thuvia ptarth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thuviaptarth) wrote2018-08-28 11:28 pm
thuviaptarth) wrote2018-08-28 11:28 pm
Entry tags:
Skygiants, "Our Ghost" (Chicago Typewriter vid)
Hello! I picked skygiants' Chicago Typewriter vid, "Our Ghost", to discuss in one of the In-Depth Vid Review sessions for Vividcon 2018. The audience at In-Depth assured me that this is a good recruiter vid even without context, so maybe you should watch it without context first. And then you can read this and watch it again! It’s a great vid, you can watch it more than once.
I tried to narrow down the context to what was most relevant to the vid, so this summary both leaves a lot out and spoils some stuff revealed fairly late in the series.skygiants’ own summary includes a lot that isn’t here and leaves out some that is. (I’m still surprised the vid doesn’t include the adorable dog, to be honest.)
Despite valiant efforts byabsolutedestiny and heresluck to save me from my own lack of preparation, I was unable to show the helpful visual aids I had prepared. Therefore, I am inflicting them on you now.
Show summary, with pictures
The vid is for a Korean television show called Chicago Typewriter. Although there is, in fact, a literal typewriter in Chicago in the plot, it’s also relevant that "Chicago typewriter" was 30s slang for a Tommy gun.
During the Japanese occupation of Korea in the 30s, three Korean resistance fighters loved each other very much and died tragically.
In the present day, two of them have been reincarnated and one of them is a ghost.
Han Se Ju | So Hwi Young
An extremely famous and popular writer. Korea’s answer to Stephen King.
In his past life, he wrote trashy newspaper serials that secretly encoded important resistance information. In his spare time, he was also working on an autobiographical novel about the trio and the Resistance.
He doesn’t remember anything of his previous life, but the novel he’s currently blocked on bears a remarkable resemblance to the autobiographical novel he was writing then.
Jeon Seol | Ryu Su Hyun
Jeon Seol is a delivery person, a part-time vet, and a former Olympic markswoman. She is haunted by dreams and unclear memories of her past life, when she was a lounge singer by day and a sniper by night. (Or possibly the other way around.)
She is also Han Se Ju’s biggest fan, who created the genre of Korean literary RPF. At first I thought it was kind of creepy that she’d written porn about him, but then I realized he’d started it in their last lives. Since it’s a kink they clearly have in common, I guess it all works out.
Shin Yool | Yoo Jin Oh
In the 30s, Shin Yool was a rich boy who owned a nightclub called Carpe Diem and bought his best friend a really expensive typewriter. He was also a writer. Sadly his literary ambitions get much less of a focus than So Hwi Young’s.
In the present. he is haunting a typewriter.
Reunited
In the present, they’re reunited when Han Se Ju sees the typewriter, and the ghost of Shin Yool sees Han Se Ju.
The three of them end up writing their way back into memory -- to find out how they all died, why Jeon Seol is haunted by her past life and why Han Se Ju isn’t by his. Once they’ve all remembered, Han Se Ju writes a romance novel about their past as revolutionaries.
Vid commentary
serrico and settiai both helpfully wrote up the actual In-Depth discussions (as well as a lot of other panels).
But here’s a cleaned-up version of the notes I prepared in case no one else wanted to talk:
The closing of the vid (4:02-end) encloses the character trio inside a word processing document -- their lives, and their reunion, being both the source and the result of writing.
Singular and plural
The vid title ("Our Ghost") is different from the song title ("Some Nights"). You could interpret it as meaning that Shin Yool is a ghost belonging to Han Se Ju and Seon Jeol, which is true enough, but I am inclined to think of it as mean the ghost of the three of them; not the ghosts of the three of them individually, but the ghost of the threesome as a distinct relationship, almost a distinct entity, in itself.
Partly because of this, I tend to read the vid’s POV as a plural POV--most often settling in for Han Se Ju’s perspective, but with glimpses of things he doesn’t or can’t know from very early on (for example, 0:12). Both the focus and the perspective shift fluidly from character to character and from one combination of relationships to another.
Relationships (OT3)
settiai’s notes on the Relationships panel moderated by killabeez and trelkez. The panel helpfully provided me with a framework to use when thinking about how the OT3 is built up over the course of the vid: how the character focus shifts and how the relationships between characters shift. The vid doesn’t quite follow any of the structures, possibly because it actually has to establish, um, at least 8 different relationships (present day Han Se Ju/Shin Yool, Han Se Ju/Jeon Seol, Jeon Seol/Shin Yool, and OT3; past life Han Se Ju/Shin Yool, Han Se Ju/Jeon Seol, Jeon Seol/Shin Yool, and OT3). Closer examination has convinced me we also need to add Han Se Ju/writing, Jeon Seol/Han Se Ju’s writing, and Shin Yool/Han Se Ju’s writing, which makes 11.
The OT3 weaves through the entire vid: sometimes with diversions to a single character, sometimes with diversions to a pairing, but always returning to the three characters together as its resting state.
Structural breakdown:
0-0:17 Han Se Ju/writing, with some bits of Jeon Seol/Han Se Ju’s writing. (Han Se Ju/writing is experiencing some turbulence, but Jeon Seol/Han Se Ju’s writing are doing great.)
0:17-1:23 Han Se Ju/Shin Yool (with some significant parts for Jeon Seol and some OT3 bits). Jeon Seol here is primarily introduced as part of the OT3, rather than exclusively relating to one man and then the other. Strong contrast between Han Se Ju’s angry, frustrated, uncertain state in the present day and the overall happiness and affection he displays in his past life.
1:24-1:30 Jeon Seol, solo, with flashbacks of the past
1:30-1:52 OT3ish, but also clearly developing the affection between present day Han Se Ju/Shin Yool.
1:52-2:00 Focus on Shin Yool, questioning himself, but immediately goes into:
2:01-2:29 This starts off with Han Se Ju/Jeon Seol in both past and present, but quickly shifts to a focus on Jeon Seol for the bulk of this section, before ending up on Shin Yool/Jeon Seol.
2:30-3:08 Mature OT3 territory
3:09-3:21 A brief exploration of Shin Yool, before we go back to
3:23-end The OT3, both past and present
Miscellaneous
The clips for "Here they come again to jack my style" (1:10) and "I missed my mom and dad for this?" (2:14) are hilarious for reasons I will leave you to discover by watching the show.
skygiants' Chicago Typewriter vid, "Our Ghost", to discuss in one of the In-Depth Vid Review sessions for Vividcon 2018. The audience at In-Depth assured me that this is a good recruiter vid even without context, so maybe you should watch it without context first. And then you can read this and watch it again! It’s a great vid, you can watch it more than once.I tried to narrow down the context to what was most relevant to the vid, so this summary both leaves a lot out and spoils some stuff revealed fairly late in the series.
skygiants’ own summary includes a lot that isn’t here and leaves out some that is. (I’m still surprised the vid doesn’t include the adorable dog, to be honest.)Despite valiant efforts by
absolutedestiny and heresluck to save me from my own lack of preparation, I was unable to show the helpful visual aids I had prepared. Therefore, I am inflicting them on you now.Show summary, with pictures
The vid is for a Korean television show called Chicago Typewriter. Although there is, in fact, a literal typewriter in Chicago in the plot, it’s also relevant that "Chicago typewriter" was 30s slang for a Tommy gun.
During the Japanese occupation of Korea in the 30s, three Korean resistance fighters loved each other very much and died tragically.
In the present day, two of them have been reincarnated and one of them is a ghost.
Han Se Ju | So Hwi Young
An extremely famous and popular writer. Korea’s answer to Stephen King.
In his past life, he wrote trashy newspaper serials that secretly encoded important resistance information. In his spare time, he was also working on an autobiographical novel about the trio and the Resistance.
He doesn’t remember anything of his previous life, but the novel he’s currently blocked on bears a remarkable resemblance to the autobiographical novel he was writing then.
Jeon Seol | Ryu Su Hyun
Jeon Seol is a delivery person, a part-time vet, and a former Olympic markswoman. She is haunted by dreams and unclear memories of her past life, when she was a lounge singer by day and a sniper by night. (Or possibly the other way around.)
She is also Han Se Ju’s biggest fan, who created the genre of Korean literary RPF. At first I thought it was kind of creepy that she’d written porn about him, but then I realized he’d started it in their last lives. Since it’s a kink they clearly have in common, I guess it all works out.
Shin Yool | Yoo Jin Oh
In the 30s, Shin Yool was a rich boy who owned a nightclub called Carpe Diem and bought his best friend a really expensive typewriter. He was also a writer. Sadly his literary ambitions get much less of a focus than So Hwi Young’s.
In the present. he is haunting a typewriter.
Reunited
In the present, they’re reunited when Han Se Ju sees the typewriter, and the ghost of Shin Yool sees Han Se Ju.
The three of them end up writing their way back into memory -- to find out how they all died, why Jeon Seol is haunted by her past life and why Han Se Ju isn’t by his. Once they’ve all remembered, Han Se Ju writes a romance novel about their past as revolutionaries.
Vid commentary
serrico and settiai both helpfully wrote up the actual In-Depth discussions (as well as a lot of other panels).But here’s a cleaned-up version of the notes I prepared in case no one else wanted to talk:
- Writing
The program summary for the vid is "Reincarnation is just a chance to write your own fix-it fic." The act of writing (and reading) plays a number of different roles in the vid, as it does in the source. The song lyrics say "the most amazing things can come from these terrible lies" and here the "terrible lies", the lies of fiction, are:- Communication
- Entertainment
- Sex (the three pairs of hands poised over keyboards at 2:32, come on)
- Romance
- Self-discovery
- Historical discovery
- Political resistance
We very often see So Hwi Young (Han Se Ju’s past incarnation) working on his newspaper serials, plus lots of shots associating typewriters with guns. But note also that Yool Shin stretching after writing (3:18) echoes the gesture made by revolutionaries cheering a speech (1:58-9, 2:20, 3:16).
- Communication
The closing of the vid (4:02-end) encloses the character trio inside a word processing document -- their lives, and their reunion, being both the source and the result of writing.
The vid title ("Our Ghost") is different from the song title ("Some Nights"). You could interpret it as meaning that Shin Yool is a ghost belonging to Han Se Ju and Seon Jeol, which is true enough, but I am inclined to think of it as mean the ghost of the three of them; not the ghosts of the three of them individually, but the ghost of the threesome as a distinct relationship, almost a distinct entity, in itself.
Partly because of this, I tend to read the vid’s POV as a plural POV--most often settling in for Han Se Ju’s perspective, but with glimpses of things he doesn’t or can’t know from very early on (for example, 0:12). Both the focus and the perspective shift fluidly from character to character and from one combination of relationships to another.
settiai’s notes on the Relationships panel moderated by killabeez and trelkez. The panel helpfully provided me with a framework to use when thinking about how the OT3 is built up over the course of the vid: how the character focus shifts and how the relationships between characters shift. The vid doesn’t quite follow any of the structures, possibly because it actually has to establish, um, at least 8 different relationships (present day Han Se Ju/Shin Yool, Han Se Ju/Jeon Seol, Jeon Seol/Shin Yool, and OT3; past life Han Se Ju/Shin Yool, Han Se Ju/Jeon Seol, Jeon Seol/Shin Yool, and OT3). Closer examination has convinced me we also need to add Han Se Ju/writing, Jeon Seol/Han Se Ju’s writing, and Shin Yool/Han Se Ju’s writing, which makes 11.The OT3 weaves through the entire vid: sometimes with diversions to a single character, sometimes with diversions to a pairing, but always returning to the three characters together as its resting state.
Structural breakdown:
0-0:17 Han Se Ju/writing, with some bits of Jeon Seol/Han Se Ju’s writing. (Han Se Ju/writing is experiencing some turbulence, but Jeon Seol/Han Se Ju’s writing are doing great.)
0:17-1:23 Han Se Ju/Shin Yool (with some significant parts for Jeon Seol and some OT3 bits). Jeon Seol here is primarily introduced as part of the OT3, rather than exclusively relating to one man and then the other. Strong contrast between Han Se Ju’s angry, frustrated, uncertain state in the present day and the overall happiness and affection he displays in his past life.
1:24-1:30 Jeon Seol, solo, with flashbacks of the past
1:30-1:52 OT3ish, but also clearly developing the affection between present day Han Se Ju/Shin Yool.
1:52-2:00 Focus on Shin Yool, questioning himself, but immediately goes into:
2:01-2:29 This starts off with Han Se Ju/Jeon Seol in both past and present, but quickly shifts to a focus on Jeon Seol for the bulk of this section, before ending up on Shin Yool/Jeon Seol.
2:30-3:08 Mature OT3 territory
3:09-3:21 A brief exploration of Shin Yool, before we go back to
3:23-end The OT3, both past and present
The clips for "Here they come again to jack my style" (1:10) and "I missed my mom and dad for this?" (2:14) are hilarious for reasons I will leave you to discover by watching the show.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
('I missed my mom and dad for this?' was terrible vid grammar, because her mom appears absolutely nowhere else in the whole thing, but it made me laugh too hard not to do it.)
no subject
Obviously, this means you should make another Chicago Typewriter vid, this time with the dog and Eugene O'Neill.
no subject