Chapter 274 (2/2)

“So you want me to restrain myself a little?”

“Simply put, yes.”

“Got it.”

Dowook accepted it as well.

Daemyung definitely had a wide field of vision. It wasn’t easy giving every single person feedback, but he put in the effort every time to give advice. His advice wasn’t something vague either, but was incredibly detailed. He was doing something that many people couldn’t.

“How was I?”

After his part, Daemyung always asked what he himself could improve upon. There would be an awkward silence if Daemyung was the tyrannical type of club president, but as his personality was so good, the club members could point things out with ease. Daemyung even wrote down even the most minute of things to fix his acting.

‘He’s one amazing guy.’

He’s the type to do well no matter what he did. Daemyung encouraged everyone before they started practicing again. They spent another hour practicing. This time it was much better.

“It’s past 8 already,” Maru spoke as he looked at the clock. Daemyung gathered everyone around, looking somewhat unsatisfied.

“Well done everyone. Have a safe trip back home.”

“Thanks for your work.”

Maru waved his hand to Dowook, Bangjoo, Jiyoon and Aram who left the club. Jiyoon and Aram had to go home by 9, so they couldn’t stay any longer to practice. Bangjoo lived alone, so they couldn’t keep him late, while Dowook was here to fill in the members, so it was hard to ask him to do anything difficult.

Maru spoke to Daemyung, who didn’t leave yet.

“If you think about it, last year was amazing.”

“You’re right. Instructor Miso had us practicing until the last bus.”

“We practically lived in school.”

“Even if I look back on it, I can’t help but wonder. I mean, the girls didn’t have a curfew either.”

“If they had, then I’m sure senior Miso would have called their parents to lift the curfew and tell them that she would take responsibility.”

“You’re definitely right.”

Maru looked at the clock before speaking.

“You’re doing a triple role today as well?”

“It’s a pity to leave it here.”

Maru picked up the scripts on the floor. It would be good if everyone could practice together, but it was hard to do so. In the end, the only thing the remaining, passionate people could do was to do double or triple roles.

“When should we go back today?”

“I dunno.”

Daemyung scratched his head and smiled. He was quite tenacious in the most peculiar things, so it was likely that he would stay here until the last bus if no one said anything to him. And that was just what Maru wanted.

In acting, there was no clear scoring standard. There was no way to know how far one had come or how well they did. However, there came a point when even the actor realizes that he or she had improved.

To experience such a thing, Maru had to spend his time very wisely. He intuitively knew that these practice hours will come back to him in the form of stable acting skills.

“Then let’s start.”

“No interrupting mid way, okay?”

“You don’t need to tell me that.”

After taking in a deep breath, Maru started off the first line.

It was getting late into the night, yet the lights at the school did not turn off.

* * *

Joonggeun always found his filmography to be a pity.

At first, he had no grand dream of becoming a movie director. At first, he started off as a new recruit at an outsourcing camera shooting company. His job was to take videos while wearing camera equipment that weighed several dozen kilograms. He started that job because he found it interesting that he could film the picture he wanted in that square frame.

Then, he chanced upon a movie director that had retired, developing his new dream.

-What good is filming a picture? You need to film a story.

That director, who he now treated as his teacher, moved Joonggeun’s heart. After that, he started studying film production. First, he bought a book titled Filming 101 from overseas and started reading it. After that, he read books related to scenario making. As for using the camera, he had his experiences and learned from his seniors on the field, so he was confident in that.

With his self-study and his unique connections, he spent two studying what a movie was. At that time, he came to a conclusion.

“Dammit, if you film, then it’s a movie.”

He ignored all of his seniors who used all sorts of English words and aesthetic language to describe how great and how abstract movies were and started shooting movies with an 8mm camera and a single light panel. He grabbed actors he got close to while he worked as a cameraman as well as a junior of his who knew basic audio mixing, and finished a movie in just one month. Then, he submitted the movie in an independent movie award and received a prize.

After that, he worked as a new recruit in the production team under a famous film director for a brief moment and quit because he wanted to be in charge of the megaphone. After that, he went round knocking on the doors with various production companies with the scenarios he had saved up for some time and he received his opportunity.

That was how his first movie came to be. The results were quite good. For a movie that didn’t cast famous actors, the achievements were quite good. However, he badly screwed up his next work and was unable to hold the megaphone for the next 5 years. He started working in film production from the bottom in order to make a living, and shot another movie thanks to an opportunity, but he screwed up that one as well. He was tagged the ‘failing director’ and he continued writing scenarios for five years after that. By then, he was forty.

He had a place to work, so he didn’t have any difficulties in everyday life, but he despaired seeing that all of his work after his first work had failed. However, he did not know how to give up. He was forty-five when his next opportunity came to him. The total budget was 6 billion won, and he decided to take the job with the mindset that he would never grab the megaphone again if he failed this one. The result? It had 7 million views. It was a great success. After that, every film he directed had more than 5 million views. He gained the nickname the ‘golden hand’. However, at the same time, he was tagged the director ‘whose work had no cinematic quality.’

Cinematic quality. Joonggeun remembered back to his first ever work. No one talked about the lack of cinematic quality for that movie. Even though it was shot in a crappy 8mm camera, had less-than-perfect visuals, and the actors in it were not the best, it was evaluated good for having a ‘strong message’.

Ambition. Joonggeun became ambitious. Just as he thought that he was at a level he could show the world, Junmin, a close friend of his, gave him an offer.

-Do you want to try using sir Moonjoong as the main character?

The day after he heard those words, he put the scenario he was writing inside his drawer.

And right now.

“How was I?”

Seeing Moonjoong with an intense glint in his eyes through the monitor, Joonggeun spoke.

“Let’s try that again.”

He was ruthless.