Life, Once Again!

After Story 45

It was a series of scenes without any lines. He set Mijin to be a character that does not express any emotions.

In the first place, she couldn't be called a 'character'. The Mijin in the story was nothing but an illusion that Jungho saw.

There would be no crossing the barrier between life and death like in the film 'Ghost', nor would there be any resentful ghosts making a ruckus like in 'The Exorcist.'

Mijin's role was to simply stand there like a tree.

In the beginning, he used a different storyline progression. He intended to insert flashbacks of Jungho and Mijin being happy together and tried to change the atmosphere of the film by bestowing Mijin emotions halfway through the story.

However, he removed all those scenes when he revised the storyboard. He set it so that memories of Mijin only appeared through Lee Jungho so that the words Jungho uttered would form the human known as Mijin. As such, Mijin had to be beautiful. The only Mijin Jungho could see should be the one in his memories, without any objectivity at all. She was supposed to be a woman completely made from Jungho's delusions.

There wasn't any information that told what kind of person Mijin was in the film. He excluded all of them. He also removed any photos. Jungho's words and illusions were everything there was to Mijin.

Yoonseok looked at the two actors sitting on the bench through the camera. The two of them were maintaining a distance that was not too close to be that of lovers', nor too far that they looked like strangers.

He pulled the camera back as much as possible so that the two characters looked small.

Tree leaves started being colored in autumn, while the buildings stayed gray, and the two characters placed in the middle… the scene looked lonely.

Yoonseok maintained that state for about one minute. The thirty or so onlookers also watched the shoot quietly.

Just then, he could hear a crow cawing. He shouted cut when he heard the sound that broke the silence.

It was a pretty yet vain picture. The two of them sufficiently carried out the awkward and difficult requests made by the director.

Yoonseok put down the camera and approached the two. "That felt really good just now. Let's keep going like this."

"Was the distance okay?"

"I can't say a word about it."

Yoonseok immediately moved the camera. He explained the movement lines to the actors and walked with them. Although the scenes would mostly be still shots, he was planning to use handheld shooting in parts where Jungho's emotions were emphasized. For this, he bought a camera gimbal as well.

"Should I walk at this pace?" Haneul asked. Yoonseok just said that she just had to keep pace with Maru.

"I'll leave this to you, hyung. I'll capture your interpretation of what Jungho would feel as he walks down this street. I think the actor is more important here."

"That's a lot of pressure you're giving me." Maru smiled, not looking pressured at all. In fact, he looked like he was enjoying the fact that he got something to think about.

He felt like he got to learn the Han Maru manual a little more.

"Haneul-unni said she came here looking as pretty as possible just as you said. No wait, I think she said something about college level?" Jiseon suddenly said as she looked at the actors from a distance. Her voice was filled with both jealousy and pure envy.

Jiseon usually didn't make that kind of expression, so he looked at her quietly.

Jiseon asked what was up.

"No, nothing."

Yoonseok looked at Haneul. She was smiling right now, but she would be emotionless like the statue of Agrippa once the shoot began.

Her face was a stark contrast to the one-piece dress that had the color of innocence. Just as Maru told him not to worry, Haneul's acting was flawless.

"I don't think it will be strange even if Haneul-unni makes her debut soon. I've seen celebrities in real life a few times, but I think she's better off than some of them."

"Real appearance is one thing, but she's just as good on camera too."

Yoonseok zoomed in with the camera to capture Maru and Haneul's faces. The two of them were talking seriously without a smile on their faces.

It turned from a youthful melodrama to an espionage movie. Just taking a video of the two of them looked like a masterpiece.

"They look good together. Based on appearances alone, I thought Maru-oppa was not as good, but now that I look at them in one picture like this, it's a different story."

"They look like two interlocking pieces of a puzzle, don't they?"

"Yeah."

The two actors walking around the lake gave signs. It seemed they were ready. Jiseon asked the onlookers to be quiet. As this was a scene that would be edited into a montage later, it wouldn't matter even if there was some noise, but it might interrupt the actors.

After the shoot at the lake, they moved around to various places on campus. After every single cut, the number of onlookers increased. It became harder and harder to keep them in check. As they were coming from all sides, people started entering the frame where only the two actors were supposed to be.

In the end, all of the production crew stepped in. They paused the shoot and asked the students for their understanding.

"Excuse me, I'm sorry. Please move back a little."

"Please back off a little."

They moved around busily, but there wasn't much effect.

Yoonseok wondered if they should give up on shooting in front of the library.

"Everyone! Can you just give us five minutes?"

A loud voice suddenly came from behind. The ringing was quite loud as though someone was using a microphone attached to an amplifier. When he turned around, he saw Maru halfway up the stairs shouting with his hands in a cone shape around his mouth.

"We only need a little bit. I hope you can go to your right, to my left side."

It wasn't an annoyingly loud voice, but a sound that touched the hearts of people and stimulated them to move.

People were drawn by the deep, polite voice and moved to the right all at once. They even told others off if someone was separated, maintaining order by themselves.

"Thank you." Maru bowed deeply.

There were a lot of people and the space was rather open, so his voice should have disappeared, but Maru's voice was stable as it entered people's ears as though he was using a directional speaker.

Yoonseok felt this when Maru was shouting in the one-room apartment, but actor Han Maru's biggest advantage must be his voice.

If his expressions were worthy of 100 points, then his voice, which stimulated the sensory nerves, would be 120.

Yoonseok quickly held the camera up. He had to take an overall shot before things became messy again. He sent Jiseon to the entrance of the library and started the shoot immediately.

Maru slowly climbed down the stairs with Haneul two steps behind him.

"Done."

He got a satisfactory shot. He wanted to shoot more, but he couldn't with the crowd flocking. Although he had gotten permission to shoot within the university premises, he didn't have the right to block students from passing.

After cleaning up the area, they moved to the school cafeteria.

"Now that we actually tried shooting, each and every cut is pure labor, huh," Jiseon said. Yoonseok deeply agreed with her.

Some of the cuts would only appear for about 2 seconds in the final piece. Yet, they had to invest 30 minutes for that.

It was good that he revised the storyboard a lot due to realistic problems. If he went with the original one, a week wouldn't be enough, not to mention two days.

"If I think about it now, doing night scenes is really impossible huh," Yoonseok said to Jiseon.

Even with natural lighting, it was hard to get the lighting right. If they shot at night, then they would have trouble capturing the actors' faces.

The cafeteria, the street, in front of the department office, some empty lecture rooms, some corridors, the university back gates… and finally, he turned on the camera in the basketball court in front of the club building.

"The sun's falling! Quickly!"

At this point, it was a fight of time. After six o'clock, the sun started setting. He wanted to capture the border between night and day, so he had to hurry.

He used lights and reflectors to the fullest extent. As the amount of sunlight decreased, using the lights became a lot harder.

He decreased the luminosity to control the texture of light captured by the camera. He could see some deficiencies, but he couldn't help it. This was not something that could be fixed technologically.

"We'll shoot here and then the last outside scene."

After capturing Maru and Haneul being submerged under the sunset, he quickly took out the gimbals.

He connected the camera to the gimbal and did a test shoot. He even tried running with it, and it didn't shake to the point that it looked unbearable.

After checking what made just the right amount of shaking, he called Maru.

"Try running like you're jogging lightly. I'll be running next to you."

"Careful. If you fall backward while looking at the screen, you'll break a bone."

"I don't care as long as I can get a good shot."

He decided to shake the frame a little to express the fluctuation in emotions. He was worried because he wasn't using professional equipment, but he decided to have faith in the actor's expressions for now.

The whole crew moved to the entrance of the campus. There were still many onlookers.

"You can start running whenever you're ready. The camera's rolling."

After taking a breath, Maru started running. Yoonseok ran up to him and looked at the screen. The crying-yet-not-crying face appeared on the screen. It looked sorrowful and pitiful.

Based on his face alone, it was not a face that contained any kind of sadness or longing, but Maru depicted depression on his face really well.

Laughter due to the feeling of giving up burst out from time to time.

The melody of sadness soon turned into a serenade of glee. Within that glee were endurance and forfeit. The man who decided to love his illusion then started running at full speed.

Yoonseok tried to hold back his breathing as much as possible while keeping up with Maru before eventually stopping. He soon fixed his posture and shot Maru who was becoming more and more distant before he eventually became a dot and disappeared.

He checked the footage with Maru after he returned. Both of them said that they should reshoot almost simultaneously.

They ran and ran again. Yoonseok's breathing became more ragged.

Maru, who ran with him, no, ran a lot more than him, looked very calm with only a few droplets of sweat on his face.

Like that, they shot eight times. The shoot only ended when the skies turned purple and the actor's face could barely be seen.

"This is it," he uttered as soon as he checked the video.

It couldn't get better than this. Maru's face, on which the curtain of the night draped over, was the most ideal face that he was depicting in his head.

He wanted to lie down and rest, but there was no time for that. He got his equipment and went to the one-room apartment. He received encouragement from his friends on the way.

After going to the apartment, they shot many many times. As they had finished most of the dynamic scenes yesterday, it didn't take that long.

The smooth progress only had a hiccup when the two actors lay on the same bed. For some reason, laughter escaped once, and everyone started laughing like it was contagious.

"Don't laugh, sheesh!" Haneul said as she smacked Maru's back.

Having no choice, they took a 10-minute break before shooting again. Yoonseok barely held himself back from laughing and captured the two.

"This is the last one."

For the last bit, there was no need to look at the screen. Maru got up close to the microphone attached to the camera. This one was recording a narration.

Yoonseok originally thought about renting a recording studio, but Maru said that this was enough. The staff gathered around Maru like he was a campfire.

They looked at Maru with the script in front of him like they were holding a ritual or something.

Maru took a deep breath. "I loved her, and I still love her. She has no words, but I love her still. I look at her amidst the unease that she may disappear one day. I find her, whom I cannot see, and I look at her."

The voice seemed to have fingers as it gripped each and every word. It was a monologue that ended in an empty tone.

Yoonseok thought of the tranquil sea. The distant oceans had large waves, but it looked very cozy over here.

The wave slowly approached. Maru said his last line before the waves could flip everything over.

"I want to live a life of craziness, if that is the condition for love."