Kim Hyo-seon entered the audition room looking extremely nervous.
"Hello! I'm Kim Hyo-seon from the class of '99, majoring in Acting and Performing Arts! Thank you!!!"
She bowed at a 90-degree angle and shouted. Then she glanced at me and Jun-seong as if gauging our reactions.
"You're really nervous, huh."
"Yeah, should we give you some time to relax?"
"No, thank you!!! I'm not nervous at all!!!"
Whether it was because of a lack of audition experience or just youthful exuberance, Kim Hyo-seon continued to shout.
"You don't need to yell. This isn't the military, you know," Jun-seong said, scrunching up his face playfully.
"I'm sorry..."
At Jun-seong's words, Kim Hyo-seon scratched the back of her head, her face turning red with embarrassment.
"What year did you say you were?"
"I'm class of '99!"
"So you're born in 1980?"
"Yes!"
"Wow, kids born in the '80s are already adults? Time flies."
"Do you remember the 1988 Olympics? You were in elementary school, right?"
At my question, Jun-seong burst out laughing, and Hyo-seon tried to suppress her own laughter.
"I went to elementary school! I'm not that young!"
"Do you do nothing but crack jokes in your spare time, man?"
"Oh... haha. Right, elementary school."
It had been so long since I'd heard the term "elementary school" that it felt odd on my tongue.
Luckily, it was taken as a joke. For older generations, "elementary school" was still a more familiar term than "primary school."
The unintentional joke seemed to have eased Hyo-seon's tension quite a bit.
Her previously hunched shoulders were slowly relaxing, and I noticed the trembling in her hands subsiding.
"Shall we get started?"
"Yes! Let's start!"
"I'll give you a moment to get into character."
"Okay!"
Hyo-seon closed her eyes.
She furrowed her brow so much that a crease appeared between her eyebrows.
Then she clenched her fists tightly and stood still for a few seconds before opening her eyes.
"P-Please, spare me! I'll give you anything. Please. Please! Just spare my life."
The bold and loud rookie from a few minutes ago had vanished.
Now, there was only Hyo-seon, desperate to survive, with madness in her eyes.
Fear, madness, and sorrow—all kinds of emotions were mixed in her gaze, and both Jun-seong and I were captivated by her performance.
To be honest, the lines themselves didn't matter that much.
What was important was the direction in the script—"with a desperate gaze."
Desperation is a vague concept.
In real life, people express desperation in different ways, but an actor on screen must convince every single audience member of their character's desperation.
Her facial expressions were still a bit awkward, but her eyes were absolutely perfect.
Facial expressions can be refined through acting direction, but eyes are not something that can change in an instant.
That's why we needed Hyo-seon.
"That's it."
"Thank you for your hard work. We'll inform you of the results by phone later."
"Yes! Thank you!"
With that, Hyo-seon left the audition room, and Jun-seong slapped me on the back of the head.
Smack!
"You crazy guy. How did you know she could act like that? Why were you the only one who knew? I've never seen her before. Is that even second-year acting?"
"Call it instinct—primal instinct."
"Primal instinct? Are you an animal?"
"I can just tell by looking at her face."
At my words, Jun-seong smirked and drew a large star next to Hyo-seon's name on the list of actresses.
"She's the right choice. She's amazing. She's going to be big."
"Weren't you all for Kwak Yeon-ji before?"
"Well, that was…"
"Ha, this producer's lost his touch. I can't work with you."
"Hey, if you could tell an actor's talent just by looking at them, you'd be a shaman, not a producer."
"I'll say it again—it's instinct."
A few years later, Kim Hyo-seon would have a filmography that couldn't even be compared to Kwak Yeon-ji's.
In that film, Hyo-seon played the role of a mother who lost her child, and the look in her eyes was exactly what I needed right now.
Even though the role I was casting wasn't for a strong mother, her gaze—full of weakness, wanting to survive—was perfect. If I could capture that in the frame... I could trap the audience in my movie.
"Are you going to start acting as a shaman? You lunatic?"
"Should I lay out the mat?"
"You might make a fortune! Talent scouts might even snatch you up from talent agencies, just to have you judge by looking at their faces."
"That's called delusion, my friend."
"You're the one who sets up the stage and then just backs out at the last minute?"
"Let's hurry up. We've got a lot of people waiting. We should get through this quickly, right, Producer?"
We started the next audition for the male actors.
There were 15 guys for two roles—far more than for the female roles—but I had already marked the actor I wanted.
And once again, my prediction turned out to be correct.
"Are you sure you don't want to consider that shaman gig?"
After all the auditions were finished, Jun-seong turned to me with a serious expression.
"Maybe your fate isn't in film but in reading fortunes…."
Smack!
I flicked his forehead, and Jun-seong scrunched up his face in pain.
"Ouch! I'm just trying to give you some career advice!"
"I've got to make money through film. I've invested six years in this."
Looking back at the past four years—
excluding the time spent in the military—I had been a complete film maniac.
During the holidays, I'd visit film sets, where I was known as the fifth assistant, handling all kinds of tasks for the shooting team, art team, and lighting team.
And when school was in session, I'd focus on my studies. But even during class, if a film set needed help, I'd skip class and rush over.
There was always a shortage of hands on set, so when I showed up to help, I was welcomed with open arms.
"Let's send the acceptance messages."
"Let's double-check: Kim Hyo-seon, Jung Jae-hoon, and Oh Se-jin. That's right, right?"
"Yeah."
By 2020, just using those three actors in a feature film would probably cost around ten billion won in fees alone...
Jun-seong and I were about to leave the audition room after cleaning up when I received a text message.
-Thank you so much, senior.
It was from Hyo-seon.
From my failed projects, there was one important lesson I learned.
The relationship between a director and an actor is extremely important. I had known this in theory, but experiencing it firsthand was on another level.
Before my return, I believed in a power hierarchy, thinking the director should control the actors with authority.
So, when I made my graduation film Blue Moon, I pushed the actors relentlessly.
Thanks to that, the film turned out quite well in terms of quality, but I never heard from those actors again. Jun-seong had warned me several times not to act that way...
Reflecting on my past self, I carefully typed my response.
-You did well. I didn't do anything. Looking forward to working with you. ^^
I kept deleting and re-adding the emoticon, trying to act as mild as possible, before finally sending the message with it still attached.
It didn't suit my personality, but I had no choice. I would have to keep trying little by little.
"Oh, Kyung Chan-hyun. What's this? You know how to use emoticons?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Old man Kyung is acting young."
Old man Kyung.
It's been a while since I heard that nickname. Jun-seong used to tease me with it, saying I looked old for my age.
"Sigh… I really don't want to go to work."
"How much time do you have left?"
After a full day of auditions from morning until evening, both of us were completely exhausted. But Jun-seong, while cursing the fast food job where someone had bailed, kept grumbling.
"Kids these days are the problem. They run away the moment things get hard."
"Shouldn't you be resting? Aren't you tired?"
"There's a saying that when you're young, you should take on hardships. All these experiences will eventually become part of you."
"You sound like an old man."
"Shut it, old man Kyung!"
Jun-seong was definitely a lot more mature than me around this age.
I also worked hard on set, but that was because I loved doing it. Jun-seong, however, was different.
He did it because he had to.
"I'm off. See you at home later."
As Jun-seong left to catch the bus to his fast food job, I decided to head home. On the way, I turned toward the video rental store I had frequented since I was young.
There, the store owner I had known since childhood welcomed me.
"Well, well! Director Kyung! Long time no see! Haven't seen you in a while, huh?"
"Have you been well?"
"Of course! Filming anything these days?"
"Ah, yeah. I'm working on my graduation project."
"Wow. Director Kyung is all grown up now. Almost graduating, huh? Feels like just yesterday you came in here crying after getting lost."
That memory made me chuckle.
Before I even entered elementary school, I had gotten lost near our new house and wandered into the store because of the movie posters, asking for my dad.
That memory must have stuck with me because it was quite a shock at the time.
"Is there anything people are renting a lot these days?"
"Hmm… let me see, what are people renting these days…"
The owner scanned the shelves, his words trailing off into a sing-song tone.
"Are people still watching Stanley Kubrick films a lot?"
"Of course. They're classics after all."
"That's true. After Kubrick, it feels like films have been going downhill, huh?"
"Have you seen Valley of Death?"
"Oh, no?"
"You haven't seen Smith Bender's Valley of Death? And you call yourself a director?"
Smith Bender. I had no idea who he was, but he must be the equivalent of Steven Spielberg in this world.
"Can I also get Jurassic Park?"
"That one's boring, though. They made a big fuss about using computer graphics, but it's pretty weird."
"Still, let me have it. Might as well give it a watch."
"You won't regret it?"
After borrowing the videos, I went home and started watching Jurassic Park first. It was trash.
Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park was a landmark film that significantly advanced computer graphics technology.
But the one I watched…
It didn't advance anything—it felt more like it sentenced computer graphics to death.
The actors' performances were mediocre at best, but the moment the dinosaurs appeared, all immersion was shattered.
I wanted to find out who was responsible for creating such awful dinosaurs.
Then I watched Valley of Death. It depicted the Battle of Bowling Valley during World War II, but it was nothing compared to the war films I'd seen before.
From Stanley Kubrick's Fear and Desire to Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, nothing I'd watched could compare to this film's lack of quality.
"If only they had just copied Stanley Kubrick, it would've been halfway decent... And they call this a masterpiece?"
At first, I felt nothing, but gradually I began to feel sorry for the people in this world.
If they called films like this masterpieces…
I now understood why the god of cinema had asked me to help elevate the film industry.
I couldn't even finish watching it. I turned it off halfway through.
Then, I reached for my old copy of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey that had been collecting dust on my shelf.
It was the movie that made me want to become a director in the first place.
After cleansing my eyes, which had nearly rotted from the trash I'd just watched, with Kubrick's masterpiece, I let out a deep sigh.
"This world is truly a nightmare."