Chapter 20

Chapter020

One day before filming Daehо Construction's promotional video, Gil Boyoung came to the office.

“The director says he'll be a little late because of traffic.”

“I actually spoke with the director on the phone while I was on my way here.”

The three of us sat around the meeting table and chatted about various small things until Director Song arrived.

We talked about what had happened on the filming set, the weather, and other trivial matters.

“By the way, aren't the others coming today?”

“Ah, the promotional video is a small-scale project.
Only the assistant director and I are participating from the production department.
About half of the camera and lighting teams are participating as well.”

At Jungin's explanation, Gil Boyoung nodded.

However, the assistant director, who had been quietly watching her, suddenly seemed to remember something.

His eyes began to sparkle mischievously.

“By the way, I'm really curious how our Gibaek managed to persuade Boyoung to accept this so willingly...”

Damn, that bastard is really not going to let this go!

Gil Boyoung looked slightly flustered at first.

Then she calmly smiled.

“He said he wanted to become an ambitious man and asked me to help him.”

“Excuse me...?”

The assistant director looked completely dumbfounded.

Gil Boyoung gave him a coy smile before turning her gaze back toward me and winking.

Just then, Cha Seungjun arrived at the office.

“Hyung, why are you so late?”

I quickly changed the subject to Cha Seungjun.

“Ah, I stopped to make a phone call nearby.
But you didn't know about this, did you?
You know Director Kim Taechang's movie?”

Cha Seungjun continued speaking excitedly as if something huge had happened.

Director Kim Taechang?
Ah, come to think of it, I completely forgot about that.

“Did Director Kim Taechang's movie get canceled?!”

The words slipped out of my mouth without thinking.

Cha Seungjun looked at me strangely.

“Oh, how did you know that?”

As I thought...

At that moment, Jungin, the scriptwriter who had been listening to our conversation, looked at us with sparkling eyes.

“Really?
I heard he was going to start working on Director Kim Taechang's movie.
Did it really get canceled?”

“From what I heard, the main investor pulled out two days ago.
So that entire team is apparently in mourning.”

Cha Seungjun suddenly looked at me.

“By the way, Gibaek, where did you hear about that?”

Under his persistent questioning, I desperately searched for something to say.

“Come to think of it, where did I hear that?
Haha.
Ah, maybe I heard it at the film processing lab when I went there to drop off some film the day before yesterday...”

At that time, film processing labs served almost like social clubs for people in the movie industry.

They were also places where a lot of information was shared through the staff who came and went to have their film developed.

“Anyway, I felt pretty bad when I heard Director Kim's movie had been canceled.
It also made me realize once again that I did the right thing by listening to you.”

“You listened to Gibaek?
What are you talking about?”

This time, the assistant director showed interest.

“Actually, Gibaek and I were originally going to work on Director Kim Taechang's movie together.
But Gibaek stopped me.”

“Gibaek did?”

While Cha Seungjun continued talking about Director Kim Taechang, I became lost in thought about the current situation.

Did I really manage to avoid the first misfortune of my life and get onto the right path this time?

I did not want to say that the reason my life had become so tangled was entirely because of Director Kim Taechang's movie.

But it was true that my life had started falling apart after Director Kim Taechang's project was canceled.

Whether this was my past, my future, or perhaps a regression into another life...

After the failure of my first movie, I had been filled with anger over the meager reward of 1.8 million won for my pure labor, which had been dismissed under the pretty word ‘passion.’

That anger led me to voluntarily enlist in the military.

From August 2005 to August 2007, while I spent two years wasting away in the military, the Korean film industry was experiencing the greatest boom in its history.

Until 2005, around sixty movies were produced annually on average.

But in 2006, that number jumped to 110 movies.

In 2007, it reached 124 movies.

The industry was incredibly active.

At the time, new directors, writers, and key staff members were told that they were fools if they failed to make their debut during this period.

Film sets were suffering from a shortage of workers.

The demand was so high that even I received calls asking me to work on sets for a few days while I was out on a reward vacation from the military.

But the boom in the film industry, which everyone thought would continue, suddenly came to a halt after I was discharged.

In other words, the two-year bubble burst in an instant, and the industry plunged into a downturn.

It was hard to believe that 124 movies had been produced in 2007.

Starting in 2008, a shocking and bizarre phenomenon occurred where barely forty movies were produced in an entire year.

As the number of productions decreased, staff who could not find jobs had no choice but to sit around doing nothing.

I was no different.

Contrary to my expectation that I would immediately be able to work on film sets after being discharged, finding a job was not easy.

Even the movies I barely managed to join were frequently canceled halfway through production.

As I grew older without even having a proper credit to my name, my chances of getting opportunities in the film industry became smaller and smaller.

Of course, if I claimed that everything that happened to me was because Director Kang Taechang's movie had been canceled, Director Kang would have every right to feel wronged.

But from my perspective, that movie had been canceled, I had fallen into despair and chosen the military, and afterward, everything had connected like falling dominoes.

So it was only natural that I still felt some resentment.

But now, I had escaped from the fate that had once continued like a line of falling dominoes.

And the realization still amazed me.

“Daehо Construction's new lifestyle.
Park City will lead the way in premium residential culture.”

Against the backdrop of a spacious and comfortable living room, Gil Boyoung confidently delivered her lines.

“Cut!
Okay!”

When Director Song shouted that the take was good, Gil Boyoung gave a bright smile.

Today was the first day of filming the promotional video, and the shoot was taking place inside a model house.

“Director, was my voice tone okay?”

“It was fine.
Very good.
This time, sit comfortably on the sofa and read a book leisurely.
Then, when the sunlight comes through the balcony, give me an expression that shows you're feeling really good.
You know the feeling, right?”

“Yes.
I'll give it a try.”

Gil Boyoung confidently nodded.

I watched her with satisfaction.

“Are you happy just watching her?”

Cha Seungjun had approached without me noticing.

He raised the corners of his mouth and grinned.

“Why are you picking a fight with me again?”

“What fight?
You really can't say anything around here.”

Just then, the person in charge of the model house hurried over to where the staff were gathered.

“Excuse me.
Our president has arrived.”

“What?”

Director Song and Producer Jung looked flustered by the sudden news that the president of Daehо Construction had arrived.

A short while later, a middle-aged man who appeared to be in his fifties entered the model house with a group of people who seemed to be employees.

“Oh my, you've all been working hard.
Hahaha.”

The person in charge hurriedly introduced Director Song to the president.

“Ah, this is the director.”

“Nice to meet you.
I'm Song Jaehyun.”

The president immediately grabbed Director Song's hand and shook it.

“Oh my, the director is quite young.
Well, young people are the ones who lead trends these days, aren't they?”

“Yes?
Ah...
Well, that's...”

Director Song awkwardly replied.

But then the president's gaze suddenly shifted toward somewhere else.

Before Director Song could even finish his sentence, the president quickly walked away.

“Oh my~
Who do we have here?
Isn't this actress Gil Boyoung?
It is truly an honor to meet you like this.”

What the hell is going on now...?

It was certainly a situation that could have made her flustered.

But Gil Boyoung seemed accustomed to situations like this.

Without changing her expression at all, she calmly responded.

“Thank you.
I'm honored that you've welcomed me so warmly.”

“Oh my, I'm the one who should be grateful.
I've always been a huge fan of yours.
When I heard that Gil Boyoung would be participating as the promotional model, I was so moved that I came running here myself.”

“Ah, the person who offered me the promotional model position is someone I really like, so I couldn't refuse.”

Gil Boyoung continued smiling calmly.

“Ah, I see.
I don't know who that person is, but I suppose I'll have to buy them a meal sometime.
Hahaha.”

The unexpected fan meeting continued for a full thirty minutes.

The president even talked about introducing his nephew to Gil Boyoung and suggested that they properly shoot a commercial together next time.

And with that short unexpected incident, the three-day promotional video shoot came to an end.

On the final day of the movie shoot, which had seemed both long and short, the staff and actors gathered at the model house and were busy preparing for filming.

“All right.
Raise your guard like this, dodge to the left while blocking the punch from the person in front of you, and then dodge the kick from the gang member coming from behind like this...”

The martial arts team demonstrated the action movements in slow motion to Moon Hyunbin and the extra actors playing gang members.

Serious expressions appeared on the faces of Moon Hyunbin and the extras as they practiced the action sequence.

I helped the special effects team leader install a blood-splattering device that used compressed air for the scene where blood would spray.

“Gibaek, raise that angle a little more.”

“This much?”

“No, a little higher.”

I adjusted the angle of the blood-splattering device toward Moon Hyunbin's face.

“If we fire it from this angle, the blood will spray toward the left side of your face.
It might get a little into your eye, but it's edible blood and harmless to the human body, so you don't need to worry too much.”

At the special effects team leader's explanation, Moon Hyunbin nodded as if he understood.

This scene, which was the ending scene of the movie, was both the scene with the largest budget and the one that required the most work.

The actors had to redo their injury makeup after every single cut.

And because the same scene had to be filmed from multiple angles, it also consumed a great deal of time.

At times like this, I wished the era of digital cameras would arrive quickly.

If we had been shooting with digital cameras, we could have operated several cameras from different angles at the same time.

But doing that with film cameras was not easy.

“Thirty minutes until rehearsal!”