro-film competition entry.
Titled Blithe, it was an entry in
this year’s 48 Hour Film Project and it was tasked to make a short film in the
musical genre. The filmmakers and their company of actors spared no effort in
hamming it up for the camera. I wished they spared the drone shot effort
though. It a was strange stationary top-down shot that fits better in a film
about suicide.
Not all drone insertions spoilt the broth. In
the short documentary Part and Parcel,
about the life of two bicycle messengers in Singapore, the filmmakers from Ngee
Ann Polytechnic display a dextrous pair of hands in handling drone shots and
using them in the final film.
There is a popular notion these days that the
audiences are easily bored. Thus the fear of boredom has driven the film
industry to a very strange place where stories cannot be told with simple shots
anymore. Drones are like free roller coaster rides. They give audiences the
high and once they experience it, they need it again to hit the same visual
euphoria. Wait a minute, that sounds like something else too.
Some may argue that people are either good
storytellers or bad storytellers. So bad drone ideas are bad simply because the
stories are badly told. Drones are not that evil. Let on their own, they are
not out to destroy your film. You need to find a way to make it dance for
you. Possibilities are endless with
drone cinematography and being afraid to try is a bigger cardinal sin than Jack
Neo flying another drone through a group aunties doing line-dancing at the
community centre.
Written by Rifyal Giffari