Life, Once Again!

What time was it again? When he looked at his phone, he saw that it was 1 a.m.

He gulped down the coffee that had turned lukewarm. What allowed him to keep his eyes open right now was not willpower or stamina; it was the power of caffeine.

After giving a cue sign, Jihoon honed his mind again and looked at the monitor. He calmed down his nerves which had become taut from fatigue and had a look at the actors doing their work.

An actor who entered the office carefully put down a document on a desk. The moment the actor turned around and left, Jihoon felt a sense of liberation and shouted cut.

“It’s done,” he said, his energy being drained out along with his words.

The assistant director signaled the end with a clap. The three-month-long marathon was finally over. Of course, there was still the editing process left after this, but he decided not to think about that for now.

“Thank you for your work.”

“Good job, everyone.”

As this was the last shoot, even actors who didn’t have a scene to shoot visited the set. Everyone smiled and consoled each other for their efforts until now.

“Send everyone home. Let’s leave the cleanup for tomorrow.”

The assistant director relayed the message to various teams. In a normal company, everyone would stop working and go home the moment the ‘big boss’ said so, but in the TV media, each team had its own ‘big bosses.’ This was especially the case with the camera team and the lighting team, ever since outsourcing those teams became the norm, meaning they didn’t even belong to the TV station.

As such, even if he told people to clean up later and go home quickly, the finishing time would vary between teams according to their circumstances.

“Senior, come this way. We’re taking a photo.”

He followed the assistant director. There were a bunch of people gathered outside the set. Jihoon stood in the corner before being dragged by the actors to the center.

“Say cheese.”

When he looked at the camera that was facing him, reality finally hit him: his fourth work was finally coming to an end. Whenever he started working on a project, he would immediately think that he shouldn’t have done it. The weather didn’t help him, the responses weren’t that good, his superiors would nag him, and the ones under him would turn into semi-zombies.

Even after deciding never to work on a mini-series ever again, he would find himself designing a plot for his new work the moment he edited the final episode and handed it over to the broadcasting department.

“Thank you all for your work until now,” he said before taking the photo. People behind him laughed, saying that the director still had work to do.

People that had to leave left, while those who had to remain remained behind. The afterparty was on Saturday, the day the last episode aired.

The viewing rates were pretty good, so the advertisement rates seemed to be pretty high as everyone including the production crew got paid holidays. Although it was a cheap one to South East Asia, it was still better than nothing. They decided to depart the day after the afterparty.

“You’re going back to the office right away, right, senior?”

“I will. If I go home now, I don’t think I’ll wake up tomorrow. I’ll go sleep at the office and go to the editing room once I wake up. I should be in the editing room for the last episode, shouldn’t I?”

As this was a mini-series shoot that was practically no different from live TV, there were times when even going to the editing room was hard. As such, the editing script written by the scriptor usually acted as the director’s words during editing. Jihoon called for the scripter, whose eyes had turned red.

“Rahee, your eyes are going to catch fire.”

“Don’t talk about it. I’m not standing here with the right mind right now. I wonder why it’s so hard to work with you.”

“Don’t give me so much flack. I have it hard too.”

Having turned thirty-two, Rahee was a freelance scripter that worked with him starting from his second work. He looked at the editing script organized by Rahee and pictured the editing directions in his head.

Just then, he saw the background actors leaving the set. Maru, who was in that group, caught his eye. Jihoon handed the editing script to the assistant director and approached Maru.

“I almost forgot about him.”

He signaled the leader with his eyes and stopped Maru. The leader left with the background actors. Jihoon took out a check from his wallet.

“Thanks for coming today. Thanks to you, I was able to finish it off without a hitch.”

“I’m embarrassed since you said something like that when I didn’t do anything.”

“Don’t say that. It was thanks to you that I stayed sane throughout the whole day. I also managed to gain some time because I could finish the press meeting scene quickly. You were pretty good back there, you know?”

“Thank you.”

There was a script in his hand, supposedly a script for a short film. Jihoon scanned Maru from top to bottom. This man had a sense of leisure which he showed during the shoot, clean acting, and a decent body figure. He also had a pretty good-looking face. It was an appearance that could handle most types of roles.

“Hey, are you interested in an audition?”

“An audition?”

“If you don’t have any plans, I hope you can meet a junior of mine. That one just started a mini-series recently and is looking for a new face. You know, you did something for me, so I should do something for you, right? I’m not sure if you’ll make it or not, but I think I can give you the opportunity at least.”

He wouldn’t have brought this up if it was anyone else with less-than-optimal skills.

“How about it?”

“I have no reason to refuse. I’ll definitely do it.”

“I like your attitude.”

Jihoon handed him the check.

“I’ll text him. It’s a mini-series that’s about to start, so role assignments might be finished already.”

“Okay.”

“Go on then. Let’s meet again if we can next time.”

A good actor was a necessity to create a good piece. That was why Jihoon tried to give a lot of things to actors who showed promise.

There was one thing just as important as money in the film-video industry: connections. If the pay was the same and the work was around the same level, then an actor would lean towards working with the one that had another actor they were closer to.

Jihoon used this psychology to become close with a few actors. They were those that would listen to his request first and would not mind the quality of the work itself.

Jihoon looked at Maru, who was getting on the coach, before yawning. No one would know how big that young man would become in the industry. He might try for a few years and get employed at some company, or he might reach the top with unprecedented force.

If he became an actor so big that it was hard to reach out to him, the conversation they had today would work better than any hundreds of millions of won in payment. Well, that was if such a day ever arrived.

“Well then. Let’s finish up and go home too,” he shouted to the remaining people.

He was finally saying goodbye to this goddamn set for a while.

* * *

Getting off the bus, he blocked his mouth with his hand. His jaws slacked subconsciously and air escaped through his hand. He didn’t have a good night’s sleep. This hadn’t happened for a long time: he actually fell asleep while reading the script and woke up after reciting the lines in his dream.

He was tired but didn’t feel unpleasant. This was a good omen. When he had bad sleep before his first shoot, that work would often perform pretty well. He had already concluded that this would become a successful piece since it was immersive enough for him to see it even in his dreams.

“Hyung!”

Yoonseok was in front of the toast store. It seemed that the production crew was having toast sandwiches for breakfast today as well.

Since this was the first shoot, Maru thought that they should be eating to their heart’s content. Maru pulled on his shoulder strap and walked towards Yoonseok.

“Are you sure you aren’t going to pass out because of hunger during the shoot?”

“It’s okay. I’m armed with the spirit of hunger. Rather than that, how’s your condition? The actor’s stamina is much more important than the director’s.”

“Couldn’t be better off.”

“That’s fine then. As long as you’re doing well, nothing else is a problem.”

“Where’s everyone else?”

“Waiting in a lecture room.”

Yoonseok took the lead after taking a plastic bag from the store lady.

“I marked the calendar with a highlighter and looked at it every day, anticipating when the 13th was going to come. But hey, do you know that today’s Friday the 13th? There must be something fateful about this, right?”

“Our film isn’t exactly a bright one, so we’ll probably get some help from the energy of Friday the 13th.”

“Exactly. I feel really good today.”

He walked to the lecture room with the excited director. Aside from Moonho, Jaejoon, and Jiseon, who were on the production team, there were about ten other people.

“Those are my friends. They are wonderful friends who make do with toast sandwiches as payment.”

Now he knew who all those sandwiches were for. He greeted the students who made eye contact with him. Awkward smiles were exchanged. Maru could hear things like ‘he’s the actor?’ from them.

“This is our actor, Mr. Han Maru. He’s gonna make it big one day, so better get your autographs now,” Yoonseok said, seemingly attempting to lighten up the mood.

Maru joined in. As he wasn’t a professional actor, the shoot had to be done in a comfortable environment rather than a tense one.

“Please take good care of me. If this work goes well and our director wins a prize, he said he’ll treat everyone here big time. So please do your best.”

With “Yoonseok, I like galbi” as the start, the students all said a word each.

Yoonseok explained the synopsis while eating the sandwich. He calmly explained to them what the story was about, what their roles were in the shoot, as well as what they should refrain from doing.

Even the students that were joking around started paying attention to him seriously once Yoonseok started explaining.

“Hyung, we’re planning to start now. Is that okay with you?”

Moonho was taking out a camera: Paltech SD-108. It was a pretty decent model. Many young actors produced films with that camera. Though, given more time, there would come an age where short films were created through smartphones.

After finishing the camera test, he sat down at the place Yoonseok told him to. It was the corner seat in the lecture room.

“Should I go like this?”

Jaejoon twisted the lights installed on the tripod before taking his hands off. Moonho signaled him that it was okay. There were reflectors on hand as well. From how the microphone attached to the camera even had a wind muff, they had all the basic equipment for the shoot down.

Maru felt quite burdened when he thought about how the production crew must have eaten sandwiches for many meals in order to rent all this equipment. Even after experiencing hundreds of thousands of shoots, he would probably never be able to get rid of this heavy feeling.

“Okay, we’ll start the first scene now,” Yoonseok said as he looked at the camera screen. The students who were chatting also stopped talking and looked at books or put on their earbuds just as the director instructed them to.

After looking around at the scenery in the lecture room, a sense of resolve appeared on his face. He seemed to have taken a liking to the background.

Maru took a deep breath. All that was left now was acting. He placed his hand on the desk and stared holes at the fingernail on his thumb. It was time to transmit the words of ‘Lee Jungho’ through Han Maru’s voice.

A paranoid speech pattern; an obsession that the person was aware of, yet could not abandon; and a collapsing mind. He felt relaxed, but at the same time, extremely sensitive.

The sounds that entered his ears slowly started stimulating his brain. He bit the tip of his tongue in order to hold back the onslaught of neurosis. Still, he did not remove his gaze from his thumb.

The minute angles in his fingernail, the wrinkles, the protruding little peel at the corner of his fingers. He pulled on the white peel with his other hand gently.

Along with a sharp pain, the sound of something ripping was transmitted to his head directly.

It was then he heard words like ‘take whatever whatever…’

And then.

“Action.”