Mo-cap work is less technical than you'd expect. Once you have it all set up you're free to do the whole scene in one take rather than doing a lot of different shots and different takes like you do in a movie. You've got that one go at it and you've got a lot of freedom. You can really express yourself - more like doing theatre than doing a movie.
On a conventional film, you do one take, and if it's good, they say, 'Let's do another one for insurance.'
I've got to give a lot of credit to my cinematographer, Chung-hoon Chung, who is a master and among other things shot 'Old Boy,' which is a very famous single-take fight scene. He's really a true master.
If I can do a scene in one shot, it's in one shot. Most of my shots are pretty long. I think with 'Looking,' what we have in the first minute is a whole episode of a traditional TV show. I like to let things breathe; I like to let things have a certain tone.
I've never been someone who needs a lot of takes or enjoys a lot of takes. I like the fast thing of it.
It's something that I've always been attracted to, that idea of letting everything happen in a single frame.
There's a certain urgency that comes from the records of the early 60s before overdubbing and multitracking came into play.
The biggest thing that I came across, right off the bat, was that you can't shoot this like a regular movie with multiple takes. You have to, because it's such a protracted process, break it down to the frame and pretty much get one shot.
On film you put all your energies into a single glance.
The producers who wanted me to do it liked me and trusted me, and more than one scene was only one take, because I'd plan ahead what I thought would be appropriate for that scene-so one take was enough.
