Additional Comments 1 ~ The Rebel (叛逆者) 2021

#TheRebel #叛逆者 #ZhuYilong #朱一龙 #TongYao #童瑶 

USE OF MISE-EN-SCENE AND NARRATIVE ELEMENTS TO CREATE MEANING - Lin Nansheng + Zhu Yizhen

[Version 2 18th August 2021

-- added a section on the use of Walt Whitman's One's-Self I Sing in the section on Whitman.  I can't believe I forgot about this key scene. 😅 Also, other minor grammar, spelling & formatting errors]

Preface:

I have already written a review on this series if you would like to read it, please CLICK ME. That review is spoiler-free.  Unlike the review, this post will have SPOILERS, please read at your own risk.  Also, this post assumes that you have already watched the entire series because there won't be a synopsis and references to scenes won't be in chronological order.

I had originally written these additional comments as part of the review but it kept expanding, so I decided to finish the review and publish it first, if not it might go the way of the many posts that I have started and never finished.  😁

I have also decided to write at least one more post on The Rebel because I have enough material already written to start it but I will need time to finish it and that will probably take a while which is part of the reason why I'm splitting up the post again.  When that post is done, I will edit this post and post that link too.  If time permits and I still retain an interest in writing more about the series, I might still write one more.  When either one of those posts gets completed, I will rewrite this paragraph and post the links here.

(Timecodes may vary slightly depending on which version of the series you are watching.  Some episodes of the version I used had some advertisements & trailers.  If time permits in the future, I might go back and fix the TC using a version without advertisements. If I do so, I will note it here.)

(For capsule reviews and links to other reviews of Tong Yao's work, please CLICK ME)

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Review / Comments ~ The Rebel (叛逆者) 2021

 #review #TheRebel #叛逆者 #ZhuYilong #朱一龙 #TongYao #童瑶 #WangYang #WangZhiwen # ZhuZhu #LiQiang

(For capsule reviews and links to other reviews of Tong Yao's work, please CLICK ME)

(For Additional Comments 1 ~ USE OF MISE-EN-SCENE AND NARRATIVE ELEMENTS TO CREATE MEANING - Lin Nansheng + Zhu Yizhen, please CLICK ME) 

(For Additional Comments 2 on  The Rebel, please CLICK ME -- currently WIP, will update this post when the link is ready)

The Rebel is an espionage series set in China during the Republican Era.  The story centres on a young cadet, Lin Nansheng 林楠笙 (actor: Zhu Yilong 朱一龙) who was plucked out of military school even before graduating by the head of the Shanghai Branch of the Fuxing Society to help flush out the Communists spies in the city.  Chen Moqun 陈默群 (actor: Wang Yang 王阳) is mostly concerned about trying to capture a mole within the Shanghai Branch.  He decided to recruit a new face into his team because he knew that there was a mole in his branch and had begun to suspect everyone there.  He chose Lin Nansheng because he noticed the young man's intelligence and powers of observation.

Olympus OM-2s - Another new camera. :D

I'm well and truly obsessed with photography again.  I picked up yet another camera last week and have been trying to learn how to use it.  While I'm not new to 35mm cameras, I've never used a camera that only has manual focus.  I didn't learn photography on one of the classic cameras like the Pentax K1000 or the Canon AE-1 etc.  I learnt my photography mostly on a Minolta Dynax 500si.  I'm not counting the cameras I used for snap shots before I started learning it in school. :)

I loved my Minolta and I shot hundreds of shots on it.  If I remember correctly, you could turn off auto focus on it but I mostly relied on the autofocus.  I did, however, shoot mostly on manual because that was encouraged in class and I was a serious student. :P

So I went a little crazy. Haha! #camera #film

Lately, I've gone on a bit of a camera buying spree. 😅  I bought five cameras in total. 😅

Lucky, none of them were particularly expensive because I got most of them at really good prices off Carousell. I might end up selling one of them in the future but we'll see.

Lately, I've fallen back in love with film photography, in particular plastic cameras and Lomo.  So I  wanted to get a Holga that shoots 35mm film because I already have one that shoots 120mm.  I actually made a deal for a Holga 135 but realised that actually I got a little confused and made the deal for the wrong Holga.  I actually wanted the Holga 135bc because it has more vignetting which is part of the reason why those who shoot on Holgas shoot on Holgas anyway.  But I didn't want to break a deal because of my own mistake so I bought both cameras in the end.

Expired Film Can Be Cool Too #photography

 

So..... a few weeks ago, I found a roll of exposed film that I had forgotten about. Thing is this film was shot something like 20 to 21 years ago.  Haha! 😅 So by the time I got it processed, the colour dyes have already faded and I got some really funky colours.

I did some cleanup and "developed" it in Photoshop.  After which I made a Black and White version which I feel actually looks quite cool.  There's a lot of grain which is not always desirable but it this case, the grain actually helps to make it look quite romantic and mysterious. 

I'm honestly not sure what film I used.  I'm guessing it's a Kodak film of some sort.  After I got the roll of film back from the lab, the edge code was no longer even visible. I'm also not sure where this roll of film was shot.  I'm guessing that it's on the road trip I made along the California coastline on Highway 1.

There is another shot on the roll which looks like the Bixby Bridge.  I'll work on that shot on another day.

If you wanna check out my other shots on Instagam, you are welcome to.  And I welcome comments and critiques either in the comments section or on IG. 🙂

Statue of Liberty - cleanup #bnw #photography

I've come to realise the importance of storing negatives properly.  I failed to do so in the past because I just assumed that I would not be needing them anymore because I didn't have access to a dark room and still don't.  I once bought a flatbed scanner that can scan negatives but I never got around to using it to its full potential because I was really very busy.

This is when Covid19 helped me.  Although, I think it would have been better if this virus didn't come into the world.  Still, it did give me more time to do things and one of the things I did was finally go through all my old photos, negatives and learnt how to use my Canoscan 8800f.  I also subscribed to Adobe's Photography Plan and finally started to learn how to use Lightroom and Photoshop properly after so many years of wanting to.  I really never needed to use either properly because my work didn't require it and it remained one of the things I have always wanted to do.

Round and Round We Go

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New York City, circa 1996-97, Ilford HP5 Plus, Minolta Dynax 500Si . #shoot_all_the_time #bnw #35mmfilm #bnw_zone #film #minoltadynax500si #minolta #Ilford #IlfordHP5Plus #sgphotographer #streetphotography #bnw_captures #bnw_addicted #bnw_of_our_world #bnw_drama #blacknwhite_perfection #explore_bnw @addicted_to_bnw #analogphotography #filmphotography #bnw_awards #bnw_raw #insta_bnw #big_shotz_bw #bnw_epic #photowall_bw #filmisnotdead #we_believe_in_black

A post shared by kp Photos (@shoot_all_the_time) on Aug 20, 2020 at 2:55am PDT

Its been ages since I've blogged but I'm finally back again.  This isn't the first time I've stopped and started again.  Things happen and life gets in the way. :)

There were many reasons why I stopped blogging for such a long time.  Mainly it was because I started a new job back then which was soooooooooooooooo ridiculously busy and draining that it finally made me reassess everything about my life and I made some very important decisions.