DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT:
안녕하세요 [Greetings]—
This is Eunice Chang, director of the short film, “Once Upon A Slave’s Ambition”
[“비망” (romanized as “Bimang”)]. I must request of you to watch the film BEFORE you read this. There are major spoilers! And it will not be as compelling of an experience.
My senior thesis animation dramatizes a period of rigid social hierarchy during Korea's Chosun dynasty (1397-1910) through the psychological and emotional effects on an abused female slave. The story is told through a mostly black-and-white color scape, and without dialogue. The music conducts the visuals and serves as a ‘visual metronome,’ resulting in an emotional audio-visual experience.
Main issues and goals that are addressed in this film are: introducing Korean history/culture, effects of slavery/oppression/social hierarchy, psychological derangement (delusional disorder), time distortion, hyper-reality, and challenging the conventional filmic story route of 'visuals first, then music.’ (I intentionally composed the music first, then fleshed out the story after).
This unconventional production route worked for me personally, because music fueled the pace for animation (ex: when a musical phrase ends, I know when to stop animating one scene and move to the next). Furthermore, this challenged me to convey a dramatic visual story with just music. This truly justifies storytelling abilities with difficult concept matters - time distortion and the state of mind - in a unique way through digital mediums. I used Photoshop, After Effects, Netmix (our school’s sound library), Logic, Audition, Premiere, and a Wacom tablet.
Overall, this is an individual project: I am the director, producer, story creator, background artist, character artist, story artist, composer, sound editor, and animator. However, I did collaborate with an orchestrator (Marika Takeuchi) and a sound mixer (Michael Holcomb), who wonderfully contributed to the film.
A bit of explanation regarding the story—
This slave’s fantasy became her only place for refuge, a break from harsh cruel reality. Thus, her already troubled situation in life exacerbated the effects of her delusional disorder.
As depicted in the tragic ending, none of the wonderful things that happened were real. There never was a marvelous place abundant with riches and supplies, but just a dilapidated hut. She never survived that roll down the hill, as depicted by the skeleton. And even more cruelly, a son never existed, but just a doll that she carried around. This is up for interpretation— did she actually have a baby boy at some point in her life, but he died, and she could never emotionally let go of him? Or did she never have a son, but always desired a child of her own? Regardless, it is clear that she had a strong ambition and dream to do all these things with and for a child of her own, with abundant resources (as depicted in the time passage and cooking/feast scenes, where she and her son are growing old and doing activities together).
There were several metaphorical symbols throughout this film. Animals subtly emphasized the significance of the mother-and-son relationship: the mother bird and baby chick, the mother tiger and baby cub, and the mother crane and baby crane. The power of flight symbolized the desire for freedom. The tree in the courtyard is always the never-changing sturdy symbol of power and strength that she admires and is humbled by. The little bit of color introduced in the palace shot emphasizes her surprised delight at this wondrous place.
But to no avail, of course.
I sadistically put in the abrupt cut near the end, at the peak of the fantasy’s happiness, to emphasize two things: an effective cinematic portrayal of fantasy breaking apart, and straightforward cutthroat reality. I wanted the audience to feel as much empathy for her as possible.
Also, a bit of explanation regarding both the English and Korean titles—
The English title “Once Upon A Slave’s Ambition” is ironic and hints at the fairy tale element. The Korean title was difficult to come up with. Initially, I gave the Korean title an almost direct translation: it was titled “노예의 야망.” But that was not very effective and it was slightly strange (direct translation would not work well). The direct translation for “ambition” is “야망” but my father told me this word has a slightly more political connotation in Korean. My mother suggested changing the “야” to “비” instead, and to just omit everything except the two characters. Thus, I give the credit to my parents for the final version of the Korean title: “비망” which is based on two simple but effective Chinese characters (the “비” meaning “tragic” and the “망” meaning “desire/hope.”)
All in all, this film makes one contemplate the complexity of the human mind, time, and the harsh reality of social oppression and limitation. Yet, it is watched with ease because no dialogue is there, which makes it universal (no language barrier), but still retains cultural uniqueness through imagery.
In closing, I hope you enjoyed the film and this commentary (I hope you already watched it before reading this…!)
감사합니다.
