Chapter 394 (1/2)

“Young master. There’s no way a beggar like me will dare look down on you, is there? How could I look down on young master when I get by everyday by begging? Don’t you think so?”

“You still dare to.”

“If you want to hit me, then go ahead. Instead, stick a grain of rice on your hand so that I can get some food.”

Uljin played the role of Gaeguk, who liked to poke fun at people. Giwoo, who played the role of the young Han Myung-hoe, grabbed Uljin’s collar and snorted.

“Cut! Let’s do that again.”

Producer Changsung stood up from where the monitor was and stood in front of the two child actors. The veteran producer consoled the two child actors and clearly told them what they had to do.

“Both of you are doing okay, but we’re currently doing a close-up shot. I want your expressions to be more vivid. Do you get what I mean? Both of you are too focused on your voices, so the scene looks too bland.”

“Okay.”

After producer Changsung walked away, and they reset the camera, they started shooting again. They were shooting the same scene for the fifth time now. Although the actors did the same act several times over, the camera shot at different angles each time. One would shoot Giwoo’s face, one would shoot Uljin’s, and then they would take another shot at an angle so that both of their faces could be seen, and so on.

The person in charge of the camera focus seemed to have finished adjusting the lens as the camera director gave a signal. The shoot resumed. It seemed to go well this time, but a person jumped up from behind the fence on the other side of the camera and took a photo. He was a boy that looked to be in high school.

“Hey, over there!”

One of the staff shouted and ran towards the fence. The two child actors that were absorbed in their roles scratched their heads before returning to their original positions.

“Geez, why can’t they just cooperate with us,” the staff standing right next to Maru spoke.

This person was in charge of the props. When the good flow was broken due to a prank, people started sighing here and there. The staff that chased the student came back while shaking his head. It seemed that he missed the boy.

“Let’s not mind too much about it and start shooting ag….”

Just as producer Changsung was about to console the child actors, the sound of an aeroplane could be heard this time. The acoustics staff holding a boom mic in the air shrugged his shoulders and lowered it for a moment.

“Looks like there are already signs that our drama will be hugely successful. Getting a lot of distractions on the first shoot is a sign that the work will be successful.”

“Let’s try that again.”

The disturbance was gone and the aeroplane had gone away. A faint light shone upon the quiet beggar den once again. The cameras started rolling and the acoustics engineer adjusted various equipment. After checking on all of them the producer gave a cue sign again, and the child actors started acting again.

Maru watched the act for a while before taking a step back and opening the script. It seemed that there was still quite some time until the rest of the beggars would appear in the story. Although producer Changsung’s speech was soft, his requests were very on-point.

He was going back and forth between pages when he felt a gaze on him. When he looked next to him, he saw a girl looking at the script in his hands with round eyes. He remembered the girl’s name. It was Kim Bitna.

“Wanna see it?”

Seeing her nod, he passed the script over to her. Despite the fact that she was only at the age where she would have just entered elementary school, she read the script very composedly. Perhaps she had what it took to become a star one day.

Maru looked around him. He saw a woman wearing sunglasses outside the set. She was Bitna’s mother who drove off in a cool manner last time. He met eyes with her once, and she greeted him first with a nod. She was probably telling him to take care of her daughter. Maru nodded back.

“Well, let’s flip it now.”

Hearing the producer’s words, the lights and equipment located behind Giwoo moved to behind Uljin.

“Wow, they’re shooting again?”

A small voice could be heard. It seemed that this was the first time witnessing a shoot for one of the staff members. Maru also laughed during his first time out of absurdity. On TV, it was at most a minute-long scene, but it took several hours to shoot such a short scene. When he didn’t know, he thought that the scene was taken at multiple angles at once with multiple cameras, but in reality, there were only a few cameras and the same scene was shot several times. The same lines were said over and over again, and once the background changed or it felt somewhat off from the previous shoot, the shoot would pause, the background would be reset and then they would start shooting again. It was the pinnacle of repetition.

“We’re going to take a close-up shot of your hands when you grab his collar. You don’t need to make it look shaky. Your hands will shake by themselves if you clench hard enough.”

After the shoot ended, producer Changsung called for the minor actors. The eight beggars, including Maru, stood in front of Changsung.

“It’s almost lunch time, so let’s get this done quickly. Beggars 1 and 2 will stand next to the 2nd beggar and talk to each other as they come in. Then, you quickly rush to the two main characters when you see them grabbing each other by the collar. Exaggerate yourselves. Think of it as if your house is on fire.”

After engraving producer Changsung’s orders into their minds, the group was moved to the outside of the opening. While the rail cameras were being set up, producer Jinhyuk approached Maru.

“The focus is on you.”

“Okay.”

Producer Jinhyuk nodded to the camera director before speaking to the minor actors.

“You will start walking from there and come all the way here, and find that Gaeguk is grabbed by the collar. The cut only ends when you run all the way here so bear that in mind.”

Maru looked at the line that Jinhyuk drew with his foot and replied ‘yes’.

“Let’s go over our lines once.”

He went over the lines with the people that played beggars 1 and 2. The context was that they received a lot of leftover party food due to luck. They walked forward while exchanging a conversation. After they made sense of what they had to do, they returned to their starting positions.

“Let’s do this.”

Maru spoke to the other minor actors. They were all around his age or were younger than him. Since they were minor actors, the shoot should end easily as long as they didn’t make a huge mistake.

After all the equipment was set up, producer Changsung signalled them to get ready. After looking at the camera once, Maru calmed down his breathing. There was a boom mic above his head. The shoot was about to begin now.

‘Lines are uttered out, not spoken out.’

Since he was a beggar, there was no need to put weight into his words. Drawing the picture of a beggar that producer Changsung asked from Uljin, he stretched his chin lightly. He saw producer Changsung grab the walkie talkie with his hand as he sat in front of the monitor. Producer Changsung looked at them with a relaxing smile before raising his hand to his eye level and shouting ‘things are looking good, cue when you’re ready!’.

He grinned and started walking, starting with his right foot. He was holding a rice ball that the props team gave him and walked towards the opening. His footsteps were light, and his shoulders were moving up and down as though he was about to start humming. The curved lips, and the matching eyes. He put thought into every bit of his action as he moved. Unless he reached a stage where he could do all that reflexively, he would have to put a lot of effort into controlling his emotions so that unnecessary expression and emotion didn’t leak out from him. If he could not restrain his emotions, it would either look exaggerated or just plain awkward. To express his emotions so that it didn’t look out of place, he had to know how to rule over each strand of his emotions. If that was impossible, then restraint was the basics of acting.

‘Instructor Miso’s words are worth listening to.’

He just had to show a beggar that looked cheerful. Any more than that was a waste, and the producer wouldn’t want that either.

“I wish every day was like today.”

“Yeah. I also wish there were parties every day.”

“Look at this! I also got pumpkin candy!”

Beggar 2 showed off his pumpkin candy and spoke. That was an exaggerated action that wasn’t there during the rehearsal.