Team Battle
When producing a film or a drama, handling everything in-house is, for all practical purposes, impossible.
Any number of stakeholders end up mixed into the process — partner companies and collaborators among them — and depending on what is being shot, cooperation from relevant government agencies may also be required.
For example, when they filmed the Leehan Tech commercial commemorating the Month of Patriots and Veterans, they had secured the Ministry of National Defense and the Air Force's cooperation in order to use fighter jets during the shoot.
And among those countless specialized fields, there were some for which the right people had already been firmly decided.
Music belonged to Chrissy Monroe; VFX belonged to Jeong Yo-han. Yeon-woo already had powerful ties to those two world-class masters, so neither field gave him any cause for worry.
I don't mean to insist on them for every single project — but then again, there aren't many people skilled enough to replace them either.
Unless something unexpected came up, they would almost certainly keep working together going forward.
Writers, on the other hand, were a different story.
There were countless writers, each with their own distinct strengths, so ranking one above another was nearly impossible — and there was always the chance that some unknown, struck by sudden inspiration, might produce a masterpiece overnight.
And the obstacle that tormented those gifted unknowns, the thing that kept them from fully exercising their talent, was always the same: the struggle to make a living.
Most partner companies and specialists did not hang their entire livelihood on a single project. Work in the industry was plentiful, so their income tended to be relatively stable.
Writers and aspiring writers, by contrast, earned nothing at all until a producer took notice of their work and greenlit it for production.
The ecosystem for screenwriters could not begin to compare with the web novel industry, which was worth a trillion won. It was even harder to survive as a screenwriter than as a poet, a novelist, or a writer of self-help books.
Because turning something into a filmed production cost so much money, only a tiny handful of writers were ever chosen.
Even when production was approved, projects frequently collapsed midway for any number of reasons — and even if a script cleared every hurdle and actually got made, a writer's career still hinged on whether the finished work became a hit.
Some people say creativity is born from poverty. I completely disagree.
In the sixteenth-century painter Adam Elsheimer's work The Artist in Despair, one of an angel's arms is bound by a stone, keeping it from taking flight.
And beneath it is this inscription:
Poverty renders a talented artist's genius completely useless.
The stone pinning the angel to the ground was, in the end, poverty itself.
Creative thinking emerged from stable conditions — from a situation in which basic livelihood was already secured.
If Saebyeol sought out talented writers and filled in those basic needs for them, the investment would almost certainly return hundreds, even thousands of times over.
And once Yeon-woo laid that reasoning out for her, writer Kim Jin-ju's heart began to move.
Of course, Kim Jin-ju had already succeeded both as a screenwriter and as a literary author, so she herself was a long way from any struggle with poverty.
But as an established writer who had made her name in the field, she had lately found herself wanting to help the younger generation of writers — and yet she could not simply appoint herself a professor somewhere. She had been at a loss as to how she might actually be of use.
In that state of mind, Yeon-woo's proposal was more than attractive enough.
"You don't need to worry — this isn't an exclusive contract. If you ever feel something is wrong with Saebyeol Creative, you can terminate the agreement at any time with no penalty whatsoever."
"Yeon-woo. I'll do it. Send me the contract and I'll have my lawyer look it over first, then get back to you."
At Kim Jin-ju's answer, Yeon-woo nodded with quiet satisfaction.
Of course he would. It was a fair contract with nothing amiss in it.
Just having Kim Jin-ju on board will raise the overall quality of the whole think tank overnight.
"Wha— seriously?!"
"Kim Jin-ju the writer? You mean the Kim Jin-ju I know?"
Seated around a table in the café on the third floor of the Saebyul Building, Kim Ju-hyeong and Hong Yu-ri both leaned forward at once, practically vibrating with excitement.
Yeon-woo smiled at the pair of them and nodded.
"Yeah. From now on, both of you are going to study writing under Kim Jin-ju. I've read both of your work, and for the talent you have, I thought the technical side was still a little behind… If you learn from the best writer there is, you'll be able to really bloom."
At Yeon-woo's words, both Kim Ju-hyeong and Hong Yu-ri felt as if they were dreaming.
The gap between the Kim Jin-ju that Yeon-woo knew and the Kim Jin-ju those two knew was far wider than one might have expected.
In Yeon-woo's mind, the image of Kim Jin-ju that remained was simply the woman who had gotten drunk at a company dinner and the next day called him in a fluster, begging him to join her at a fan signing because she could not face it alone.
But to Kim Ju-hyeong, a devoted drama fanatic, and to Hong Yu-ri, a graduate of the Department of Korean Language and Literature, Kim Jin-ju was a once-in-a-generation genius — someone they wanted to meet even more than the world-famous K-pop idols.
And now it was not merely a matter of meeting her. They would be living and working alongside her, learning to write as if they were receiving private tutoring.
Stars lit up behind both of their eyes.
"W-when is she coming?"
"Should I… prepare something in advance?"
Yeon-woo watched the two of them scramble for a moment, then picked up his phone and checked the time.
"Hmm. Just about now, actually."
"Huh?"
Ding—
While Hong Yu-ri was still questioning him, the elevator doors opened and someone walked into the café.
The newcomer spotted Yeon-woo at once and raised a hand in greeting.
"Yeon-woo!"
The person calling his name so warmly and waving was, of course, writer Kim Jin-ju.
Hong Yu-ri and Kim Ju-hyeong, who had been sitting with their backs to the entrance, turned around with half-disbelieving looks on their faces.
In the meantime Yeon-woo had already risen from his seat to welcome her.
"It's been a while since you last came to the Saebyul Building, hasn't it?"
"It has. Oh my — Representative Kim, it's been a long time."
Representative Kim Ju-seong, who had been washing cups, turned around still wearing his rubber gloves and offered a slight bow in return for Kim Jin-ju's greeting.
Once the greetings were done, Yeon-woo introduced the friends behind him.
"These two will be your students from now on. This is Kim Ju-hyeong, and this is Hong Yu-ri."
Startled by Kim Jin-ju's sudden appearance, the two of them shot to their feet like meerkats and bowed stiffly.
"P-please take good care of us."
"It's an honor to meet you!"
Looking at the pair of them, Kim Jin-ju offered a gentle smile.
"Nice to meet you. Why so tense? You're friends with a world star like Yeon-woo."
It was the first meeting of the three people who would form the foundation of Saebyeol's think tank — Saebyeol Creative.
While the two of them built their fundamentals under Kim Jin-ju's guidance, a message arrived from Yeon-woo's "best friend" in LA — Bernard Fenton.
Ryu. Looks like BWG is pushing things harder than expected. I hear they're nearly finished with production prep. A formal notice should be heading to Saebyeol any day now.
Only a few days after that message, a briefing packet for Survival Island — Global Match arrived from BWG, and a detailed working-level meeting was held over the phone.
Team Leader Gong Min-jeong, who had absorbed the relevant information ahead of Yeon-woo through that meeting, prepared a briefing to walk everyone through it. The next day, Yeon-woo and the working staff gathered in Saebyeol Media's main conference room.
Gong Min-jeong put the Season 1 and Season 2 logos up on the screen and began.
"First of all, the most important difference between the domestically aired Survival Island and this Global Match is that the scale is vastly larger."
That much was so obvious that everyone listened quietly, waiting for the rest of the explanation.
Gong Min-jeong continued.
"When I say scale, I don't simply mean the arena itself is bigger. There have also been major changes to the game format."
"The game format?"
"In what way?"
When Representative Jeong Hyeok asked, Gong Min-jeong advanced to the next slide of her presentation.
"There are a lot of changes, but the biggest one is this: Season 1 was an individual competition. This Global Match is a team competition."
Even Yeon-woo reacted to that unexpected news.
"A team competition?"
"Yes. The detailed rules are as follows. I'll walk you through them on the screen."
The points Gong Min-jeong laid out could be summarized as follows.
First, the competition would proceed not as individual matches but in team units. The American production team had judged that Season 1's airsoft guns were too weak and short-ranged, making the combat feel thin compared to real engagement. So they had sourced improved rounds — plastic ammunition redesigned to cause no bodily harm while delivering higher velocity and longer range.
According to the materials, the rounds were a concentration of new technology currently used for training at West Point, the United States Military Academy.
And from each participating country, a celebrity — a singer, actor, model, or similar figure — would serve as team captain and select two teammates.
Those teammates would be drawn from each country's pool of former special forces operators, bodyguards, or personnel otherwise capable of combat-related duties, and would enter the competition alongside the celebrity captain.
"Hmm. Having professionals alongside them would make the combat more intense — and it would also do more to secure safety."
Safety was probably the most important part of all.
When amateurs gathered in an unfamiliar place and the heat of competition ran too high, accidents were almost inevitable.
Stationing two professionals right beside each participant for real-time oversight, so that nothing could go wrong, seemed like an excellent decision.
Watching Yeon-woo nod, Representative Jeong Hyeok spoke up.
"Then who do we bring? We're representing the honor of our country here. Should we ask Leehan Tech to arrange some help from the military?"
It was Gong Min-jeong who shook her head.
"They said active-duty military personnel aren't allowed to participate."
"Hmm. Then who…"
"If we have trouble finding people, the production side said they can assign us Navy SEALs."
"Ohhh — the Navy SEALs? Like from the movies?"
At that moment, Yeon-woo quietly raised his hand.
"I've already thought of who I'd bring. Assuming they agree, of course."
"Sorry? You've already got people in mind?"
At Yeon-woo's words, everyone in the conference room tilted their heads.
How would Yeon-woo know former special forces operators or anyone connected to the military?
Yeon-woo only grinned.
The moment he heard the words "team competition," his own teammates had come to mind at once.
People who already held official contracts with Saebyeol — so even if they appeared on the show together, there would be no problem whatsoever.
"Representative Kim Su-hyeok of Pridwen, who handles Saebyeol's security — and Security Team Leader Park Jung-hyeon, who handled protection for this last U.S. schedule."