Shorts/Concepts

cherryDOTdork Lifestyle

Overview
Directed: Sam Kim
Filmed/Edited: Sam Kim
I throughly enjoyed putting this video together. I have always enjoyed slow motion videos and this was my opportunity to put one together. CherryDOTdork is a clothing company I’m involved with and we were looking for a new one to promote our material. Our brand is meant to be joyous and full of life with dance as great way to bring us together. I was really hoping to capture that sense with my video. I had the location in mind for a while and loved the open space of it. Downtown Raleigh is just full of amazing places to shoot. As I too represent cherryDOTdork and was wearing another one of our shirt I decided to be one of the talents in the video too. I realized though that I didn’t want to make it look like I was not part of the group at times and was the one in fact holding the camera. So I occasionally asked someone else to shoot a little bit at times while I was in front of the camera. Then in editing, I had to further make sure the group never looked as if one person was purposefully missing at one time.

“IF Life EP1:Andrew Poon”

Overview
Directed: Sam Kim
Filmed/Edited: Sam Kim
Addtional AfterEffects work and Color Correction: Sam Kim
This was a small series I wanted to start that would highlight people that were hard workers with inspiring stories. It just feels amazing to know so many people that were finding their own paths that I really respected. I understood that staying motivated to keep going and trying to be successful was difficult. I conducted and produced these interviews myself,  although there was some additional camera work help occasionally.

KINA GRANIS-MR. SUN MV

Overview

Directed/Edited: Sam Kim
Filmed: Sam Kim
Talent: Krystle Bugarin and Trinh Doan
This was an interesting piece that was mostly about the visual. It was a beautiful day outside and the time was just perfect to shoot. I just shot a lot with no script/direction in mind. Later I went through the footage and tried to find the perfect song to put to put it together with.

A SIMPLE NIGHT

Overview

Directed/Edited: Sam Kim
Filmed: Sam Kim
Talent: Sam Kim and Cindy Lam
This short was an idea based on a song I heard. The song was called “I Get Lonely” by Drake. The story itself is about a boy who unfortunately became single, fell for his best friend. After being lonely for so long, he began to blur the line of friendship and love. He molded what he thought he wanted in a relationship into what he saw in his best friend. She on the other, did not seem him in this light. Her character is one that is spunky and full of life, yet wise in her own way. And while I really wanted the audience to root for the boy, and I threw in the fact she had a boyfriend. She was in a happy relationship. To me, that would make me feel bad for wanting her to break up a good relationship for start a new one. This story itself is nothing new I know. But going into it, I knew it would be a little different, because he actually doesn’t admit anything to her. I liked the idea that she knew what he needed for a good relationship. Yet she changed his mind without her even realizing it. After that conversation, the boy understood he was looking for something else. I really enjoy a story that ends how its supposed to which is what I was going for here. I was hoping that audience realized that they couldn’t be mad at the boy for “not going for it” because he was scared. It was because he made the RIGHT choice and re-evaluated what was right for him.

Shooting itself was a really fun process. I actually made two attempts to shoot this short before I actually got it done. Originally I wanted to shoot this in this hotel that had a nice bar. I knew the bar would be empty late in the night, but once we got down to the lobby, security rudely stopped us. So the shoot was postponed for a few days. Then I found a really nice outside theater to use as the setting. We shot the entire thing, but after listening to it, there was a lot of construction noise in the background. After a few months and finally finding some free time, I asked Cindy one more time if she would like to shoot. Thankfully she was still willing and I found another good location. Shooting itself wasn’t too hard. I set up all the shots and asked a friend, Mike to see if they looked good while we were acting. This was the second short I did that I wanted a More Than Dance plug thrown in the video. Overall it was fun shoot to put together and I was glad to finally get it out there.

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LIBRARY FREESTYLE

Overview
Directed/Edited: Sam Kim
Filmed/Edited: Aaron Chen
Dancers: Sam Kim and Mike Cherry
This video was through More Than Dance to display a bit a freestyling through the library. This was directed by me. I had the idea of shooting a freestyle video as a promotional tool for a KODACHROME workshop about a month ago. At first it was gonna be around various parts of NCSU campus. Since it was two State students that were teaching, I liked the idea of displaying of our campus. But that idea kind of had no linear story to it. So to me, even a freestyle video needed to have some sort of story to it. Some sort of reason for why were performing where we were. Anyways, I tried to think on a smaller level of where to do this. The DH Hill library was already one place I wanted to shoot at, and it hit me: freestyle IN THE LIBRARY. I literally loved the idea of shooting in the deep halls, between the book shelves and as elevator doors open up. Then coming up with the story of attempting to do work was easy enough. I feel like plenty of people know what it is like to go to the library but not getting any work finished.
Now shooting was really fun. The night was the first night right before exams were supposed to start. We waited till kind of late to actually get started. Although I had a few ideas on where to start shooting, ideas began to just flow and thus all the many different spots were found. The idea for some many cameos originally wasn’t there either. But with so many people there, it really just helped the video all together.
Big ups to Aaron in the end with cinematography and editing. We sat for a few hours working on the editing. It was definitely fun watching all our stuff mold with the music and creating the final product.

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THE MOMENT

Overview
Directed/Edited: Aaron Chen
Filmed: Sam Kim and Aaron Chen
This was a short by Aaron Chen. The idea was sometimes when a guy sees a girl that catches his attention and the two lock eyes, the imagination can run. It was a really simple, sweet idea that Aaron wanted to do for Valentines Day. Although we initially wanted to submit this idea for another film fest, we instead released it just because. This was actually a really rushed shoot overall. We barely had time in three days to do the shoot. Since this was Aaron’s idea, I mostly had work with cinematography. This really gave me the opportunity to do behind the camera work which was something I haven’t had as much a chance to do yet. I got plenty of footage that was overall not used but the end result was perfect.

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FADE INTO THE BACKGROUND

Overview
Directed/Edited: Sam Kim
Filmed: Kelly Cosper
This is a music video shot by Kelly Cosper and myself to Ne-Yo’s Fade Into The Background. I stepped in to do some the acting required for this video, and together my partner and I were able to shoot this in two and half days. It was a great experience to act and help direct at the same time.

Proposal
We were given the assignment to tell a narrative story. Our group wanted to take a different take on this and we decided to do a music video. We developed a simple plot that paralleled what the song was saying. After that we mapped out how to shoot the video and developed the concept.The idea was mostly mine, so I directed most of it. I also wanted to have a small dance number so I choreographed that and found the dancers.

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THE SHOW GOES ON MV

Overview
Directed: Sam Kim
Filmed/Edited: Sam Kim
This video was shot in San Francisco, CA. I love going to this city because there are beautiful locations all over the city. I was visiting with some friends and we happened to come across the street with an awesome view of the city. We recorded the dance under a hour, mostly because we had to wait for cars to pass through. Thankfully we were got everything before the sun went down. I also put together a teaser video before I released the main one about a week before. That can be viewed here.