It Was Unbelievably Quiet
When you spend your life supporting someone, there are stretches when time seems to vanish.
Back when I was an aide, election season was usually like that. The national audit period, too.
And now that I was a manager, filming You Are My Straw was the same way.
It was probably because he was the lead. Ha Eun-yul had worn a "supporting lead" credit on Melancholy Romance, but in the end she was a supporting role. The gap in screen time between a lead and a supporting actor is enormous.
We ran ourselves ragged, and at last—
I met Bong Tae-soo's eyes from the passenger seat. He always sat up front. He claimed it was because he was worried I'd doze off at the wheel, which I took as his own quiet way of looking out for me.
"You're really not going to watch it with us?"
"No. I'll watch it at home."
"Understood."
At my answer, Bong Tae-soo broke into a slow grin.
It was a plain, unremarkable face, and yet there was something strangely magnetic about it. Maybe I only felt that way because I already knew he was an actor. But after nearly a month of working side by side, Bong Tae-soo had more than earned the impression.
Still smiling, he went on.
"You don't ask twice, Team Leader."
"If it felt like a moment that needed asking, I'd ask three times, four times. This isn't one of those."
Bong Tae-soo had been climbing out of the car. He paused with the door half-closed, peering back in.
"Don't tell Munsu, but… honestly, working with you is more comfortable."
"That's the normal reaction."
He grinned again and said goodbye.
"I'll be going."
"Get some rest. I'll pick you up at nine tomorrow."
"Thank you. Drive safe."
After we parted, I drove to Nine Entertainment.
Not to return the car. Tonight, everyone was gathering to watch the premiere together.
There are some things you only ever understand by living them.
On the set of Melancholy Romance, I had learned that for the sake of efficiency they would arrive at a location and batch-shoot every scene that used it, across multiple episodes. Watching that happen in person made for a very strange picture.
Take the bus stop, for example.
It was the place where the two leads, getting off their part-time jobs, started out sniping at each other, gradually fell in love, and later lingered so long they let bus after bus go by, waiting until the last one of the night. Shoot all of that in a clump, and what I saw on set was this: the two of them bickering in the first take, making eyes at each other in the one that followed immediately after, then suddenly aching with the pain of goodbye.
From the outside, it could not have looked more bizarre.
Whoever invented this method of shooting, I suspected, was someone who chased efficiency to its absolute limit. Someone like me, perhaps. It had to be awkward for the actors trying to stay immersed. And yet someone had made the rational call to build the system anyway. If you were going to squeeze a limited budget for everything it was worth, the most efficient thing in the world was to shoot as many scenes as possible in a single trip to a single location. Call drama and film art if you like — in the end, it is commercial art.
"Aigoo… here we go."
At Team Leader Park Munsu's words, every pair of eyes locked onto the screen. It had not started yet, of course. But a "starting soon" indicator had just blinked on in the upper-right corner of the big TV.
The Nine Entertainment office. It was past ten on a Friday night, and still some ten employees had gathered in their seats.
"The premiere's only really a premiere if you watch it together."
At General Manager Kim Misook's remark, Park Munsu let the disappointment spill out of him.
"It's not just the premiere — it's his first lead role."
"I know. That's why I wanted to celebrate with him."
"He'll be watching at home. Tae-soo… I mean, Actor Bong Tae-soo is actually pretty shy."
It would have been nicer if Bong Tae-soo were here. It didn't really matter.
I gave a small nod. Every gaze in the room was glued to the big TV, so it was hardly a conspicuous thing to do.
To pick up where I had left off about the set: this drama could not have been more different from Melancholy Romance.
On Melancholy Romance, they would repeat a scene until they had the best take, and if that still did not sit right with PD Ha Tae-jong, they would run it again, and again, and again.
On the set of You Are My Straw, the only sounds that kept rolling out were these:
"Cut."
"Aigoo, that's a good one."
"Next scene."
PD Ha Tae-jong was a gentle sort himself, but Bureau Director Yoon Hyunbae existed on an entirely different plane. Bong Tae-soo had actually pleaded for just one more take. The answer he got was something of a masterpiece.
"It's good, it's good. It's fine. If something were off, I'd be the one asking for another take. Your acting's so good there's no reason to reshoot — what am I supposed to do with that?"
The most decisive difference was that You Are My Straw was being shot almost entirely in story order. Time pressure mattered far more than efficiency. That was why, even after post-production, it would hit television screens well ahead of Melancholy Romance, which was slated for a slot after autumn.
While I was thinking, the drama began.
"……"
"……"
"……"
Not a single person in the office opened their mouth. I had no idea whether it was a jinx or what, but I was no exception.
Just over an hour vanished as if someone had deleted it. It was not until the next-episode preview came on that anyone spoke — and the first to break was Kim Nakyung, the PR manager.
"That's insane……"
Then the commercials started, and every pair of eyes in the room swung toward me. Kim Nakyung looked straight at me, curiosity bright in her face, and asked the question on everyone's behalf.
"Team Leader. What was the set like? Why is it like this?"
How was I supposed to answer that? I thought for a brief moment, then decided.
"The set was… unbelievably quiet."
"Then what about the script? Did the script land this clean? Down to the details?"
"It wasn't a same-day-sides situation, but it wasn't locked-in tight either."
Secretary Na Yoonjeong had made her debut as a writer. Even if she had written practice scripts, she was a rookie on her first produced work, and things like scene allocation, detailed shot transitions, cut timing, and the finer points of the actors' expressions had not been meticulously laid out.
To borrow Ghost's words, when a writer is new, you ordinarily attach several experienced assistant writers to iron that kind of thing out. You Are My Straw had none of that. The writer was hammering out scripts after work and on weekends as hard as she could, which made coordinating with assistant writers nearly impossible in the first place. There was no shortage of reasons it could not be done.
So you would watch Yoon Hyunbae and Assistant Director Kim Hak-seon huddle over the pages, muttering through a meeting on the spot.
"Match cut here?"
"That should work."
"Hmm… want to throw a jump cut in here?"
"Sure, why not."
That was how they filled in what the script was missing.
My answer had not satisfied her. Kim Nakyung pressed again, and the rest of the staff kept their eyes on the mouth of the one person who had actually been on set.
"But why does it land this clean? Like a drama they'd been prepping for months?"
"I couldn't say."
Because the crew on set were veterans? If you had to pin a reason on something, that would be it. But did that really account for this?
Kim Nakyung threw the biggest question of all at me.
"No, I'm asking why the production value is this good??"
I had been wondering the same thing.
"Ah! Communities first! Eunji, you check the forums — I'll check the articles!"
While Kim Nakyung and Assistant Manager Kwak Eunji buried their faces in their computers, I unfolded my laptop and started with the community reactions myself.
I hit refresh.
One post was rapidly climbing in views, comments, and upvotes. I clicked it.
The director on this is Yoon Hyunbae, head of TVK's Drama Bureau. Like fifteen, twenty years ago… anyway, every hit drama TVK had back then, this guy directed it. Didn't play office politics at all — made bureau chief on pure skill. That's why he's got a ridiculous number of juniors who follow him. He's a legend in his own right. But he was about to get stripped of his title taking the fall for Running Today as Well tanking.
I went still.
Was this person actually on the crew? They had the internal situation down exactly.
I dragged the mouse and kept reading.
So he figured this was it — his last one — and even though he's bureau chief he took the director's chair himself. Wouldn't let a junior clean up the mess. Since it was a filler slot they threw in every idle crew member they had, and every last one of them is a veteran with insane years on the clock. The AD is this guy Kim Hak-seon, a deputy head — that not ringing a bell? Put simply, the guy who used to put directors in their place got assigned as assistant director.
Internally we were half hyped, half terrified. Like, what if the old guys' hands shake and the picture shakes. Obviously those expensive cameras don't shake just because you shake, I'm speaking metaphorically. Anyway we were genuinely worried. These old-timers' instincts are shot, maybe we should just help them out? That's where our heads were. And then the thing looks incredible… fuck. I thought they slammed the color grade to eleven.
A few photos had been uploaded as proof. From the look of them, they had not been taken by anyone on the crew — more like shots from a distance. Odds were the writer was one of the employees going in and out of TVK Headquarters, which they had been using as the chaebol company building in the show.
Even my boss's boss got thrown onto that set. I always said he never does any real work, just nags. I looked down on him so hard. Starting now I'm following him around like a lost puppy. Anyone remember the KBC strike back in the day? Exact same energy. Bujang Bank — that wasn't a rumor, it was fact. Don't you dare look down on the old men at the company for not working. I was actually shocked, no joke.
Every time I refreshed, more comments stacked up underneath.
Ah.
A gaze settled thick against my back. I turned my head slowly.
"…It's good."
Managing Director Choi Yoona was looking at the monitor I had been reading, her face lit with excitement. I offered her a slight smile in return.
"Yes. It is."
At my answer she dipped her head in another little bow of greeting, then went back to tapping at her phone. Congratulatory messages seemed to be coming in from every direction.
Running Today as Well, which had wrapped last week, had crashed so cultishly hard that — just as the communities had it — a lot of people had sat down tonight to watch how much further TVK could fall. One episode had shut that down cold.
There was no guarantee it would keep running like this. But for today, at least, we were allowed to be happy.
And then—
Choi Yoona's expression, which had been moving through the congratulatory texts, went stiff.
Even as he said it, Ghost poked his head out to look at Choi Yoona's phone screen — and his face hardened just as grimly.