The Set Is Chaos, but the Film Is on Course
The set of director Ju-eun Schepper's shoot was always awash in complaints. Today, too, that unholy racket should have been ringing out — but strangely, it was quieter than usual. There was one reason for it. An eighteen-year-old sat waiting in full special-effects makeup without a word of protest. So, for the time being, everyone was biting their tongues. It wouldn't last, but still.
Well, that's unexpected.
He was young, yes, but he'd recently had a monster hit — she'd figured someone like him would carry himself with at least a little swagger. He certainly looked the part at first glance.
But she'd been wrong. Lee Heeyoon simply waited with a calm that made it seem like this endless standby was his natural destiny.
With the budget so meager, the special-effects makeup itself was laughable. She'd tried her best to save money, but looking at him now, she couldn't help wondering whether anyone could lose themselves in a getup like that. Even Do Yeojin, the lead actress, was thinking the same thing.
Maybe I should have spent more money…….
That was what director Ju-eun Schepper thought — but she could hardly say it out loud. It had been the same back in university, and even after graduation, every time she'd made a film, some part of her had wanted to run away. If a low-budget picture was already this rough, she'd probably have nightmares every night if she ever got to direct something big. Directing was a job that came with crushing pressure.
The slate clapped shut. Ju-eun Schepper waited for Lee Heeyoon's first movement.
Lee Heeyoon's greatest asset was his face. Blunt as it was to say, it was a first-rank advantage that outshone everything in any situation. And right now, that advantage was completely hidden beneath the makeup.
Heeyoon walked over and gently stroked the hair of Do Yeojin, who was drenched in a cold sweat.
[I missed you.]
The moment Lee Heeyoon began to move, the corners of Ju-eun Schepper's mouth crept upward, entirely against her will. This was going to work.
[I missed you too. I wanted to see myself. I wanted to see you.]
[So we finally met.]
[I love you.]
After hearing that line, Ju-eun Schepper realized she had, without ever being aware of it, placed an enormous amount of trust in Lee Heeyoon. She had kept him waiting all that time — and then, on the very first take, handed him the scene she loved most of everything she'd ever written.
It was the scene early in the film where a woman falls in love with the skin grafted onto her from her husband — where she begins to believe that the flesh is him — the moment a figure who had seemed nothing but a madwoman shifts before your eyes into something else entirely.
[I love you.]
[I want to see you.]
But the skin was already part of her body. The woman knew as well that it could not be removed. And yet the monster-life wanted to see her.
Lee Heeyoon delivered the performance flawlessly.
The heroine's dead husband — and the heroine herself — and, in part, the child between the two of them. And a monster, and skin, and a living thing.
When Lee Heeyoon showed her that impossible hybrid of a being, right there before her eyes, Ju-eun Schepper knew with certainty there could be no better answer. A creature that had existed only as a vague fog in her own head until now had parted that fog itself and walked out into the light.
Ju-eun Schepper fixed her attention on Do Yeojin's expression. Do Yeojin was feeling exactly the same thing. She had, at last, fallen in love. There wasn't a trace of hesitation in the way she held the grotesque creature against her chest.
And now the bargain-bin special-effects makeup Lee Heeyoon was wearing had become proof of Ju-eun Schepper's cost-effective good judgment. She was satisfied.
Ju-eun Schepper bellowed a resounding OK sign.
* * *
Everything on this set — everything except me — was a complete disaster. All I could think was, can you actually make a movie like this?
Things stayed quiet for a brief stretch at the start, but from midway through, the fights just kept erupting. The director fought with the assistant director, the director fought with the actors, the director fought with…… hold on. Was the director simply picking fights with everyone?
To be honest, I had my own complaints about Ju-eun Schepper plenty of times. And she flared up at the drop of a hat. Was this really someone I could trust?
But before the audition, I had watched her films. One short, one feature. Honestly, neither was that great. But when I thought about this director's style, the story now in production felt like a genuinely perfect match for her.
There are directors like that — ones who spend years not knowing their own style. They don't know what they're good at, so they make things that don't suit them, and they mistake that gap for a lack of talent.
But then one day, out of nowhere — almost by accident — they come across a film they never dreamed they could make well, and they turn it into a masterpiece beyond all reason.
Not that I'm saying this director is one of them. She seems, frankly, doomed…….
"No, dammit, that's what I'm saying!"
"Dammit? Did you just say dammit to me?"
"I said don't put the apple box here!"
"Who told you to move it entirely? I said don't put it where it'll get in the shot!"
"Hey, a director can be replaced, but an apple box can't!"
"Then let's replace the director with an apple box!"
"Replace her! Replace her!"
With so many of her college friends and juniors on set, the fights spilled well past professional and into deeply personal territory. There were far too many lunatics here. It was so loud I wanted to go home.
Do Jaeyeon had been tagging along as my manager for nearly this whole shoot, and every time I felt my temper spike and a fight coming on, she plugged my mouth with something to drink. What Do Jaeyeon handed over was usually some unclassifiable, exotic concoction. It tasted faintly revolting — but revolting enough to snuff out my anger. What on earth could be worth getting mad about, when there existed this beverage Do Jaeyeon had invented? That was the logic, anyway.
I was mid-sip when Gam Soohan, the VP, belatedly climbed out of his car and came sprinting over in a state of complete panic. Then he pressed into my hand an utterly ordinary eolbapsa — the classic blend of ice, Bacchus energy drink, and lemon-lime soda — and took the mystery drink out of my grip. He took one sip of the confiscated thing and asked me:
"You know what's in this, and you drank it anyway?"
"Ginger, dark chocolate, and carrot. Ginger warms the body up, and dark chocolate and carrot are supposed to soothe your temper when you eat them."
Do Jaeyeon nodded with satisfaction beside me as I recited the explanation word for word. She was drinking the same thing. The ultimate efficiency pragmatist. Who cares about taste — the efficacy is what matters…….
And I agreed with her, honestly. Before my regression, I'd guzzled efficiency juice like this all the time too. But Gam Soohan recoiled in horror and said to me:
"Heeyoon, you don't have to drink everything people hand you."
"It's efficient, though."
There was a whole library of these recipes — various blends for when you were down, or needed to cool a fever, or calm your nerves. I'd found the whole system perfectly sensible ever since before my regression, but apparently Gam Soohan hadn't quite arrived there yet. Then again, once he married into this, wouldn't he just adapt and live with it?
Anyway, I drank my newly-normalized beverage and pulled myself together. Gam Soohan had, at some point, gone off to break up the brawl between Ju-eun Schepper and Do Yeojin, which had devolved into a good old friends-only quarrel.
"There's a kid right here. Cut it out, both of you."
Ah, this situation — a fight breaking out on set, and for once, none of it was my fault. It was profoundly unfamiliar, and I was enjoying it. The way I saw it, about ninety percent of the fights on this set were the director's fault in the first place. A shoot that should have wrapped in three weeks was dragging toward the one-month mark. Barely any pay, given the scale. If that isn't the opening salvo of an all-out brawl, what is?
And yet I wasn't particularly worried about the film itself.
By my read, the surest sign of a movie gone bad had never appeared.
So there I was, sipping my eolbapsa and watching the fight like a spectator sport, when Do Yeojin turned and looked at me.
"Heeyoon. If you've got complaints, say something. You're the one taking the worst of it."
Gam Soohan immediately moved to shut it down.
"Why would you drag the kid into your fight? Heeyoon, you don't have to say a word."
"Soohan, I'm worried, okay? Worried. The movie still has to come out."
At that, Ju-eun Schepper bristled all over again.
"Why is the actor worried about that? That's my job — mine!"
"The shoot is a week behind schedule. On a production this size! Is that reasonable? And this is you having done your job properly, is it!"
The two of them went at it again. When friends make a movie together, the fights get ugly on an intensely personal level. I found myself seriously reconsidering the idea of making films with Woo Woongbae. There really was so much to learn from adults.
Do Yeojin's voice kept climbing, and since a blown-out throat would jeopardize the shoot, I finally stepped in.
"The movie coming out isn't something I'm worried about. Really."
Both grown women, bickering like schoolchildren, turned to stare at me. Ju-eun Schepper spoke first.
"Not worried…… you're worrying too little, if anything. Which, come to think of it, is also a problem."
Do Yeojin smacked her arm in exasperation at the absurdity — getting annoyed at him for not worrying. Ju-eun Schepper couldn't quite bring herself to hit a lead actress, so she just crumpled her hands up, muttered an uggh, and glared at me again. So I said a little more.
"Usually, when a movie starts going wrong…… it's because the director and everyone else have completely different pictures in their heads. But here, everyone's imagining the same thing, more or less. How it should be shot, how it should turn out. Everyone on this set knows it. Nobody disagrees. And if that's the case, it's fine. We're going the right way."
I swirled the ice around with my straw and thought.
Still, it'd be better to wrap quickly. No investor on earth loves a director whose shoots drag. I wanted to say that, but I figured Do Jaeyeon would give me an earful for it…….
So instead, I reached for the school excuse.
"But I do want to get back to school soon. I miss my friends."
At my words, a faint frost settled over the set. Do Yeojin turned to Ju-eun Schepper.
"……We'll shoot fast. What do you need me to do?"
"Ah — thank you……."
Thankfully, the two made up. Friendship quarrels really do dissolve like a knife through water…… no wait, that was married couples?
One perk of being a student is that you can wave the school card everywhere and anywhere. And the moment school comes up, everyone's heart swings wide open. Education fever really is a shared national emotion in Korea, apparently.
Filming resumed. All the same, both Gam Soohan and Do Jaeyeon were wearing oddly dark expressions. Do Jaeyeon asked me:
"Want to go back to school?"
"Why do you ask?"
"No reason. Just…… this year, after this project, maybe you could rest for a while."
"Ah — no."
"No?"
"I like it best when I'm acting. School's better than a fistfight, sure, but it's also a school where I learn acting, so it works out."
Having said my piece, I sank back into another long stretch of waiting.
After a storm of fighting passes, there's an endless stillness that follows. That was where we were now.
And so the film grew stranger and stranger by the day. We were a week behind schedule, yes — but the movie was unmistakably running toward its ending.
Gam Soohan said to me:
"You were right."
"About what?"
"This film is heading in the right direction."
"Why are you saying something so obvious?"
"Is it obvious?"
It was obvious.
The set was a battlefield, but the film was pointed dead-on toward the right place.
This was going to be a singular, unforgettable movie.