Ando hesitated for a while before hanging up after saying that he would call back in just a bit.

“I’ll be leaving for a bit.”

Bada, who was absorbed in watching TV, just waved at him without looking. After leaving the house, Maru went into the nearby convenience store and bought a canned coffee. It was nearing the end of March. The evening winds had warmed up to the point that he could stand outside without shivering. Just as he was sipping on the coffee, he got a call.

“Hello?”

-Hello? It’s me, Koo Ando.

“Yeah, can you take the call now?”

-I just left, so I’m fine.

“You couldn’t take the call before?”

-I was at a study café.

“Sorry about that. I called thinking that you were at home.”

-I was about to take a break anyway, so it doesn’t matter that much. You called because of Sora, right?

Yeah - Maru replied before standing up with the coffee in hand.

“From what I saw during the day, you don’t seem to have any interest in shooting the movie, am I right?”

-If it’s about if I do or not, then I guess I lean towards the latter. While we are called the film production club, we didn’t produce anything during the past few years.

“I only heard a bit so don’t count me on this, but I heard that you guys did do shoot in the past.”

-Nothing like that happened even when I was a first year. We just discussed movies in depth. Like you said, I heard that they shot movies and played them during the festival around five years ago, but there’s none of that now. No one knows what shooting a movie requires, nor do we want to do anything like that.

“So Sora’s getting excited all by herself, huh?”

-That’s right, probably.

Probably, huh. Maru kicked the bottle cap on the ground.

“Then can I take it that the club does not have any intention to help out with the shoot?”

Ando fell silent at that question. Maru did not urge him to speak and just waited patiently with the phone against his ear. When he left the residential area and entered the park in the apartment complex, Ando spoke again. Maru looked at the spotted cat walking nearby as he listened.

-It’s not like we need to do something.

“You’re right. Since we’re at it, can I ask what you do at the club?”

Ando started talking in excitement. About how cohesive the film production club is, how warm they were, and how comfortable it was there. He listed the good things without taking a single breath. Just listening to him was enough to know just how much he cared about the club.

“Good club.”

The acting club charged forward with only the goal of winning the acting competition. Achieving an objective required sacrifices, so the acting club only had people that were willing to invest their own time. They trained very harshly, and sometimes even brutally, yet those kids would endure it. That was because they had a clear destination.

The film production club should be in the same position. It wasn’t that they had an explicit objective, but the purpose of their activities was clear in that they increased the friendship between students, and relieved stress from studies. On the surface, it was strange that the film production club did not create any movies, but considering that it was just a high school club, there shouldn’t be much of a problem. In fact, they could be considered much healthier than the people who went to their clubroom because they had nothing to do during extracurricular activities time.

“Then let’s say that we never had that conversation. Tell Sora that as well.”

-Huh? Ah, okay.

“Sorry for calling you so late.”

Maru hung up. In a situation where the rest of the film production club didn’t have any will to work, there was no way things would progress smoothly if he just worked with Sora alone. A movie wasn’t shot with just the director and the actor.

A cameraman to hold the 6mm film camera.

A person in charge of sound to monitor the sound coming through the microphone attached to the camera.

A person in charge of lights in order to block out unnecessary lighting.

A scripter to record each shoot in detail.

Even if the director was the one holding the camera and even doubled as the scripter, more people were needed to hold the reflectors, the boom mic, as well as various other equipment.

Well, if forced to, one director could take care of all of that. Putting a directional microphone on the camera and putting it on a tripod, then clapping the slate for each scene and cut, and then watching the footage after the shoot - it was possible to do all that by oneself. The director could then reorganize the script while watching the footage and do the final check on the equipment before going to the next scene, starting all of that from the beginning again.

It wasn’t impossible to do a one-man shoot, but Maru had no intentions of participating in such a messy thing. Sora said she was planning on a 20-minute movie. 20 minutes. It only amounted to a third of an hour, but Maru knew because he had experience shooting a movie. Shooting 20 minutes of a movie with a camera took an incredibly long time.

Judging from the synopsis that Sora wrote, they wouldn’t be able to complete all the scenes at the school. School, the main character’s house, the background that represents his inner state. Even if she minimized the locations to those three locations, as each scene in a film needed to be shot several times at different angles, it would take an absurdly long time.

It was impossible to do that by herself. Even if she did, she wouldn’t end up with a good result. If a director, who was supposed to wholeheartedly focus on the film itself, was concerned with the various equipment, there would definitely be problems with the final product. Furthermore, what about the post-processing? There should be narration in the movie since this was a movie that portrayed the inner state of the main protagonist, and that would require post-syncing the audio during the editing process, and even mixing the audio. It just wasn’t possible.

There shouldn’t be a reason they couldn’t do so if they took shortcuts, but Maru was doing this in order to gain high-quality experience, not because he wanted to waste some time on fun club activities. If he deemed that filming the movie would not help out in his career or if the environment to shoot wasn’t even set up properly, there would be no reason for him to participate.

If a proven director, such as Choi Joonggeun from ‘Twilight Struggles’ and Park Joongjin, or someone else who already had experience producing something asked him to help, then he would’ve said yes even if it was a one-man shoot. No, he would even be willing to carry the equipment himself and climb a hill, if necessary, and then set up everything and do the acting after that. Those directors were worth his effort after all.

However, Kang Sora clearly didn’t belong to that category. She was just a high school student who never shot a movie before. There was no need for him to accept her request when she couldn’t even set up a proper environment to produce a film.

“She’ll take care of that by herself.”

If she was really willing to shoot it, Sora would eventually find a way, whether it be persuading the film production club, or looking for other people to do it. He pitied Ando a bit since she would obviously try to nag him first, but he was the club president of the film production club, so what could he do about it? He would have to either persuade Sora otherwise or reach a different conclusion.

Maru crumpled up the empty can and started walking to his house.

* * *

“Why do you look like an uneasy puppy?”

“Don’t ask.”

Ando picked up his bag and left the classroom. He thought about going home, but he headed to the clubroom since he felt like he would be dodging the problem if he did so. He opened the door and looked inside. It seemed that Sora wasn’t here yet. He sighed and sat down. When Sora came to this clubroom, Ando inwardly rejoiced. That should have been the same for the other 2nd year juniors as well. A cute girl said she wanted to join. They would never reject her, and would much rather hold a welcome party instead.

Ever since the pretty 3rd year senior graduated, the clubroom was a bit lonely, and then a girl appeared, so he even imagined a school romance. However, such a fantasy was broken in just one week. Sora looked like she was crazed over film production. What about this kind of movie? Do you think there’s a suitable location to shoot it nearby? Do you know anyone good-looking? Hearing the barrage of questions, Ando, not to mention the others, fell silent. They were called the film production club on paper, but as they didn’t have any experience in participating in the production of one, there was no way they had any knowledge about it.

The atmosphere naturally leaned towards the person with the stronger will, and while Ando found it bothersome, he did not stop her. He couldn’t really say something to someone who wanted to make a movie in the film production club.

Recently though, she seemed a little too overbearing and did everything by herself without telling the others, so he tried to caution her, but that did not work. She was like a bulldozer. However, that ended today. Maru refused. He texted Sora about that yesterday. From what he knew of her, she would immediately call back and snap out asking why he decided that by himself, but unexpectedly, he only got a text back asking him to come to the clubroom tomorrow.

Along with a knock, the door opened once again.

“Huh?”

Ando looked at Maru who came in while yawning.

“Why are you here?”

“Sora called me here.”

“Sora, did?”

After that, the 2nd year juniors all came to the clubroom as well. Everyone said that Sora had called them here. When the promised time of 5:40 came around, Sora came in. She was with a girl he hadn’t seen before.

“First, I’ll apologize for being so rude until now.”

Sora bowed and apologized. Ando scratched his head.

“And this.”

Sora handed out some A4 papers. On the front page, it said ‘Friend’, and below that were the objectives and directions.

“The one next to me is a classmate of mine who wants to make a movie with me. We talked to our homeroom teacher, and she decided to switch clubs.”

The girl introduced herself in a shaky voice. It seemed that she was nervous. She immediately hid behind Sora after she did so.

“I thought that you all weren’t creating anything just because you didn’t have any good ideas. I thought all by myself that you would definitely be eager to participate if there’s a decent item. I’ll apologize once again for misunderstanding all of you.”

Sora bowed once again in apology. The girl next to her also bowed with a puzzled expression.

“But I found out after talking to Han Maru-seonbae yesterday. That I wasn’t listening to you. Like what you said, I think it’s good to gather with the intention to watch a movie. Of course, I’m still a bit angry at the fact that you all have zero interest in film production despite being in the film production club.”

After saying that, Sora sighed. She looked like she was calming her agitation.

“That’s why I’m going to talk to you all properly this time. If you hear me out and still do not gain any interest in film production, then I will never talk about it again. I will not make any more rude requests. Instead, just once, I hope you all can hear me out seriously. I’ll also listen to your words.”

Ando curled his lips inwards and looked at the plan. He thought that she would act like usual and force her ideas on everyone else, but he didn’t know that she would prepare something like this.

Ando looked at Sora. She was waiting nervously with her lips sealed.

“What do you think we should do?” he asked the 2nd year juniors.

They were all staring at the paper they were given in puzzlement. After a bit of time passed, one of them spoke,

“Shouldn’t we hear her out at least?”

The others seemed to be in agreement.

Ando grabbed the plan with both of his hands and asked Sora.

“I’ll tell you this beforehand, but we don’t have any experience in shooting a movie. That’s why we don’t have any interest. You know that there’s no guarantee that we’ll do it after we listen to you, right?”

“Yes. But I am confident. I will persuade all of you. Film production is a fun thing after all. There’s nothing better in this world than it.”

Ando nodded. If he thought about it, he also didn’t hear her out properly because he was tired of her attitude. He then looked at Maru. Maru just shrugged once. He didn’t seem to care at all.

“Then we’ll hear you out.”

“Okay.”

Sora took a short breath before standing in front of everyone else.