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The Neverland Project – Episode 1 Breakdown

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CLICK HERE FOR THE PREVIOUS INSTALLMENT

To bring in the new year (and new decade!) I have brought to you the first episode of the Neverland Project. With it, I am giving a breakdown of the seven minute episode, so that without giving too many spoilers for my intent for the rest of the fan project, I can show you my own creative choices and what they might mean for future episodes.

BTS’s story as portrayed in these music videos centers around several themes – mental illness, abuse, youth, and death. While the first two are prevalent in the rest of Neverland, it’s the last two – youth and death – that are central to this episode. The title Neverland – which I pulled from a tag embedded in some of their promotional posts for “Most Beautiful Moment in Life Part 2” – is evocative of both. Neverland, as it originates from Peter Pan, is an island in the sky where children don’t grow up if they choose not to. Keep this in mind.

We start with lines from the end of The Ones that Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. LeGuin. This short story is once again about a paradise hiding something extremely dark, without spoiling anything. It’s something that is repeatedly referenced by BTS in Spring Day, and fits thematically with the rest of the work. But the lines are also about moving on from something tragic – in a way, accepting your grief.

I didn’t edit much of the first bit with the clips from Prologue. I honestly love this scene for how it establishes character relationships with little to no dialogue, as well as introducing the motif of the photograph. The gas station setting will also be relevant in later episodes.

The montage is taken directly from the original movie I made back in 2014, comprised of clips from “I Need U” and “Prologue”. It shows every character and the motifs of trains, water, and drugs. There is a film grain filter over it to establish this as a flashback. I also introduce color as a technique – note that Jin stays in grayscale, even when the rest of the world begins to turn to color when he finally looks at the photograph.

Next is V and Namjoon running from cops. I had to mix the audio myself, since this came directly from the “Run” video. I used “Dope” as the soundtrack, because V’s lines immediately flow into Jin’s, but then the scene cuts off. Plus, that’s a song about working hard and not caring what people think – very indicative of where this story begins, and not where it ends.

I always felt that “Begin” as a teaser was very ambiguous, and I wished to use many of the images from it. But in the original Neverland, I simply dropped the trailer in with minimal editing. But I hold myself to a higher standard than that now! I am a twenty-one year old film student, I want to show off!

So, I edited the clip – rearranging the clips so that it was an actual dream. The colors are also more vibrant and intense than in the original. I don’t know if this is what was intended by the band or the producers, but alas, I am acting as an editor to tell a story I think works. This is not a knock on the original. I simply wanted to give my own take.

The last sequence was most difficult. Everything starts grayscale, with the apple in red. When Jin focuses his camera, the flower alone enters color, and then as the candle blows out, the color returns, mostly. It’s still muted in areas.

There’s also a dream sequence, using clips from Spring Day, where everything seems to be happy but again, nothing really is.

Note that when Jin enters the room, in the last seconds of the video, he steps out of the color and into a grayscale room.

This may not be as long of a breakdown as the ones for later episodes, but I hope it shows you how proud I am of this project. The next episode will be up on January 15th, 2020 – with that, there will be more details about my process. But for now, I hope you like this episode, and that it’s able to interest you.

The Neverland Project – Opening Sequence Breakdown

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At long last. Here we are.

Here is the opening sequence and breakdown for The Neverland Project, my fan project based on BTS’s music videos from “I Need U” through “Spring Day”. As someone who is seeking to educate through my blog, I think I would be doing a disservice if I didn’t give a rundown of techniques used on a project of my own. I will avoid spoilers as much I can for the actual project, but I may leave some hints scattered in – so keep an eye out!

Before I start, I want to say I’m not trying to “solve” the mysteries of these videos, or speculate as to what the originals are about. As far as I’m concerned, BTS made the videos with their ideas, and have even made comics in their universe and such. That is all unrelated to what I’m doing. I am telling my own narrative through this method. I’m using the members and their acting, and the various images, putting my own spin on them. Thus, I’m not really taking anything as “canon” or “not canon”, but creating a work that you, as viewers, can analyze and derive meaning from on your own.

I wanted to create an anime-style opening for Neverland, for a number of reasons. One was probably ego, since I wanted to flaunt my editing skills. But can you blame me? The other was a desire to use a lot of clips that I didn’t think fit in the actual narrative storyline. I particularly wanted to use BTS’s Wings Tour teaser, because I loved the experimental shots and general symbolism. I also have wanted to – even long after I stopped listening to BTS regularly – make a video using “Boy Meets Evil”, because I think it’s a song that climbs so beautifully. It ramps up tension extremely well. So, I figured, why not make an opening sequence? I’m doing an episodic structure anyway.

The theme went through a number of iterations, because I couldn’t settle on the order of images and the colors. I also had way too much going on in way of commissions, schoolwork, and another project I’ve been working on that’s completely unrelated to K-Pop. So I figured that a teaser video could expand upon my concept while I work on finishing the rest of it. The work itself is half done, with the first episode needing a bit of fine tuning before its release.

So now that we have a bit of context for the production of this piece, let’s get into it!

The opening shot is from BTS’s “Spring Day” – it is a train entering a tunnel. Tonally speaking, I think this is the perfect shot for Neverland. I feel like the themes I play off of from BTS’s work include anxiety taking away the figurative light from the lives of young people. So, since both come up frequently in the work, and both are in this image, this is the perfect opener.

Then, I have V climbing up the tower. (Prologue) This will be a scene in a later episode. Notice that this is all in black and white – color is a motif I use frequently in all of my work. It communicates emotion and personality well. But the absence thereof also says something.

We see V look at the camera. (Wings) Things become color for a split second, before we move into Namjoon walking through the train. (Spring Day) When he opens the train back door, it’s the Omelas motel.

Interspersed with this is Jin staring up the stairwell. (Spring Day) He’s in full color, the rest is in black and white. As he pulls his hands up to frame the screen, the world becomes color, and when he puts them down, he himself becomes black and white. Once again, this is my way of playing with color to indicate certain plot points or themes.

This next sequence revolves entirely around V. It cuts between two shots – the first is V growing wings. (Wings) The second is him standing on top of the tower from earlier. (Prologue) Below the wing shots, I’ve added color images from “Stigma”, which show a confrontation with cops. This will come into play early in the story, so log these images. Also log the absinthe imagery (Blood Sweat and Tears) and Namjoon standing in the train. (Spring Day)

The incidental sequences with J-Hope, Jungkook, and Jimin are all crucially important to the story. I won’t say how, but note that J-Hope is in full psychedelic color, while Jimin and Jungkook are in gray with elements of color around them.

Another grayscale scene – just Jin watching his friends through the camera. (Prologue) It cuts to a full-color shot of fireworks. (Reflection) Things become very montage-heavy after this. I heavily edited and layered many of these images, but note that the elements of color start to get bolder and more experimental – and we amp up to full color as the music progresses. I did this to increase tension, since viewers will acclimate to one way the motif is being used, and this acts as a change of pace.

Note the rest of the images used throughout the opening. J-Hope is pulling at the walls in a padded room. (Mama) V falls on the ground, beaten by an unseen force. (Stigma) All of the boys have a pillow fight. (Run) Distorted retro images of Jin and other experimental elements flicker across the screen. (Epilogue) Jimin submerges his head in water. (I Need U) Jungkook runs towards the motel. (Spring Day) Suga is surrounded by fire. (Epilogue) Jin’s face cracks open as if he’s made of glass. (Wings)

All of these images will become important scenes later on. I don’t mean that each one will be game changing, pivotal etc. But, these images will have much more clarity in the future.

In the final moments of the opening, I have BTS walking through a field. (Spring Day) Yes this image has appeared already, and I probably will use this image at some point in the Neverland episodes. But I also added V smiling at the camera, with his wings wide, and Jin’s face cracking again. (Wings)

I should note that V is not a malevolent figure in this story, but as you will come to see, his actions do affect the story significantly. So, who is the protagonist? Is it him? Jin? Or one of the other members?

This concludes the breakdown of my edits for the Neverland opening. I welcome any constructive criticism – anything can help me to improve my work. I started this project because it posed a challenge – creating a story from a bunch of connected films that take on wildly different filmmaking styles is no small task. It’s even more difficult to communicate a feeling through these constantly shifting pieces. So this has been an adventure for me. There will be more episodes coming soon, starting January 1st and generally releasing every few weeks.

Hope you all enjoy it!

ANNOUNCEMENT – The Neverland Project

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This week I’m doing something a little different, and updating you all on a project I’ve been working on for a while. Before we do, however, I feel compelled to tell you all a story.

Like many artists, I have anxiety and ADHD. I choose to treat them like assets. ADHD allows me to be a perfectionist and tackle multiple projects from different angles. Anxiety acts like a motivator. However, while I am better adjusted now, throughout middle and high school I had difficulties with them. I usually expressed my anxieties through art, as it was what allowed me to connect with others – it didn’t matter whether or not someone had the same experiences I did exactly, but so long as the feelings could get across to my audience, I felt a sense of victory. Unsurprisingly, I became attached to K-Pop because of its unique way of expressing emotion.

My film teacher in high school gave me a great environment to work in, one in which I could escape from everything else that stressed me out. My freshman year I started editing with K-Pop music videos, particularly BIGBANG, for assignments. One of my videos took a month of work, a video art piece comprised of a number of pop culture references talking explicitly about my anxiety. Looking back on it, it was by far not my best work, but it was an important piece for me in my artistic development.

For the rest of high school I had a safe and secure outlet for everything happening in my life. I spent a lot of time editing K-Pop videos, molding them to match messages I wanted to communicate. My sophomore year, I made a two-part video art piece about the two sides of the K-Pop industry. One was emblematic of the poppy, bright, and happy side we were all accustomed to, the other was a darker piece that was explicitly about artists who either evolved in different ways or struggled to get to where they are (particularly BIGBANG and Super Junior, but with a lot of VIXX mixed in for their Error and Voodoo Doll concepts.) I ended up posting it under the pseudonym Romana Pond, one that I’ve had since I was fourteen to conceal my identity to avoid people finding my location online (there aren’t exactly a lot of people with the last name O’Hop in the United States.)

My anxiety hit its worst point when I was seventeen, for reasons best reserved for another day. However, my friends at the time were very protective me, and I entered therapy. At the same time, BTS was in their Most Beautiful Moment in Life phase. “Run” had just came out, and I sat with a friend at school and started running through all of the connections between that, “I Need U”, and “Prologue”. I watched a couple of theory videos online about what the plot may be, but I wasn’t quite satisfied with the stories that were being told. Not that there was anything wrong with them, I just didn’t connect with the fan interpretations in the same way I connected with the music videos.

Thus, Neverland was born.

Neverland was one of my first experiments in narrative filmmaking. I wanted to build a cohesive, concise narrative and tell the story I wanted to tell. Obviously, that’s hard with nonlinear music videos, all of which have different aesthetics. Not only did I have to base my story off of the existing motifs, I had to create my own. One of them turned out to be subtitling – I synced some subtitles with the music in the background or dragged them out longer for maximum impact.

The second motif, however, was much harder. I wanted color to be an important storytelling element, as a way of justifying and connecting the different aesthetics. This required me to go frame by frame and cut certain people out, making them grayscale to explain certain plot elements – particularly, deaths. I had tried a similar effect in my video art pieces before, but it’s a different situation when you have a 40 minute short film as opposed to a 6 and a half minute art piece. However, in spite of the difficulties, I enjoyed working on it. I ended up using this effect in another experimental piece in college, using clips from the K-Drama Blood to depict the relationship between the two main characters. I recommend watching it, but there are spoilers for the show, so if you do want to watch a vampire doctor crime show with an adorable romance…maybe save this video for later.

The editing process ended around the time BTS’s Wings came out. I spent a month trying to get support for the video at my high school, so I could have a screening. Finally, I got permission from the school to show it at a small lunchtime screening in early December. It got fairly good reception from my peers at my small high school. To get a wider audience, I posted it on my pseudonym account. Anyone who met me would know that I was the person behind it, but I was careful not to release that information elsewhere. Besides, I didn’t really care about glory or anything, the satisfaction of other people’s enjoyment was enough. The full movie is below.

Fast forward almost three years later. I’m about to start my third year at NYU Tisch School of the Arts as a Film and Television major. I’m not much of a BTS fan anymore – I just don’t particularly like their new music, and after seeing BIGBANG fall apart from one night to the next, I’m always skeptical when a band becomes that famous. This isn’t out of dislike for the members themselves, I have a lot of respect for them. It’s more about personal taste.

That said, I rewatched Neverland recently. I was still proud of everything I had accomplished, but I realized there was so much I had learned in two years of NYU Film that I felt I could do much better. The story still means a lot to me, and BTS’s music from 2 Cool 4 Skool through You Never Walk Alone will always be among my favorite K-Pop songs. I am still enough of a fan at heart to appreciate what they created.

I still have other projects: a documentary that will be officially announced shortly, and a number of scripts and commissions, not to mention updating Reel K-Pop. But there is a feeling of satisfaction that comes from K-Pop editing that I have honestly missed, since schoolwork tends to pull me away from the personal projects I want to work on. Now that I have time over the summer, even with summer internships, I wanted to get back to what I love: writing and editing.

Which brings us to The Neverland Project. The Neverland Project is a remaster of Neverland, this time in 1080p with (hopefully) better editing. I plan on doing it in episodes as opposed to one full movie, and updating this website on my progress. I’ll also give mini analyses on what my thought process was in how I edited the final product. I plan on uploading a teaser in the very near future, but again, since I have other projects going on and articles to write, that might not be for a while.

My aim with this work is not to take anything away from BTS – instead, I want to show where the heart of BTS’s work was, and where my heart is. I want to show people what K-Pop is, and also what it can be. I want to be an educational resource for film students and enthusiasts. And with any luck, my experience in creating this work will be useful to others who want to find their own voices.