Chapter 028
On my first day at the film company ‘Big Picture’, I took a deep breath inside the elevator as I went up to the office.
The connection I had unexpectedly made with the film company ‘Big Picture’ in my second life.
I thought of it as an opportunity.
This time, I hoped that I, or perhaps I should say, the new me, could finally walk down a proper and smooth path.
But··· this place was no longer a smooth path.
No, as long as Choi Moon-ho was the main producer, I might have to fight a war every single day.
With a “Ding-”, the elevator doors opened on the 9th floor.
The office of film company ‘Big Picture’ was on the 12th floor.
However, CEO Han Tae-sung had opened a separate office on the 9th floor of the same building exclusively for the staff of this movie, ‘Blue Sun, Red Moon’, so I reported to work on the 9th floor.
Like the 12th-floor office, the 9th-floor office had an open layout without partitions, divided into spaces for the directing department, production department, and art team.
There was also a large conference room and several smaller meeting rooms.
The small meeting rooms had been arranged so that the costume team, makeup team, and other teams could store their equipment there.
Production manager Choi Seon-hwa and Cha Seung-jun had already arrived at the office.
“You’re here early?”
I greeted them lightly and walked toward my seat.
“Oh, you’re here?”
“That’s your seat over there.”
I went to the desk Choi Seon-hwa pointed at with her chin and sat down.
“The computer isn’t connected to the internet yet.”
“The installation technician will come in the afternoon and set it up.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, there’s a refrigerator, sink, and coffee machine in the pantry over there, so use them if you need anything.”
“For your information, I’ve already had mine, so don’t worry about me.”
I nodded to show that I understood.
Then Cha Seung-jun glanced at me and nodded toward the pantry.
It basically meant, ‘Let’s have a cup of coffee.’
“Hey, commercial movies really are commercial movies.”
“This office isn’t even a café, so what’s with this ridiculously expensive coffee machine?”
Cha Seung-jun kept expressing his amazement as he drank coffee brewed from the high-end coffee machine.
Come to think of it, compared to the office that had been converted from Director Song Jae-hyun’s garage just a month ago, this really was a tremendous improvement.
“By the way, did you have trouble sleeping?”
“Your face looks completely worn out.”
‘There’s no way I could have slept peacefully after what happened yesterday···.’
Instead of answering, I simply nodded.
“You must have been nervous because it’s your first day.”
“We’re going to be working seriously from today, though.”
“Are you going to be okay?”
‘Hyung, the problem isn’t working hard right now.
‘I’m worried about how far I’m going to be dragged around···.’
At nine o’clock, everyone from the directing and production departments had arrived.
The directing department consisted of five people in total: assistant director Jung Min-hwan, script supervisor Hwang Min-hee, and the directing staff Kim Il-seung, Park Han-kyung, and Go Jin-joo.
Except for the youngest, Go Jin-joo, all of them had worked together in the directing department since Director Park Jun-beom’s previous movie.
Production manager Baek Seong-han and assistant director Jung Min-hwan were already familiar faces to me.
However, for the rest of the production and directing departments, today was practically their first official introduction.
So, after briefly introducing ourselves, we gathered by team and began our morning meeting.
During the first production department meeting, we were each assigned our respective roles.
In an independent film, there was no clear distinction between ‘your job’ and ‘my job’, and everyone had to treat everything as their own responsibility.
But commercial films had a fairly well-organized system.
“Manager Choi, you’ll manage the set team and oversee the set work.”
“You’ll also coordinate with the directing department and back them up with the actors’ schedules and other things.”
“You understand?”
“Yes.”
“Then, will you personally handle the PPL sponsorships, Manager?”
Baek Seong-han and Choi Seon-hwa used their official titles with each other, unlike before when they had casually called each other hyung and dongsaeng.
“Yeah, I’ll handle that.”
“And Seung-jun, check with the location manager regarding location scouting and securing filming locations.”
“You’ll also manage the staff schedules.”
“Yes.”
“Gi-nam, check and manage whatever situations are necessary for on-site management.”
“And Gi-baek, since you’re handling accounting anyway, I think you can take care of accommodation, meals, and purchasing supplies while doing the accounting work.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, and for things like the four major insurances related to labor costs, I can coordinate with the accounting team on the 12th floor, right?”
“Oh~ Gi-baek, this is your first commercial movie and your first time handling production accounting.”
“How did you know about something like that?”
I instantly realized my mistake.
Pretending not to know something I actually knew was harder than I had expected.
Looking smart was good.
But making people think, ‘Wait, why does this guy know everything?’ was dangerous.
“Ah··· A senior female student from my university used to work in production accounting.”
“I think I heard her talking about things like that before.”
“Ahem···.”
Besides, constantly coming up with excuses like this was not easy either.
So I decided that I needed to keep my mouth shut as much as possible.
I gave them a vague excuse.
Just as the hour-long meeting was coming to an end, Director Park Jun-beom and Choi Moon-ho entered the office together.
Choi Moon-ho opened his mouth with a sly smile.
“Okay, is everyone more or less settled in?”
“It’s chaotic since it’s the first day, right?”
“Still, we have to do what needs to be done.”
After the individual meetings, we moved to the large conference room to hold the first group meeting between the directing and production departments.
“Did you guys choose the production staff based on their faces?”
“Why is everyone so pretty and handsome?”
Director Park Jun-beom made a light joke to ease the stiff atmosphere.
Choi Moon-ho picked up from the director’s words and began the meeting.
“First, we’re planning to start filming around the end of July, or by early August at the latest.”
“It’s not confirmed yet, so let’s adjust everyone’s schedules flexibly for now.”
“We have to finish all the filming before the season changes···.”
“Then, if we assume the filming wraps up in November···”
