Because It's a CF, Not a Drama?
Because it's a CF, not a drama?
Chae Seoyun's Nike CF had originally been handled by Management Team 1.
That made sense—she belonged to Team 1.
But was the CF really about to land in our laps?
"Team 1 agreed. They want us to take over this CF from here on out."
"You managed to wring a tough concession out of them."
"It wasn't that hard. Their team leader's got high hopes for this one too. It's not just any client—it's Nike."
Nike. The emperor of sports brands.
Even for a Hallyu star like Chae Seoyun, this was a massive deal.
A chance to broadcast a world-class image in a single stroke.
"More than anything, their team leader fell hard for the underwater scene you shot and your friend's company CG'd."
"The footage was pretty insane, yeah."
"I loved that clip too. Felt like Hollywood CG houses would show up with bags of cash begging for lessons. Am I wrong?"
"Mm, I think the same."
On a roll, Team Leader Jo Unseok of the 3rd Team launched into his impressions of the animation Journey of the Green Star that had gone up on the 30THC channel.
"The scenario's grand and heart-pounding, no question. But the CG actually did the scenario justice. If the CG had been even a little sloppy, it would've collapsed into one of those 'great script, trash visuals' mediocrities."
All I'd done was buy the scenario and nag the Future App to hurry up and make it.
Still, the praise sent a pleasant rush of hormones flooding through me.
"The voice acting felt completely natural. Voices matched the character designs perfectly."
"Those are computer-synthesized voices."
"Figures. They were that good, yet I'd never heard them before."
Jo Unseok looked oddly disappointed.
"But Journey of the Green Star—no side stories coming?"
"Side stories?"
"Yeah. It's a six-episode series totaling twenty minutes each, right? Wouldn't it be great if they dropped something like a theatrical film with a runtime over a hundred twenty minutes?"
An angle I hadn't even considered. My ears pricked up.
A theatrical version…
"If they locked the theatrical cut behind a membership subscription, it'd help long-term revenue too. Looking at 30THC, they seem completely uninterested in making money. I worry whether the business is even viable."
I flinched for no good reason.
"From what I've heard, they're planning to upload a lot more subscriber-exclusive content going forward."
"Really? Good. A CG outfit like 30THC needs to stay financially healthy and keep thriving."
All right. Time to make a theatrical film.
I held the animation rights, so I could invent side-story material to my heart's content.
Of course, I was hopeless at actual story creation.
But I could just order something like, 'Make a theatrical film where the protagonist does this, then that, then ends up like so—atmosphere solemn yet light, packed with thrills.'
Still, that feels too cheap. Should I ask the original author for a side-story scenario too?
A highly desirable attitude for a producer.
1 Model Slot granted.
I'd hit the right answer.
The Future App will click through everything if I just demand it start to finish, but it never hands out extras like Model Slots. When I put effort into something I can do myself, that's when the bonus rewards drop.
Congratulations on realizing this yourself.
If the user grows bored of video production and stops using this app, that is the worst possible outcome for the production company.
It had said something similar early on.
But I got it.
Even with games, unlimited editor mode made you burn out fast.
Though personally I prefer auto-hunting.
At the hotel chosen for the Nike meeting, I met Director Kim Seongjin, the former overall CF director.
Contrary to expectations, he was completely cool about it.
"Honestly, at first I thought about farming the CG for every part except the underwater scene out to 30THC to raise the overall quality. But once we started shooting, I realized that wasn't the way."
While he himself was still wavering, Nike had seen the underwater CG and made a bold call, and Director Kim Seongjin had reached his own decision.
Team Leader Jo Unseok spoke to him with careful courtesy.
"This could have left a bad taste, so we're grateful you accepted it so readily. Looking forward to working with you."
"Likewise."
Director Kim Seongjin shifted from overall director to camera director.
Overall control would sit with our 3rd Team, and the CG would come from my 30THC channel.
No one lost face. The merger was clean and ideal.
At last the Nike clients arrived.
Two of them.
A slim, delicate-looking Korean woman around 165 cm, and a burly skinhead white man.
So that guy's the Nike marketing director.
Not as big as me, but objectively solid. Physical enough to work security.
We stood and exchanged greetings.
"Pleasure to meet you. Jo Unseok, Team Leader of the 3rd Team at Pine Tree Entertainment."
"Cha Doyoung, Manager of the 3rd Team."
The bald white man nodded.
Even without Korean, he could tell we were introducing ourselves…
"Boss, he said…."
What?
"The director says the underwater part sent a full-body thrill through her soul. And also…"
What the hell? The Korean pronunciation was suspiciously native-level.
How did a blue-eyed skinhead white man speak with that fluency?
"Really… impressed… big."
"She just said she was deeply impressed—ah, you three understood that yourselves."
So the white man was the Nike director, and the woman who looked Korean enough to fool anyone was the interpreter? No?
"Director Jenny Kim is a second-generation Korean-American. She can manage simple Korean, but for a smooth meeting she will converse only in English."
She was actually Korean—no, a second-generation Korean-American?
Jenny Kim, the client representing Nike, spent a full hour describing how deeply the underwater part had moved her.
Subtract the interpretation time and it was probably a thirty-minute monologue.
I was bored out of my mind, but I fought desperately not to show it.
In contrast, Team Leader Jo Unseok and Director Kim Seongjin poured every sense into Jenny Kim's eyes, her words, and the interpretation.
Jenny Kim was deeply disappointed to hear she couldn't meet the CG people.
I handled that explanation smoothly.
"These are people who believe locking themselves in the studio and producing even one more CG cut matters more than running around to meetings."
She accepted that immediately.
"If you visit their official YouTube channel, you'll see just how exceptional the CG company's skill is."
While I was at it, I casually promoted my own 30THC channel.
"At that price, the company will accept."
"She's asking if you can guarantee that."
"Yes. I've been given full authority on that point."
At those words Jenny Kim stared at me in open surprise.
"She's asking what your relationship with 30THC is."
"A close friend works there. For this CF only, I've been asked to act as sales proxy."
The meeting ended. Jenny Kim rose looking thoroughly satisfied.
The moment we were alone, Team Leader Jo Unseok said,
"I thought she was the interpreter, but she was the client."
"I thought the same."
"Anyway, Nike must really love it. They're famous for being ridiculously picky during contract talks, yet they just steamrolled straight to the finish line."
True—no brakes, just a clean run to the goal.
Director Kim Seongjin shrugged.
"Nike knows it too. That underwater CG? Hollywood couldn't produce it for this money in this timeframe. Not a chance."
Team Leader Jo Unseok called Team Leader Park Sejin of Team 1 and reported that talks had gone well.
Even though the job had come to us, Chae Seoyun still belonged to Team 1, so progress updates were required.
"Team Leader Park heard the story and started clapping and roaring with laughter."
"Why?"
"Apparently the same people who tore into the domestic company Team 1 introduced—grilling them over whether the quote was even right—turned into quiet little puppies."
Director Kim Seongjin snickered beside him.
"They fell completely head-over-heels for that rough underwater CG. And when they heard it wasn't even the finished product—just real-time applied CG—they lost their minds. You two should've seen their faces."
The revised CF concept arrived from Nike.
A mermaid races to the end of the sandy beach, changes into a surfer suit, and cuts across the waves.
Her sneakers transform naturally into a surfboard.
A pod of dolphins swims alongside; the woman watches them and smiles.
She leaps from the waterfall at the edge of the horizon where the sea ends…
That last part made no sense to me, so I asked Director Kim Seongjin.
"Is this asking us to make the ocean turn into a waterfall like flat-earth theory?"
"I thought it was weird too and checked. Yes, that's exactly what they want."
I hoped rumors wouldn't start that a flat-earther sat on Nike's executive board.
The woman lands where the vast ocean waterfall crashes down.
She sets the surfboard—bearing a large logo—beside the lakeshore and changes into sandals.
As her figure recedes, the Nike logo on the surfboard grows larger and larger until it fills the entire frame.
"Wow. They're really going all-in on the CG greed."
"Runtime got shorter than the first draft, but the visual scale ballooned beyond comparison."
The ocean had been only part of the CF theme; now water itself had become the entire central motif.
A concept that screamed, We're dumping everything into CG!
But I liked it.
We were already charging fifty million won per second of CG.
I'd click out a visual scale so magnificent they'd feel guilty for paying too little—never that the money was wasted.
"We meet again."
"Have you been well?"
I bowed my head at Chae Seoyun's dry greeting.
She read the concept while listening to Director Kim Seongjin, who was handling the shoot, explain.
"In the end, Miss Chae Seoyun's shooting fatigue has dropped significantly."
"For the scene where I ride the surfboard across the waves, I just hold the pose and stand still?"
"Yes, that's correct."
Chae Seoyun tilted her head this way and that as she read the concept and commentary, apparently building the images in her mind.
Then she looked at me.
"Manager Cha, have you drawn any storyboards?"
"Ah, this time the acting direction was simple enough from the description that I didn't bother sketching any contis."
"I see."
Chae Seoyun turned her eyes back to the concept as if she understood.
Her expression looked slightly off.
"Because it's a CF, not a drama…?"
Her muttered words reached me by the barest margin.
Had she been hoping for storyboards?
"A little disappointing…"
This time the drawn-out ending of the sentence came through a bit more clearly.