Life, Once Again

After Story 238

“Hyung, when did you learn things like this?”

“When I had free time.”

Maru marked the plastered wall using a pen with a thread in his mouth. After marking at regular intervals, he stepped back and had a look at how it turned out. It had been a long time since he did this, but nothing was off.

He took out the packaged tiles from the box. When he laid out the beige tiles, two of them were broken.

“Are these broken ones unusable?” Yoonseok asked with a pitying tone.

“Put the broken ones to the side. I’m going to use a tile cutter to cut them and use them for the corners.”

“Tile cutter?”

“There’s a blue cutting device in the trunk of the car. Go get that one for me. And bring the scraper as well.”

Yoonseok, who was about to go outside, stopped and asked back,

“What’s a scraper?”

“It’s something that’s used for plastering walls. There’s one made of rubber and one made of plastic. Bring both of them. You’ll know what they are once you see them.”

“I think I know what it is.”

Maru dissolved some tile glue in some water and stirred it around. He stopped stirring when the liquid became viscous and the stirring became difficult. He asked Yoonseok to pass him the scraper. He used the plastic scraper to scoop some of the glue and toss it onto the wall.

The clumped glue made a splat sound and got stuck on the wall. Maru threw the glue across regular intervals.

“When you told me that you could do it, I honestly thought that we were going to have a hard time, but you’re a total expert. Should I try as well?”

Yoonseok dipped another scraper into the glue and threw some on the wall. The glue, which was supposed to get stuck on the wall, rolled straight down to the floor.

“Keep going if you want to make more work. If you really want to help, look for something else to do. I think cleaning, or very thorough cleaning will be helpful,” Maru said with a smile.

“It’s not easy, huh? Okay, I’ll clean things up. Tell me if you need anything.”

While Yoonseok threw away the trash, Maru spread out the glue on the wall evenly with the scraper. After spreading the glue without any gaps, he plastered the tiles. After filling the gaps with grout, it was almost time for lunch.

“That looks clean,” Yoonseok said while waving around a bowl of black soybean noodles.

He looked really impressed with the wall and eventually started taking photos.

“If you don’t have anything to do in the future, work with me on doing interiors like this. If I learn some skills from you, I don’t think I’ll have a problem making a living.”

“Skills like this are good, but they will decline in popularity in the future. DIY interiors will become much more accessible.”

Maru looked at the wall that he didn’t tile. They were going to hang up a couple of photo frames in order to make the most out of the stuffy and rough concrete texture.

A decorated wall and a raw wall. It seemed to be a pretty decent device to portray Yoo Daejoo’s feelings.

Yoonseok spoke as he ate some fried pork,

“The furniture and books will arrive tomorrow. For the books, I looked into second-hand bookstores. I’m also planning to donate those books to the local library afterward. What do you think?”

“Sounds good.”

“I wonder if it will be donated under the name of the movie, not a person. Anyway, the books turned out to be a pretty big expenditure from the props budget. For the interior construction, we saved a lot thanks to you. I’m saving up as much as possible in many areas, but it’s not easy.”

Maru spoke as he picked up a piece of pickled radish,

“Have you looked for a cameraman?”

“Yes. When I pushed your name forward, I got contacted by quite a lot of people. I picked someone I thought I could get along with and met up with him.”

“Any experience?”

“He worked in camera teams for several works, including a commercial film. There were two indie films where he was the main cameraperson. There were many people with amazing experiences, but this person was not that far apart from me in age.”

“Did you have a look at what he worked on?”

Yoonseok took out his phone. He went to Youtube and showed him a video. It was a video that only used natural lighting.

The subject of the camera was a woman and the sky. The video, which was taken with different compositions at different times, was fresh and rather sensational.

“Here. I liked this composition a lot. I’ll frame you and the wall from a low angle and hang a light above. The light will look like it’s crushing down on you.”

“It’s okay as long as you think he’ll work well with you. How about lighting?”

“I asked a director I got to know during the Short Film Festival. When I told him where I would be shooting, he told me that he would send one person. He sounded so professional.”

“What about payment?”

“He said 50 thousand per shoot will suffice. I asked again if that wasn’t too little, but he said that I should buy him some good food. I felt so grateful. Apparently, he’s helping me out because he has some room until he participates in a movie in October and November. This is why connections are important,” Yoonseok said as he raised his thumb.

Right now, Yoonseok was involved in both directing the movie and procurement. He was probably busier with more things outside of the scope of film creation than inside.

“If Jiseon didn’t help me out, I would’ve collapsed a long time ago.”

“Don’t forget to thank her, and treat her well.”

“I will.”

“Have you looked into equipment rental costs? You’ll be losing a bunch of money for every single mistake you make.”

“That’s why I’m praying. Everything would be for naught if I rented everything and it started raining all of a sudden. I decided to rent the lighting equipment after consulting the lighting director, and as for the camera, I’m deciding between two manufacturers. I don’t plan to do a lot of post-edits.”

“Choose carefully. If there’s anything you don’t know, ask the directors of the respective areas for their opinions.”

“I’ve been asking them questions non-stop these days. It turns out there are so many things I don’t know.”

“That’s how everyone is at first. The first time is always the hardest.”

“This is my second time, though?”

“Comparing a film you shot with just a single camera to this situation is ridiculous. You formed the production crew right?”

“I gathered some of the members from last time and some others who showed interest in the work to create the Lee Yoonseok crew. They’ll get passion pay, but this is what friends are good for, right?”

“You should give them minimum wage at least.”

“If there's a budget left, sure. I’ll go with a standard contract for outside resources, and for my friends, I’ll decide when the time comes. I did promise to treat them to a good meal if it goes well, so there’s that too!”

Yoonseok put down the chopsticks. He rubbed the floor of the store with his two hands before speaking,

“It’s going to start next week, huh? I still can’t believe it. I didn’t know things would go this smoothly.”

“It’s still too early to feel emotional. There is still a mountain load of things to do. Once we’re done with the interior design, we have to do the outside. The signboard construction comes tomorrow, right?”

“Yes. Once we remove the sticky stuff from the glass wall, bring the furniture in, and display the books, I think that will be the end of it. As for the rest, we have to fill it with the passionate acting of our main actor.”

Yoonseok put away the empty plates. Maru drank some coffee before doing some finishing touches.

“You’re done already? Oppa, when did you learn something like this?”

6 p.m. Jison came after finishing her part-time work.

“I asked him that as well, and his answer was ‘when he had time.’ It’s a magical word really. I think he has hundreds of hours of spare time,” Yoonseok said.

“This feels like a café. I think it’ll look really good once the books are in and we display them.”

Jiseon put down the eco bag she was holding. Maru took out two picture frames from it. It looked better than when he looked at the photos of them.

“Yoonseok, I’m going to hang them up over there. Are you okay with that?” Maru said as he placed the sunflower photo against the concrete wall.

Yoonseok watched with his arms crossed before nodding. When he started looking for a hammer to nail it in, they got a package.

“Oppa, what’s this? It’s pretty heavy,” Jiseon said as she put down the box.

“Some lights. Yoonseok picked them.”

Maru cut the tape with a box cutter and opened the box. He took out the LED light strip rail inside.

“We should do this quickly before the sun sets. Jiseon, bring me a chair.”

He turned off the circuit breaker and ripped open the ceiling. He got some lead lines from his right and put them through a PVC pipe to install the LED rail on the wall.

“Can you pass me the electrical tape?”

“Here.”

He extended the lines and wrapped them up in insulating electrical tape before setting up the main light in the middle of the store. When he lined them at just the right angle, it looked neat without having to bury the lead lines.

“You really can do anything huh.”

“Yoonseok should be able to do it as well.”

Yoonseok cut in after he finished hammering a nail into the wall: I could never do something like that. Maru turned on the circuit breaker again and tried turning the lights on. The orange light shone down on the interior of the store, making things look cozy.

“Tell the director the color of the interior lighting.”

“Okay.”

Maru dusted his hands and looked around the store.

They had allocated three whole days for this, so it ended pretty early. Once the furniture and the books arrived, it would complete a set for a middle-length movie.

“It feels totally different to when we shot that film 3 years ago. We’re preparing a lot of things.”

“Even after all this preparation, you never know what problems may occur once we start the shoot. Yoonseok will have to be prepared to take on a challenge.”

“I’m sure he’ll do well. He’s shooting a film with someone else’s money. If he isn’t snappy, he’s not even human, is he?” Jiseon said as he looked at Yoonseok.

“I’m preparing everything snappily so don’t worry.”

Yoonseok walked around the inside and outside of the store to take photos. He seemed to be wanting to add some detail to the storyboard that he wrote.

“Let’s split up after dinner. My body’s aching after spending the whole day here. I wouldn’t have put in this much effort even if this was setting up my own store,” Maru said with a smile.

For this film, he was participating from the very bottom. Youth and passion, which were two things that existed in a very lukewarm state at the very bottom of his heart, started rising up.

He was rather worried because he had a lot of memories where a movie flopped midway, but he couldn’t help but put trust in it and push forward with it. That was the best he could do at this stage.

“You’re coming to the audition tomorrow, right?”

“I will.”

Maru asked as he left the store,

“So how many people applied for it?”

Yoonseok quietly put up three fingers. Please check at N/ôvel(D)rama.Org.

“Thirty people?”

“Three hundred people. This was the first time I got so many emails that weren’t?spam mail. People sent their profiles in like crazy when they found out that Han Maru was cast as the main actor.”

“I’m sure you didn’t have all of them come. How many did you filter out?”

“Around twenty people will be coming. It was quite a task sending three hundred notification emails. I felt sorry writing ‘maybe next time’ emails too.”

“It can’t be helped,” Jiseon said.

“Anyway, tomorrow will be the most important. The movie will only do well if I meet the right actors. But I’m quite nervous because I haven’t assessed any actors before. What do you say I just let you take care of everything?”

“Should I be the director as well?” Maru said as he twitched his eyes.

Yoonseok shook his head, saying that he was just joking.

“Think about it while eating: what are you going to focus on and what additional points you’re going to focus on if there are two people with similar vibes.”

“I guess I’m not going to eat well,” Yoonseok said as he opened the door to the barbecue restaurant.

* * *

“Yes, please write your name here. We’re going to do the audition in order of arrival, so please line up.”

Hearing Jiseon’s words, the actors who came for the audition lined up against the wall. Seeing that, Yoonseok felt unbelievably nervous. He knew that they were attracted by the name ‘Han Maru’ rather than the charm of the movie itself, but he was excited that so many people came here nonetheless.

“But why isn’t he coming?” Yoonseok muttered hastily and checked the time on his phone.

There were thirty minutes until the appointment.

He called Maru.

“Hyung, where are you?”

-On my way.

“Come quickly.”

-There’s still time. Why?

“I’m nervous.”

-Take it easy and go inside the audition room. Don’t walk around greeting the actors. If you talk to any one of them, you’ll make them feel like the audition is unfair. Just sit down quietly and go through their profiles.

“Oh, right, the profiles.”

Yoonseok hung up. He could feel the gazes of the actors on the back of his head. They seemed to have realized that he was the director.

He quietly opened the door to the audition room and went inside. This was no time to be nervous.

He had to get himself together and do some pre-work to bring a good actor to the team.