White Blood – Launch
The exclusive scoop that reporter O Seung-hwan fired off the next day was more than enough to turn the entire Republic of Korea upside down.
Actor A (46), long celebrated for his extensive volunteer work and other good deeds, is currently under arrest and investigation after a large quantity of powder believed to be narcotics was discovered in his personal vehicle parked at his residence on the 16th.
According to the prosecution on the 16th, the Seoul Northern District Prosecutors’ Office found 195 grams of a white powder substance presumed to be narcotics in Actor A’s vehicle. With a single dose estimated at 0.03 grams, the amount is said to be enough for 6,500 people to use simultaneously, sending shockwaves through the public…
In the Gangnam headquarters, the editor-in-chief checking the site’s traffic numbers burst into a delighted laugh.
“Kwahahahat. Manager O. Where on earth did you dig up a scoop like this?”
At the editor’s question, O Seung-hwan briefly thought of the anonymous tipster, but he kept his face carefully blank, smiled, and patted his slightly protruding belly.
“Come on, Chief. Who do you think I am? When O Seung-hwan decides to move, he moves for real. Something felt off, so I just kept digging until I found it.”
“Yeah, yeah. Aigoo, look at you. Manager O looks especially handsome today, doesn’t he?”
“Ehehe.”
And the team behind White Blood, upon reading that article, was hit with a shock even greater than the public’s.
Of course, because Yeon-woo had already moved through Han Hae-un in advance, the article contained not a single word about White Blood. Still, the fact that the fire was now under their own feet remained unchanged.
Because of Jeon Gi-hun, the production team had temporarily halted that day’s shoot and gathered in the LN Entertainment conference room.
Director Hwang Min-gwon let out a heavy sigh.
“Haa. When are we even supposed to start listing candidates and casting again? This is a real disaster.”
Jeon Gi-hun’s personal footage as Difangdal hadn’t been that extensive, so once a replacement actor was cast they could reshoot it. The problem was the casting itself.
They couldn’t exactly hold supporting-role auditions all over again at this stage, and any actor worth approaching through direct offers would require list-ups and procedures that took considerable time. Starting from scratch now could, in the worst case, delay filming by three or four months.
Writer Kim Jin-ju listened to the fretting, fell into thought for a moment, then spoke with a resolute face.
“If it really comes to that, I’ll rewrite the entire script. Every scene with the ‘Difangdal’ role—I’ll revise them all and create new ones.”
“Huu, I have absolute faith in Writer Kim’s skill, but if we revise so suddenly, won’t the story flow start to fall apart?”
“I think the same, but we don’t have a choice…”
Stuck between bad options, the conference room filled with nothing but repeated sighs.
Then Yeon-woo, who had been quietly listening from the corner while exchanging messages with someone, set down his smartphone and raised his hand.
“I have an actor I’d like to recommend. I’ve already coordinated the schedule.”
“What?! Yeon-woo-ssi? Who is it?”
Once you pull out a rotting tooth, you have to fill the empty socket with an implant or something—that much was obvious.
Before this whole mess had even broken, he had casually asked and confirmed the schedule in advance; just now, through text, he had also received confirmation of the actor’s willingness to appear.
It was an actor who had already shared the screen with Yeon-woo in the previous work Sketch, though his early appearance had been so brief it left a lingering sense of regret.
Yeon-woo’s acting mentor, and an actor who could digest the role of the perfect scene-stealer better than anyone.
“Actor Jeong Cheol-min.”
“Kids, let’s take a commemorative photo.”
“Yes, Teacher!”
Han Byeol called Jeong Cheol-min with easy familiarity and came over to his side.
Replacing Jeon Gi-hun with Jeong Cheol-min had been nothing short of a blessing in disguise.
Among the main and supporting cast whose average age was so low that Yeon-woo had nicknamed them the “School Lunch Expedition,” Jeong Cheol-min fully displayed his abilities.
His own acting skill went without saying, and the long years he had spent running an acting academy and teaching children proved an enormous help.
Whenever Dong-ha—whose main job was still being an idol in Axis—or Han Byeol, whose acting career was still short, ran into something difficult, he broke it down simply and guided them on the spot. The overall quality of the performances felt as if it had risen by two whole levels.
I’m really glad I brought Teacher.
Watching Jeong Cheol-min care for the supporting actors like a field-trip teacher looking after a group of kids on an outing, Yeon-woo also smiled with quiet satisfaction.
Teaching is harder than I thought.
At first he had assumed that if Dong-ha or Han Byeol asked about acting, all he needed to do was demonstrate and they would simply follow.
Every time, Han Byeol and Dong-ha shook their heads vigorously.
“Ugh, talent monsters are seriously annoying, Oppa!”
Whenever Yeon-woo demonstrated and then tilted his head with a look that said, “Hm? Why can’t you do it?”, Han Byeol would shake her head and insist it was only possible because it was Oppa, while Dong-ha beside her let out an even bigger sigh.
“Han Byeol, from my perspective you’re plenty of a talent monster yourself, you know? Haa… Shooting music videos was child’s play compared to this.”
In the middle of those kids, Jeong Cheol-min’s role truly was light and salt.
And that long, winding shoot finally ended today.
The crank-up of White Blood.
In the crowd gathering for the commemorative photo, Jeong Su-yeon spotted Yeon-woo and waved him over.
“Yeon-woo! Come take the photo, hurry.”
Everyone’s faces were bright; they had poured everything they had into the work without a single regret.
Yeon-woo smiled and walked toward the actors and staff. The moment he stood in the empty center spot they had left for him, the camera director’s voice rang out.
“Alright, shooting! Keep your eyes wide open for ten seconds!”
The camera director who had dashed over after framing the shot pressed the shutter with the remote.
Somehow this reminds me of the final shoot for Summer’s Closet.
He remembered the little mishap where the very staff member who had shouted not to close their eyes had been the only one who closed his own.
Yeon-woo’s faint smile and everyone else’s faces were captured one last time by the camera, and the filming of White Blood came to an end. Now only the day of the decisive battle remained.
After the shoot wrapped, Yeon-woo returned to his family home and rested thoroughly before coming back up to Seoul for the launch event.
“Actor-nim. This is your first launch event, isn’t it?”
At Kim Min-su’s words from the driver’s seat, Yeon-woo nodded.
“That’s right. We’ve always done production presentation conferences. Still, the name’s a little different, but it’ll probably be similar.”
Kim Min-su’s car arrived at an outsourced studio in Pangyo that Netflix had arranged.
As Yeon-woo was about to get out, he saw Han Byeol and Su-yeon climbing out one after another from a car parked opposite.
“Hm? Han Byeol, Su-yeon.”
“Oppa!”
Han Byeol came scampering over. Yeon-woo looked at Su-yeon, who was walking up behind her with a smile.
“You two came together?”
“Yeah. Han Byeol’s mother gave us a ride.”
These two had grown closest during the shoot.
Both Jeong Su-yeon and Han Byeol had grown up as only children and had always wished for a sister; they had become older and younger sisters to each other and clicked perfectly.
“Dong-ha oppa said he got here early—he messaged in the group chat a little while ago!”
“Really? Let’s head in too. Teacher Jeong Cheol-min just arrived and went in first, I heard.”
Yeon-woo and the two sworn sisters entered the studio.
Several weeks of final editing had passed since the crank-up, so it had been quite a while since they last saw the directing staff and fellow actors; they exchanged greetings and asked after one another.
Once everyone was seated in their assigned places, announcer Kim Min-a, with whom Yeon-woo was already acquainted, walked onto the set holding cue cards.
“Oh my, it’s been a while since Master Plan.”
“It really has. Thanks to Announcer Kim Min-a handling the hosting so well back then, the results were excellent.”
“Aigoo, you said the same thing then and I still don’t know where to put myself.”
She was the announcer who had hosted the production presentations for both Summer’s Closet and Master Plan, so LN Entertainment had asked her again this time, hoping for the success of the project.
They chatted about this and that until the event time was right upon them.
“Alright, standby.”
A countdown began on the prompter in front of them. The numbers hit zero, and the launch event started.
“Hello, everyone. This program is being broadcast live through LN Entertainment’s official YouTube channel and Netflix Live. We ask for your understanding if the broadcast conditions are a little uneven.”
Announcer Kim Min-a greeted the camera, then turned to the actors.
“Actors of White Blood, it’s a pleasure to meet you!”
At her greeting, the actors looked toward the camera and each bowed their heads in greeting.
Yeon-woo glanced at the somewhat stiff expressions of the actors sitting beside him and smiled faintly.
I have to lead well enough for Director Hwang’s share too.
Director Hwang Min-gwon had flatly refused to appear on camera, insisting he simply could not stand in front of one, so only the actors were on the set.
And when he thought about it, none of the other actors except Yeon-woo had experience with this kind of production presentation either.
For Jeong Su-yeon, her last time had been as a child actor in Spring’s Lover; Han Byeol and Dong-ha were complete newcomers.
Jeong Cheol-min had mostly worked in relatively minor supporting roles, so this was a first for him as well.
“First of all, I’ve heard this series deals with a rather interesting subject.”
At Announcer Kim Min-a’s words, Yeon-woo naturally took the microphone.
“That’s right. Even I, at first, looked at the cover of the scenario and started reading because I wondered what on earth this was.”
“The genre is unfamiliar. It’s listed as medical action—could you explain it briefly?”
“Of course. This series is about the protagonist Jeong Do-jin…”
Most of the launch event proceeded through the easy back-and-forth between Yeon-woo and Announcer Kim Min-a, then moved into a Q&A corner where they answered questions from viewers watching on YouTube and Netflix Live on the spot.
“Shall we take some opinions from our viewers?”
With Announcer Kim Min-a’s cue, countless chats began flooding the large monitor installed in front of them.
But things started flowing in a direction completely different from what the production team that planned the launch event had expected.
So many chats poured in at once that the server stuttered a little; only a few messages appeared before the screen froze for a moment.
Then it recovered and countless chats raced upward so fast they became impossible to read.
Even so, in that short time the actors on set could not possibly have missed the comments that had flashed across the large monitor.
Originally the plan had been to briefly show the chat window rising and then proceed with carefully selected questions, but a server error had frozen the screen for a moment and, of all things, the negative reactions had been broadcast.
In the unexpected accident, Announcer Kim Min-a froze for a second. In that gap Yeon-woo lifted the microphone.
“Wow, so many people have joined that I can’t even read the comments. Could the production team perhaps pick just a few and put them up?”
At Yeon-woo’s words, Announcer Kim Min-a recovered, exchanged a few words with the production team, then took the microphone again.
“We apologize that the server congestion made the progress a little uneven for a moment. We’ll select a few questions and proceed right away.”
While listening to Announcer Kim Min-a’s recovery remarks, Yeon-woo’s attention shifted to the other actors.
They already have no experience with this kind of thing—will they be alright?
Yeon-woo glanced sideways.
And he was a little surprised.
…Their faces are full of confidence.
His worry had been groundless. The actors’ faces were filled with absolute confidence in the work, and if he had to put it into words, their expressions seemed to say something like this:
—Go ahead and trash-talk all you want. Once you watch our series, your minds will change for sure.