Originally posted by PaJeRoMiNi Ver 1.0:
Extracted from SPI.com.sg:
"I dunno if you guys notice one scene taken in the train, but i managed to catch a glimpse of a reflection of what seems to be a ghostly face next to the actress (It seems to be on the opp side of the actor and actress). I dunno if it's part of the movie or not, but i seriously doubt it's part of the show, as i see no relation to the movie. And if it was part of the movie, why was that figure only shown subtly? It can only be seen on 2 occasions, about 2 secs each time.
The face looks really grim, with no expression. And the reason why it caught my attention was that the eyes look really lifeless..........."
Here's the pix...
(1) The ghost gets a common face?
(part of the story)
So who is the ghost and why it was there? It didn't look like a part of the story in the movie. Was it merely a creation for the audiences to rumor about? We lately have the confirmation from a staff from Raintree Production that it was not a real ghost. That means it is a smart artwork created by the producer. And we were quite certain that it was just another ghost in the movie, as we have extracted and compared it with the other ghosts that appeared in the movie. They looked as if having a common style, as designed by the same graphics artist. Pale and bloodless face and dark eye bags. The most look alike face was the girl ghost that Xin Jie encountered in her calligraphy class. Some speculated the ghost followed her though it was not said anywhere in the movie.
(2) Camera position?
(what the director wants you to see)
Those who studied media production or photography would know that the subject in the center is what the cameraman wants us to see. Well, in modern photography, sometimes they place the subject off the center, and they called it the one-third-rule (1/3). Placing the subject in the dead center lacks dimension. And one-third rule caught attention with proportion of formatting and balancing.
How does this concept relate to our analysis? When you look at the MTR ghost scene carefully, you will see there are some special arrangements that the director wants to subtly create an effect of a ghost sighting.
First of all, the main characters were sitting at one side of the branch, slightly off the center, as if some room was reserved for the ghost face to emerge. This is obvious in the picture below where a green pane is placed at the center and it just covers the main characters and the ghost face. The subject inside the green pane is what the director wants us to see - the two actors and the ghost face; likewise that is the focus of our perception at the center. So you can see how 'purposeful' the director wants to create this ghost phenomenon by putting the actor, actress and the 'ghost face' just in the right positions, inside the center pane of attention.
You can see also this filming technique was applied in other scenes as well.
1. The left space behind the focus subtly shows the calligraphy teacher is busy with something; hence Xin Jia was left alone and frigtened of seeing ghost
2. On the right hand side of this scene, a dark corner was purposely shown under the camera - to make you think psychologically it was empty
1. In the next moment, a ghost appeared, in that dark corner where you were hinted subconsciously there was nothing beforehand
2. It seems to be a style of the director to show ghost appearance out of nowhere using the one-third rule
Similarly, for the MTR scene, the ghost face "suddenly" appeared when only the train was going through a tunnel, and disappeared when it came out. And in the beginning of the scene, the train was traveling under sunlight where everything appeared to be normal, no trace of ghost was around. We were hinted that everything was fine. Then the train went into the tunnel, the ghost face appeared for only a short while then disappeared when the train came out. Half a minute later, it went into the tunnel and the ghost face appeared again. Can you see that was a plot carefully calculated? Initially the audiences were hinted that there was no ghost. Then the ghost suddenly emerged to give everyone a shock. Disappeared and appeared again, just for a right duration of time, in order to ensure those who have just seen it but were not quite sure about. It seems to be a rare coincidence of how the MTR went in and then out of the tunnel at precisely the right time when the filming proceeded. The director has planned for this very carefully perhaps.
Secondly, you can see on the most right hand side of the first picture at the top of this article, there was a man standing with his luggage put on the seat. Do you really think it just happened to be like that in this way? You know how super "kiasu" are the hongkies; for instance they would aggressively jump queue, push, rush, ram and squeeze into a train just for seizing a seat. Under normal circumstances, how will somebody let the luggage instead of himself sit on the bench? Why not he sit on where the bag was put?
The only explanation is, he was intentionally asked to pose in this way. Notice that the position just above where the bag was put was for the ghost face to appear. If a person was taking that seat his face would well block the ghost. Even if he were to sit at the far corner, the effect of ghost face appearing on window wouldn't be so captivating - the ghost face may blend in with the person's face and goes unnoticed! That is why that guy was standing far aside, just to show there was a human presence, and his face had to be out of camera. So when the ghost appeared, it would stand perfectly out by itself with no obstacle.
Why then the bag had to be put there? That we speculated simply because the director wants to make the scene realistic. In the story, the scene was about the actor dressed in full suit passing a photo to the actress, so the time was either before work in the morning or after work in the evening. In either case, it should be taken place in peak traffic hours! It is just not convincing if the train was shown empty, so somebody or something has to be included in the train, preferably without a face. This is another 'special arrangement' carefully planned by the director which we hope you can comprehend by now.
(3) Marketing gimmick?
(something they want us to talk about)
Some film companies like to play a commercial trick by leaving some unusual phenomenon behind in the film to let people pick up and talk about. Film producer usually won't speak out and clarify to the public what it actually is, real ghost or fabricated. This is a psychological effect on people's curiosity and hence create public awareness through the guessing game. The hinting image like a ghost face or other phenomenon often appear very subtly in the film. It is like a brain teaser for the public to find it out themselves, think about what it is, and of course let them spread the words of the 'discovery'. The audiences who discovered this unusual image would go to web forums or chat-rooms, tell others and others will follow up discussing about it. This is a cost-effective marketing strategy called 'Wooing Effect' that is good for penetrating into the populations of online users, especially those active chatters (put it in a blunt term: busy bodies). And the cost is almost in minimal - they let you see something, and each of you will become their promoters go around and tell others. The impact is great and marketing cost is much lower than airing on radio and TV, advertising on printed publication, or other marketing campaigns.
It seemed this marketing gimmick (that we only assume) for this movie The Eye actually works quite well. We have seen people talking about it in the forum, some even with the photos attached. Well, at least for now, you are reading a report about this MTR ghost
It certainly captured many people's attention, including yours and mine.
We checked the movie distribution channels, movies in the cinemas, VCD, DVD from both HK and Singapore; They all have the same MTR ghost face. In Hong Kong, a more shocking marketing trick was used, by painting the horror scenes from the move, in a public lift! We are certain that this would have scared many people who use the lift. (Some argued that was too much - what if some elderly or fainted-hearts were scared to death? They achieved their commercial objectives and they are happy? This is something for the Hong Kong media to consider about as a matter of ethics.)
A marketing tactic in using horror scenes from the movie as wallpaper in the lift
Have they ever considered how it disturbed the residents of all ages who use the life?
Innocent residents who have no craving for horror stuff will be victimized
The Eye is a great movie that we all love it. But the promotion trick in HK is nasty
