Chapter 60

Chapter 060

I spoke to Gil Bo-young, intending to tell her which of the projects she had received were likely to do well in the future.

“Actually, I came here to ask you about that. When it comes to judging projects, you’re probably much more of an expert than I am, Mr. Gibek.”

“Of course, I’ll take a look.”

“By the way, Chang-soo told me that you’re starting work in the Planning Team tomorrow, right, Mr. Gibek? Congratulations.”

“Ah, yes... That’s how it turned out.

Thank you.”

“Well, even if you’re not working on the set anymore, we’ll still see each other often... Right?”

“Of course.”

Just then, the area around the event venue suddenly became noisy, as if the ceremony had finally ended.

“Oh?

Looks like the ceremony is over.

I have an interview scheduled, so I’ll get going first.

Let’s meet again in Seoul soon.”

Ma Sang-hee quickly walked away.

Left alone once again, I thought about Kim Eun-kyung, whom I had met a little while ago.

Human feelings really were fickle.

Just a few minutes ago, I had felt strangely lonely and disappointed at the thought of leaving this filming location all by myself.

I had even become sentimental for no reason.

But now, I felt that this was no time to indulge in such emotions.

The next morning, instead of going to the ninth-floor office, I went to the twelfth-floor office.

Since I had only arrived in Seoul at dawn, dark circles were clearly visible beneath my eyes.

Fortunately, thanks to the high-powered energy drink I had downed at a convenience store before coming to work, I could barely keep myself awake.

When I entered the twelfth-floor office, an employee from Big Picture’s accounting department greeted me.

I had seen her several times before while dealing with production accounting and other work-related matters.

“Oh, that’s right.

Mr. Gibek, you’re working in the Planning Team on the twelfth floor starting today.”

“Ah, yes.

Assistant Manager Jung, I look forward to working with you.”

“There’s not really anything you need from me.

Hoho.

The Planning Team decided to use the old main conference room, so go over there.

It looks like the other team members have already arrived, too.”

“Ah, yes.

Thank you.”

Hearing that the other team members had already arrived, I hurried toward the conference room.

The nameplate attached to the conference room had been changed from ‘Main Conference Room’ to ‘General Planning Team.’

Knock knock.

After knocking, I opened the door.

The old conference room had once contained long office tables and chairs where around twenty people could hold a meeting at the same time.

Now, it had been rearranged with four office desks, bookshelves, and a six-person meeting table with chairs.

A man who looked to be in his thirties and a woman who appeared to be in her twenties were sitting at the desks.

They turned toward me and immediately stood up.

“Min Gibek?”

“Ah, yes.

Hello.

I’m Min Gibek.”

“Nice to meet you.

I’m Oh Sang-min.”

“I’m Joo Han-young.

Nice to meet you.”

These were the same two people whose eyes had met mine while they were with Team Leader Kim Eun-kyung yesterday.

However, their attitude toward me was so bright and friendly that I wondered if I had simply misunderstood them yesterday.

“Yes.

I look forward to working with you.”

“I heard you came from a filming set?

And I think I heard that you’re still quite young...”

“Han-young, isn’t that a little rude to say when you’ve only just met him?”

“Oh, is it?

I’m sorry.”

Oh Sang-min reprimanded Joo Han-young in a gentle tone.

“Ah, no.

It’s fine.

I dropped out of university and entered the field immediately, so I am still relatively young.”

For a moment, the two exchanged awkward glances after hearing that I had dropped out of university.

*What?

Have they never seen a university dropout before?*

Just then, Team Leader Kim Eun-kyung entered the Planning Team.

“Why are you all standing around?”

“Oh, Team Leader, you’re here?”

“Have you already introduced yourselves?”

“We just exchanged names.”

“Then that’s enough.

All right, shall we start figuring out our work?”

I later learned that Oh Sang-min had majored in planning and marketing at a famous university in the United States.

After working in a related position at a large corporation, he had been recruited by Big Picture.

Joo Han-young had also graduated from Seoul National University’s Department of Communication and Information.

After that, she completed graduate school in the United States, majoring in a media-related field.

Her résumé was impressive enough to make anyone gasp.

When I had first seen them in Buan, I had wondered why I felt such a strange sense of incompatibility between them and me.

Now, I could roughly understand the reason.

Our first official work meeting began.

Before the meeting, Team Leader Kim Eun-kyung explained that regardless of age or experience, all of us were basically beginners when it came to film planning.

Therefore, for the time being, we would simply be team members without any titles.

“So, naturally, whoever produces results first will be the one who gets promoted, right?”

She’s going to judge us purely by our results?

There was no reason for me to dislike that arrangement.

But still, were they trying to create a competitive atmosphere among the three of us from our very first day?

At the words ‘results’ and ‘promotion,’ the eyes of Oh Sang-min and Joo Han-young were already shining strangely.

“All right.

From this moment on, our job is to find the screenplay for Big Picture’s next movie, which will be produced within the next three months.”

As she said this, Kim Eun-kyung went to her desk.

She then struggled to carry a large cardboard box from underneath her desk and placed it on the meeting table.

The cardboard box was filled with printed film proposals and screenplays.

“Gibek, there are two more under my desk.

Could you move them over here?”

At Kim Eun-kyung’s request, I quickly carried the two large cardboard boxes from beneath her desk.

Kim Eun-kyung looked at the boxes she had gathered together and smiled broadly.

“I haven’t counted them exactly, but there are about 100 scripts in each box.

So there are roughly 300 movie screenplays in total.

How about we tear through these scripts this month?”

*Whoa...

If there are 300 scripts...

That means I have to read a solid ten scripts every day...*

“All right!

Exactly one month from now, each of you will bring me five screenplays from this collection that you think could become successful movies.

And along with them, include the reasons why you think each screenplay has the potential to succeed, as well as your strategies and so on.”

Despite her relaxed smile, there was a strange madness in Kim Eun-kyung’s eyes.

I thought that if I had studied this hard when I was in high school, I might have even gotten into Seoul National University.

Except for the time I spent sleeping, I was reading screenplays while eating, and even while taking a dump.

I read them.

Then I read them again.

And again.

At first, I thought separating the gems from the ordinary scripts would be ridiculously easy for me.

After all, I should be able to tell whether a movie would become a hit just by looking at its title...

But an unexpected problem appeared right in front of me.

In most cases, the title used when the movie was actually released was different from the title used during the early stages of screenplay development.

The contents were also often subtly different from the final movie.

Finding future hit movies simply by looking at the title or the synopsis in the proposal was much harder than I had expected.

In the end, there was nothing I could do but read screenplay after screenplay endlessly.

“Let’s see.

The protagonist is falsely accused and imprisoned, and he plans to escape from prison...

Huh?

This story...

It’s the movie ‘Escape of Fury’...”

The title was different from the one used when the movie was released in theaters.

But there was no doubt that this was the story of the movie ‘Escape of Fury,’ which was released in 2007.

I slowly searched through my memories.

I couldn’t remember the exact details, but I remembered that it had attracted around three million viewers.

The movie had also been well received for its quality, and I believed it had ranked somewhere in the middle-upper range among the movies released in 2006.

In 2006 and 2007, an unprecedented number of movies were produced in South Korea.

Because the supply was enormous while the demand could not keep up, even movies in the middle-upper range barely managed to surpass three million viewers.

Still, this movie had decent quality and performed reasonably well at the box office...

As I continued picking out the movies that would become successful one by one, the one-month deadline Team Leader Kim Eun-kyung had given us finally approached.

I had stayed up all night organizing the presentation materials for our meeting.

With my exhausted body dragging itself toward the elevator, I was about to head upstairs when I heard a familiar voice.

“Hey, Min Gibek.

It’s been a while.”

“Hyung, have you been well?”

Cha Seung-jun and Moon Chang-soo were already inside the elevator.

It looked like they had come up from the underground parking lot.

“Huh?

Hyung, aren’t you filming somewhere outside Seoul?”

It had been almost a month since I had seen their faces, so I was genuinely happy to see them.

“Yeah.

We were supposed to shoot outdoors today, but they’re expecting rain in the afternoon, so we stopped for now.

What about you?

Is the Planning Team work manageable—

...Never mind.

Your face...”

After seeing my face, Cha Seung-jun couldn’t bring himself to finish his sentence.

He simply shook his head.

“Is it that hard?”

“No.

It’s not hard.

I just read screenplays until I feel like throwing up, then read some more, and keep reading.

Haha.

What about the filming site?

That must be harder than this...”

It would not be an exaggeration to say that summer filming was a war against brutal heat and insects.

“My body being tired is something I already expected, so I can endure that somehow...”

Soon, the elevator doors opened on the ninth floor.

Curious about what had happened, I followed the two of them out.

“Why?

Did something happen?”

“Don’t even get me started.

That bastard Park Jun-sang...”

At the word ‘bastard,’ Cha Seung-jun hurriedly looked around before glaring threateningly at Moon Chang-soo.

“Ahem.

I told you to watch what you say wherever you are.

You know the saying, ‘The mouse hears what is said at night, and the bird hears what is said during the day,’ don’t you?”

“Ah, sorry.

Ahem.”

Moon Chang-soo gave Cha Seung-jun an awkward smile before getting back to the main point.

“No, I’m talking about actor Park Jun-sang.

He suddenly said he had the flu and took four days off from his schedule.

But get this!

We found out that he lied to us about being sick and actually went to Hong Kong to film a commercial!”

“What?

Really?”

“Seriously, what a bas—”

Moon Chang-soo barely managed to swallow the word ‘punk’ before it fully came out.

“Anyway, because of that, all the other actors’ filming schedules got completely messed up.

Then we got blamed for making such a terrible schedule, along with the directing department...”

“By the way, how did you find out that Park Jun-sang had filmed a commercial in Hong Kong?”

“Well, someone said they saw Park Jun-sang in Hong Kong, took a picture, and uploaded it to Cyber World.

And then it turned out that the person who uploaded the picture was actually someone from our props team.”

“Exactly.

In this day and age, where is there any such thing as a secret?

Something that was bound to be exposed within a week...”

I almost laughed when Moon Chang-soo said, ‘In this day and age.’

*Just wait another ten years.

No, even five years.

With YouTube, Instagram, and the age of social media, this world will become a place where there are practically no secrets at all.*

I simply nodded and acted like I understood what had happened.

“Ah, how much filming is left for Noona Bo-young and Hyung Hyun-bin?”

I still hadn’t even had the chance to review the screenplay that Ma Sang-hee’s manager had sent me last time.

“Hyun-bin still has quite a lot left.

As for Noona Bo-young, her filming is almost finished.

Except for the final ending scene in November.”

“I see...”

Just as I was thinking that I needed to find Bo-young’s next project as soon as possible, Cha Seung-jun looked at me with tired eyes.

“But...

Aren’t you going to work?

It’s nine o’clock.”

At the word ‘work,’ I suddenly snapped back to reality.

“That’s right!

Work!

This is no time to be standing around!

I have to prepare for my presentation!”

I had been so caught up in our long-overdue conversation that I hadn’t noticed how quickly time had passed.

I hurriedly got back into the elevator.

Cha Seung-jun and Moon Chang-soo watched as the elevator doors quickly closed.

They shook their heads.

“Tsk, tsk...

How can he be so absent-minded?

Still, he said the work was hard, but I guess he’s enjoying it.

His dark circles have practically reached his chin, but his eyes are still sparkling.”

“Exactly.

Even just now, didn’t he look incredibly excited while talking about some presentation?

Whenever I see him like that, I realize that Gibek-hyung has a bit of a pervert side to him, too.”

And so, Cha Seung-jun and Moon Chang-soo continued their conversation for quite some time.