A Genius Director Who Dominates OTT Platforms - Chapter 62
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Genius Director Who Dominates OTT
Episode 62
But that wasn’t all.
After overcoming Hien’s demands—whether they were business or tantrums, I couldn’t tell—the art director sent out an SOS.
He said the budget wasn’t enough to build the set the way I wanted.
Even the additional 500 million wasn’t sufficient, so I was about to ask the Manager for help when I remembered what I’d said before.
“Since Han Guk-yeong is an important character, I think domestic AI companies would likely show interest too.”
So I went around to domestic AI companies and secured sponsorship from an appropriate one.
1 billion won on the condition that the AI company in the work would use their company name, and expose the company name and logo at least 5 times per episode.
From OTT’s perspective, where direct advertising isn’t complicated, there was no particular reason to object.
If the company name had been too famous, I might have hesitated, but it was a name I’d never heard before in my life.
This time too, the Manager had a bewildered expression.
“A magic… wand?”
“Pardon?”
“Hit it and money comes out…?”
“Pardon?”
“No, never mind.”
There was still a lot of work after that.
Senior Min-sik’s sister-in-law burst into tears asking if he was going back to that difficult life again, so I rushed over personally.
Kim Ra-un expressed difficulties trying to change his voice, so I explained the voice I’d heard during the possession.
When I hired directing staff excluding only Director Jeong Hee-su, they kept calling me drunk.
Meanwhile, I learned that Pi Do-seon in the script was an idol named Luhan.
It took several days to convince his agency, which said they had no plans for individual activities yet.
But even while going through all these things, I still felt like I was floating on clouds.
Because Jeon So-ra hadn’t rejected me yet.
It felt like I was easily getting through things that would normally have been difficult to handle one by one.
“Hyeon-u, you seem like someone possessed.”
Chae Seo-hui, who was watching from the side, even said this.
And finally.
I got a call from Jeon So-ra.
-Let me ask you one thing. Did you send me the script thinking I would take this role?
“Actually, no.”
-Then why did you send it?
“I happened to imagine Jeon So-ra acting as Sa Mo-yeon, and I just couldn’t stand it. I even dreamed about it.”
It was true.
I woke up from the dream, asked myself if I was crazy, and then tracked down Jeon So-ra’s agency number.
By the way, Reporter Moon gave me the phone number.
Even though he’s in the sports department now, he’s someone with deep experience in the entertainment industry.
-Then who’s my co-star? Han Guk-yeong.
“…It’s an actor named Kang Min-sik, who has built up experience for a very long time at Theater Troupe 【Admiration】, and is an actor with solid acting skills,”
-What about his mainstream experience?
“Well, he doesn’t have any…”
The moment I thought I was doomed, Jeon So-ra burst out laughing.
After laughing for a while, she said.
-Ah, this is really interesting. I’ll do it. Let’s do well together.
That was the end of it.
Chae Seo-hui kept asking how on earth I cast Jeon So-ra, but I don’t know either.
Why did she do it?
“Ah, I really don’t know.”
Anyway, it was the moment when casting for the main characters was completed.
Of course, there are still many people to cast.
A 70-minute, 16-episode series usually has about 120-130 characters.
That’s counting only characters with at least one line, excluding extras.
About 7-10 are main characters.
About 15-25 are regular supporting roles.
About 30-40 are regular characters who appear repeatedly in 3-5 episodes.
The rest are episodic minor roles.
I had only finished casting about 10 people, which meant I had to work on the rest from now on.
But I think I’ll have to assign about 5 regular supporting roles to D.P.
Since I failed to keep my promise to consider them as first priority.
What can I do when supernatural ability is priority 0…
There will probably be more bundling or broker controversies, but it can’t be helped.
No matter how much President Yun likes me, I can’t just keep receiving favors.
Besides, if they’re from D.P, at least minimum acting skills are guaranteed, right?
Or should I try to get about 1 billion in production investment?
I can earn it and pay it back, right?
* * *
The war-like pre-production stage was coming to an end, but there was one last process remaining.
Namely, director selection.
Director Jeong Hee-su was still saying nonsensical things about why only she was being excluded when the art director, sound director, directing staff, and even Go Yeongtae and Gil Sanghun remained the same…
…Am I really excluding her?
No, that’s not it.
Anyway, Director Jeong seemed to secretly want to work on this project, but I had no intention of using her.
Instead, I decided to trust what Senior Min-sik had said.
Indeed, most of the directors I thought would do well had achieved remarkable results within a few years.
I decided to discover directors by watching independent films.
Nevertheless, if there was no suitable candidate, I would have no choice but to use the best person I could reach among available directors.
My partner for watching independent films was…
“Dohyeon-u!”
Jae-hyeok.
He had finally returned home after finishing a year of overseas filming.
I wanted to invite Kim Ra-un and Seo Jae-yeon too, but Kim Ra-un was busy preparing for acting, and Seo Jae-yeon was swamped with ambassador activities.
But this guy is always handsome whenever I see him.
I don’t think there’s anyone more handsome than Jae-hyeok among the people I’ve seen in person.
“Why haven’t you aged at all? Is this the power of maintenance?”
“You haven’t aged at all either, you know?”
“But hyung, they say people in their thirties always tell each other they haven’t aged when they meet.”
“Do you think I’d be bothered by that kind of talk?”
Well, this guy will be cool even when he’s fifty.
“Hey, did I see Director Jang earlier?”
“Oh, right. How’s that bastard?”
“Oh, right? You’re being pretty casual about this?”
“I’ve been too busy lately.”
“His eyes were full of venom. Be careful.”
His pride must have been quite hurt.
Since I appeared to be trying to prove that Director Jang’s methods were wrong.
After chatting with Jae-hyeok, we entered the art-exclusive theater that was running an independent film festival.
It was a 7-hour festival featuring only recently released works, but…
“It’s ambiguous, right?”
“Yeah.”
There were no results.
Originally, the independent film scene has periods when masterpieces pour out, and periods when terrible works pour out.
I don’t know why, but should I say abundance and poverty alternate?
Now might be the era of poverty.
But I didn’t give up and put in effort for several more days.
After the first day, Jae-hyeok was busy so I watched alone, but on the last day I watched together with Yun Hyeon-sol and Chae Seo-hui.
Yun Hyeon-sol, who was starting to feel interest in CE work beyond games, tagged along, and Chae Seo-hui stubbornly followed.
Just how long does she plan to keep up this competition with that useless Yun Hyeon-sol?
Even I’m not confident I could beat Yun Hyeon-sol’s obsession.
But even so, there wasn’t much to gain.
In the end, I changed my approach.
Instead of looking for current directors, I decided to look for past directors.
I decided to track down the current status of directors whose directing skills I had admired.
There had to be at least one person who had talent but was unlucky and went down a different path.
Then I found someone who I thought was really the one…
-Looking back, that was the most unnecessary moment of my life. Don’t contact me.
I got completely shut down.
She had the delicacy characteristic of female directors plus bold directing – exactly the style I wanted.
Such a shame.
I looked for several more people after that, but there was no suitable candidate…
I accidentally discovered an independent film I had completely forgotten about.
[Leave the Window Open]
It was a really entertaining film.
It was a movie about love that happens when the male protagonist accidentally leaves a window open, and the sweet directing that stimulated romantic feelings was amazing.
But as it rushes toward the ending, the film suddenly shifts to a Rashomon structure.
The male protagonist welcomes love because he left the window open, but a tenant in the same building meets a terrible death because of that window.
And the clues to that terrible death are hidden like fragments within the male lead’s soft romance.
The intense contrast between two stories happening due to the same coincidence in the same place was a very shocking work.
At first, the two tones were so different that I thought two directors collaborated to film it.
But there was only one director.
Im Un-jae.
While I was thinking about it, I also looked up director Im Un-jae’s other works, and this person is definitely a genius.
He’s naturally gifted at controlling the intensity of scenes by moving between completely different tones.
No matter how I think about it, this person should have succeeded…
Still, with a glimmer of hope, I looked into Im Un-jae’s current whereabouts and discovered an absurd fact.
How should I put this.
Should I say my thinking was accurate, or should I say I’m confused because he succeeded much more than I thought?
The work of filming celebrities and editing it to make the public go wild is the same.
But it wasn’t movies.
He was a music video director.
And one who receives continuous love calls from world star idols.
* * *
I got Im Un-jae’s contact information through DVX’s Luhan.
Im Un-jae had worked on DVX music videos before, so they had a connection.
But even after getting his contact information, I pondered for a long time.
Somehow I felt like I’d be rejected.
He must have made a lot of money, so if he wanted to challenge directing, couldn’t he have done it long ago?
He might not be able to do commercial works, but independent films should have been sufficiently possible.
The fact that there had been no activity felt like a signal that his heart had left.
But since I had no choice but to try, I prepared thoroughly and visited Im Un-jae’s studio…
“Di, directing? Really?”
“It’s not confirmed. First, while we have a meeting…”
“Still!”
My worries were pointless.
Im Un-jae was so happy that I was the one who became suspicious instead.
But while reading the script together and discussing what kind of directing would be good, I realized.
That this person’s talent still hadn’t rusted.
“I think the parts with E-sports matches should be filmed at high tempo matching the OST. The keyboard is a piano, and the mouse is percussion. That rhythm will capture people who don’t know games.”
“When filming Park Seong-hwa in the early part, I think it would be good to film with an off-center feel (pushing the character to the edge). Because he’s an observer. Then we pull the framing from the point he melts into the team.”
“Lee Yeong-han might be worth considering handheld? He’s a runaway.”
While taking notes on the ideas coming from Im Un-jae’s mouth, I asked a question.
“I’m curious about something – why didn’t you challenge directing again?”
“Um, probably because I was prosperous.”
You mean you got complacent?”
“Rather, I felt like if I challenged it now and failed, it would really be the end. I tried to challenge it with full preparation… but there’s no such thing as full preparation? I should try next year. I should try again next year. Six years passed like that.”
“What about now?”
“You’re the Accomplice director. Isn’t this level of preparation enough? Actually, I was incredibly jealous watching Accomplice. The story I wanted to tell with 【Leave the Window Open】 was like that too.”
That’s right. Come to think of it, there are similar aspects.
Rather than praise about me, I liked the word ‘jealousy’ that came out naturally.
Because it means he has ambition.
Actually, Im Un-jae alone can’t cover the entire drama.
He has no experience, and how he’ll film a commercial drama is also unknown.
I’ll need to attach the most experienced camera director possible, and depending on the directing, I might need to set up B Team and C Team intensively.
But at least I felt like this person would film the core scenes our drama needs the best.
Even though it’s music videos, his portfolio is overflowing.
So…
“Please take care of us. Director.”
I made the decision.
“Wow! Really?”
Im Un-jae, who was making all kinds of fuss at my words, said.
“Ah! I can invest about 500 million won!”
…It seems like I found the best director?
* * *
As I left Im Un-jae’s studio, October’s cool breeze pleasantly swept over my entire body.
It was autumn.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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