“Exhuma,” directed by occult movie master Jang Jae-hyun, was released on February 22. Over the past decade or so, Director Jang has proven himself a box office powerhouse with “The Priests” and “Svaha: The Sixth Finger” each selling 5.44 million and 2.39 million tickets at the cinemas. Dexter Studios also joined the Exhuma project, and given the chemistry the two built up during Director Jang’s previous films, all eyes are on Exhuma to see if the partnership can score three successful hits in a row.
On February 26, content specialist company Dexter Studios [206560] announced that it worked on the digital intermediate (DI) for the movie Exhuma. Its affiliate Livetone worked on the film’s sound design, adding to the overall mysteriousness of the film. Exhuma was officially invited to the Forum section of the 74th Berlin International Film Festival, garnering plenty of attention and support from across the industry.
In particular, on the first day of its release, as of 7:00 am on the Korean Box Office Information System (KOBIS), Exhuma ranked no. 1 in terms of tickets sold (approximately 360,000 tickets). The film continued its success over the following few days, and as of 7:00 am on February 26, it sold more than 2.29 million tickets, making it one of the best-selling movies in recent years.
Exhuma is an occult and mystery film that depicts strange events that happen to a geomancer, undertaker, and shaman who digs up and relocates a suspicious grave in exchange for a handsome sum of money. The movie originally made headlines when its cast was revealed. Choi Min-sik played the role of Sang-deok, a geomancer, Kim Go-eun and Lee Do-hyun each played shamans named Hwa-rim and Bong-gil, respectively, and Yoo Hai-jin played Yeong-geun, an undertaker. Dexter Studios’ Colorist Director Park Jin-young said, “The key to a film like Exhuma is how eerie a feel it can give to the audience. So we worked on producing a low color temperature and depicting a humid atmosphere even on a dark screen.” Park added, “As the story unfolds, the audience experiences a shift in perspective as an observer, and this process requires a natural color grading.”
She continued, “If you look at how the protagonists move and relocate the grave, there are scenes where people are looking down onto the ground, while there are also sections where people are looking up from under the ground. That means the tone of the video has to change subtly according to the given perspective of that scene. We did our best to capture a deep sense of color suited to the delicate settings, including the fear caused by the ruggedness of the natural environment, the cold mountains overgrown with dry leafless trees, and the scenery of a rural village with very few people.
Meanwhile, sound supervisor of Livetone Kim Byeong-in also talked about the sound concept, saying, “We tried to deliver an atmosphere that fits the characteristics of the genre while supporting the natural sequence of events and developments to the story. In particular, we engineered bass notes that felt like they were pulsating in the background to add a sense of tension at various parts of the film.”
Kim explained, “Director Jang Jae-hyun wanted the audience to experience the dynamism and liveliness of the film, so we used Dolby Atmos sound technology. This was useful when creating the sound we thought would be perfect for the strange being. We made sure the sound came from different directions to maximize the depth of the movie.”
