Life, Once Again!

After Story 37

He calmed down Collie after running around again and took a photo. He took a closeup shot with that innocent-looking face and sent it to Haneul. She liked dogs as much as he did. She even talked about how they should raise a dog in a house with a garden.

A dusty garden table with a dog and a child running around. Despite having experienced it a few times, he couldn’t help but long for that.

“Your pay will be transferred next month. And also, take this.”

The agency’s head manager gave him two business cards. One of them was his. The other one said Choi Younghoon on a black background.

“Director Choi told me to give it to you, saying he forgot. He said he’ll see you around if his hunch isn’t wrong.”

Maru put away the business cards in his wallet.

“Good job today.” The head manager turned around.

Cars with camera equipment started leaving Yeouido park one by one. The sounds of car exhaust becoming distant notified him that his work was done. Maru also packed his bag and left the park.

As it was rush hour, the train station was cramped. After he barely got on the train, he looked out the window. He could see a row of apartments along the Han river bank. It was a scenery that people who commuted to Yeouido for work would see every day.

He wondered how much money he would need to get into those rows of gray dominoes right now. His sense of money that had adjusted to reality started screaming. It told him that it might be a pie in the sky for this life.

1.5 million won — that was the pay he would receive for the advertisement, and it was an amount that would allow him to not have to worry about rent for a while.

He leaned against one of the bars and started browsing through internet communities. A rather well-known production company put up an announcement to recruit a minor actor. It had only been two hours, but there were thousands of views already, meaning, all the actors that browsed through the community had seen it.

He put the date on a memo app and looked at the next article.

-This stop is Suwon station. The doors are on your….

He quickly moved close to the door when he heard that announcement. He was swept by the crowd as he got off at the station. Maru put his phone down and watched their backs. It was hard to earn money as an actor. Perhaps the 1.5 million won he would be getting next month might be the last income he got from acting this year. That was just the life of a minor actor: studying acting alongside working part-time jobs, then taking on challenges only to be broken again.

He did need a stable source of income. Although he was putting it off due to all the auditions popping up recently, he slowly had to start looking for one, just like how Haneul was preparing something. The thing that maintained the balance between his dream and reality was none other than money.

He cleared his thoughts as he walked down the stairs.

Just three months. He decided to focus on auditions until just the end of the year. He decided to look for work at the turn of the year, if possible as a technician. It wasn’t that he was in a hurry. He already talked to Haneul about taking it slow.

They were only twenty-two this year. There was more than a decade until they were ripe as actors. They could take it slow. If he really couldn’t see any hope, he could just get technical licenses and make a living that way.

“The start is not bad,” he consoled himself.

The only thing he had was a body drenched in alcohol and cigarettes, but he managed to produce results already. He just had to keep trying and see how long this ‘veteran newbie’ would last.

He straightened his posture and started walking, imagining that an invisible camera was shooting down on him from above.

* * *

Choi Younghoon looked at the screen with his editor. “How is it?”

“It’s good. But we already explained the storyboard to the advertiser. It’s likely that he won’t like it if we suddenly suggest changing it…,” said the editor.

As this was a business that required tens of millions of won, the advertiser’s words were king since it was their capital. There were many people involved, not to mention money, so the norm was to create a good storyboard and explain it to the advertiser beforehand.

In a situation where they already notified the advertiser of what they were going to make, it wouldn’t be strange if the advertiser did not like any changes at this point.

“But don’t you think we can at least bring it up if it’s this good?”

“That’s true. It’s not doing the advertisement any disservice and it looks even better. If we can get confirmation, it shouldn’t look bad to edit it like this.”

Usually, the next thing to do would be to edit after every shoot was done, but they had to get confirmation since the cut was changed.

As Younghoon had expected, the video was good. The affection in the eyes of the dog and the model looked good. It felt like a waste to throw this away.

“If you’re going to take the video to the advertiser, should I put it on a USB for you?”

“Erase all the audio and export just the video. It’s still messy because we haven’t cleaned it.”

The most important duty of an advertisement director was to listen to the requests of the advertiser and carry them out to their full extent, but sometimes, there were times when he wanted to bring out his creative desires. Today was one such day. Younghoon looked at the model and the dog in the video and smiled.

“President, you have a guest,” said the team leader as he opened the door to the editing room.

Before he could ask who it was, he saw the man standing in the waiting room. It was the advertiser who had asked him to create the public service advertisement this time.

“What brings you here?” He walked to him first and greeted him.

“I had something to do around here and made a visit since I thought about this place. And also to watch whether you were doing your job.”

“There you go again. You’ll make my heart flinch if you say that.”

Younghoon first offered the man a seat. The man took off the flat cap that he always wore and sat down. To Younghoon, this advertiser was rather special. He was a man that he was close to, yet could not treat indifferently.

He took out some black tea from the fridge and offered it to the man.

“I hear you went to the shoot today?”

“Yes. It went well.”

“Looks like Collie was obedient, considering that he’s all smiles.”

“Thanks to the model, we had an easier time. It was a godsend that he could deal with dogs.”

“Really?”

Younghoon looked at the editing room and spoke, “Since you’re here, hyung-nim, no, president, I’d like to propose something. Please give me some of your time.”

“You, to me? If you’re planning to ask for more time, then don’t even think about it.”

“I’ve known you for years. You know I won’t do something like that.”

“Then what. You want me to have a look at this new kid you found?”

“That’s not called a proposal. I just changed the storyboard a little while doing the shoot today. He looked so good that I’m thinking about inserting additional scenes.”

“I liked the storyboard you sent me because it wasn’t cluttered.”

“Would you like to have a look first? I was planning to go find you with it anyway. I planned to meet your demands as much as possible, but this fellow is just too good to miss.”

“If you say so, then I guess I’ll have to take a look.”

Younghoon took the guest to the editing room. He opened the edited video.

While he called it ‘edited,’ it was just slicing and attaching the cuts according to the storyboard and adding the background music. Despite that, the video looked pretty decent.

“Let’s talk again after we watch this.” He played the video. Along with some calming music, Maru came up on the screen, running around with Collie in Yeouido station.

While the shoot was a hard one that involved over two hours of combined running time, the young model did not show a single sign of fatigue in front of the camera.

Younghoon looked at the eyes of the advertiser. The man was looking at the screen without taking his eyes off it. It meant that he had semi-succeeded already. This person was someone cold-hearted and would not show a shred of interest in something that he deemed wrong.

“And this is the additional part.”

A video that was taken in a calmer light started being played. The model’s acting continued, neither too bold nor too restrained. The way he looked at the dog and caressed it stimulated the emotions of the viewer.

When the model thanked the dog for returning in a whispering tone, the dog also seemed to respond and rubbed the model’s cheek and licked it.

Back when he shot it, he thought that it was a coincidence; he thought that the dog only responded at the right time due to complete chance. He changed his mind after playing it back a few times while editing. It was the model’s delicate acting that stimulated the dog’s emotions. It was an interaction between two species that could not communicate.

“Dogs really give affection to people without wanting anything, don’t they?” Younghoon said as he looked at the video that stopped. There was infinite love that dogs gave contained in that shortcut. It was a cut that fell in line with the intent of the advertisement. It was too much of a waste to throw it away.

“Where are you going to add this?”

“Right before the cut where the actor starts narrating. I think it’ll be a lot more impactful than our original plan, what do you think?”

“You want to add this, correct?”

“Yes. I like this one.”

Would this picky person allow it? The guest spoke again after looking at the screen for a while with his arms crossed,

“Not bad. I think we can change it.”

“Okay, then I’ll go with this.”

“But where did you get someone like that? He’s young, but he’s pretty proficient in handling his emotions.”

“I’m curious about that too. He hasn’t done anything until now, but the way he acts is full of leisure. He understands what he’s asked to do and displays it immediately. At first, I picked him based on the air around him alone. We can let the editing take care of the insufficiencies in acting after all. But when I actually shot with him, he was so good that we didn’t need to reshoot anything. It was unexpected.”

“He’s young, but he has talent.”

The guest stood up from his seat and put on the flat cap he was holding in his hand. “I’ll leave now. Since things look like they’re going well, I’ll just have a look at the final product without looking at any of the other updates.”

“You’re leaving already? You should eat with me. There’s a restaurant with good rice wine I know nearby.”

“You know I’m looking out for my health. I don’t plan to drink for a while.”

“You’re quitting smoking too?”

“No, I can’t do that. You should watch out for your health as well. Don’t regret it after you’re fifty like I am.”

“There aren’t many people as fit as you at that age, president. Don’t just look out for your health and drink with your juniors.”

“Should I tell your wife you said that?”

“There you go again. Fine, I was in the wrong.”

Younghoon opened the door himself and saw him out to the elevator. He waited until the elevator closed even when the guest told him to go back before returning to his office.

“He’s the advertiser? Didn’t you say he was some president in a dog lover’s association?” the editor approached him and asked, looking quite surprised.

“He is the president of an association. It’s the only other title he has aside from being the CEO of his company.”

“He sure feels different from up close alright. He has that heavy charisma to him.”

“He’s a senior I’m quite close to, but it’s always difficult to handle him when it comes to work. He’s such a perfectionist after all.”

“Yet such a person accepted the new proposal. That must mean that he likes it, right?”

“Yeah. Thanks to that, I can sigh in relief.”

The editor looked at the entrance and spoke, “If I asked him for Kim Suyeon’s autograph, he would have looked at me like I’m crazy, right?”

“He might have unexpectedly told you to visit him when you have the time to take it. He’s quite generous when it comes to things other than work.”

Younghoon already knew that the editor was actress Kim Suyeon’s loyal fan. He even heard that this guy was one of the initial members of her fan club. Thanks to that, Younghoon watched every drama with Kim Suyeon in it while working with him.

“You should’ve told me beforehand. Then I would’ve asked about it.”

“Try again next time.”

“It’d be rude to call him now, right?”

“Do you even know his number?”

“How would I know president Lee Junmin’s phone number? If you could act as the bridge between us, I’ll treat you to some beef at the end of the month.”

“You’re so devoted. Calling him is going a little too far, so I’ll try talking to him about it next time I meet him.”

“You promised.”

“You’re still young even though you’re thirty.”

Just as they were laughing together, the door opened again.

It was Lee Junmin. Did he perhaps leave something behind? Just as Younghoon was about to speak….

“About him.”

“You mean that model?”

“Yes.”

Junmin took out a notepad from his pocket.

“What did you say his name was again?”

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