Blog 3 - Relationship Between Shots

I close to focus on a scene from the Korean drama “Goblin”. The scene opens with Shin holding a book and looking off to the distance with a mesmerized look. The next shot is a close up of a book which gives viewers a clue as to where the line came from. But it is not until the next show where we see who the line and Shin’s gaze are directed towards; there is a medium shot of a young woman smiling brightly. Every scene featuring the young woman is slowed down as if this is the last Shin will ever see her again. A scene so simple as crossing the street is broken up into several different shots.

There is long shot of the young woman standing in the middle of the street as the light changes. Cut to a close up of her sneakers as she get’s ready to walk across the sidewalk. But instead of speeding up, the camera slows down as the young woman jumps onto each line in the crosswalk and there’s an extreme closeup of her face smiling. All of these shots are used to emphasize line: “A girl as small as a violet is moving me towards her with more force than her mass”.

This contrasts with the next scene, because when the words “with a thump” are heard, three images are shown in a flash. The first one is dark clouds, the an extreme closeup of the young woman’s face and extreme close up of a bruised and wounded Shin lying on the ground. From the shots, Shin is reflecting on his life and where he would be if she wasn’t around. The next capitalizes on lead room to show the young woman finally making her way towards Shin. An extreme close up shows Shin with the same expression from the first shot. And finally Shin realizes that the woman is his first love. Tying it back to the first shot, there is a shot of the poem from the book and a maple leaf gracefully falls on top.