“Move as slowly as possible. But you need to be conscious of the fact that you are walking. You are slowly recreating the motions of walking. Expressing slow movement and slow walking are two completely different things. You have to consider in your mind which part of your foot detaches from the ground first, how your arms are moving at that time, and where your gaze is heading. It will be no good if you stop thinking completely. You have to use your brain fully. Think that there’s a camera above your heads. You will be looking at yourselves through that camera. Imagine a strict teacher inside your heart. That’s the best method.”

Miso clapped very slowly. The students, lined up in a long line, slowly started walking according to her claps. Moving slowly. That was a method of bringing natural and subconscious usage of the muscles into the realm of consciousness. If even one’s breathing speed was controlled to a slow speed, it was possible to feel the movements of various muscles. For the first few minutes, it might be a little boring, however, with enough time, those that did this exercise would find themselves sweating.

Maru looked away from his juniors and looked at an old-style paper in front of him. Next to that was a board of mdf that would have to become a door frame. They decided on the play they were going to perform at the summer acting competition two days ago. It was a story set in a countryside village.

The stage included a flat wooden platform and a house with a thatched roof. They decided to make the old paper doors with old-style papers, and the roof with some straws glued to some mdf with wood glue. He drew some lines on the mdf with a pencil before dragging it over to the other side of the hall. He placed the mdf on a chair to act as a table and started sawing the wood with a coping saw. Maybe being a woodworker wasn’t so bad either - he thought as he looked at the falling sawdust.

“That looks fun.”

“Want to have a go?” Maru asked as he offered the coping saw.

Miso refused with an expression that said ‘why should I?’. The other club members were still walking slowly.

“Have you talked to the film production club kids?”

“Talk to them, huh, that I did. Over there, can you step on that part on the chair at the end?”

Miso stepped on the end of the mdf. Maru got into a sawing posture again before continuing.

“So, did you decide to do it?”

“For now, I haven’t decided yet.”

“Why? You don’t like it?”

“They haven’t shown me anything yet, so I can’t exactly like or dislike anything. Oh, press a little hard. You’re capable of snapping this board with your bare hands, aren’t you?”

He agilely avoided the slap that flew at him before moving the saw to the next line. It wasn’t that the door was actually going to be used, so it just had to look the part. He was planning to snap it off once he sawed quite far.

“They haven’t shown you anything? From what I heard, they seemed to be really passionate though.”

“Passionate, yes. But passion doesn’t create films. I made a visit to the film production club, but they haven’t produced anything for several years, so they don’t even have the basic knowledge nor the tools. There are no cameras, and it’s just filled with DVDs and video tapes.”

“For equipment, you can just rent. I mean, students can’t really afford a 6mm film camera. That’s why they just buy the film rolls.”

“I’m thinking that too. Actually, equipment isn’t a big problem. Bluntly put, you can just solve it with money, and that graduate friend of yours who used to belong to the film production club can also help out. But the main problem is that there’s no script either.”

Maru exerted some strength and snapped the wood. Along with a loud crunch, the board was snapped unevenly. It was around 50cm, and the outcome looked decent enough.

“There’s no script?”

“Nope, there isn’t one. Also, what’s interesting is that there’s a storyboard. No, it’s like a storyboard, but it’s more like she just sketched some things that were inside her head and I can’t exactly make my decision based on that.”

“I get what you mean. But that’s the norm. If she had perfect pre-production skills, she’s way past being an amateur. Go easy on her. Oh, should I pull on this part?”

Yes - Maru replied before pulling the board too. It snapped cleanly in half with a snap. Looking at the clean cut, Maru smiled for some reason.

“Maybe I should try making more sets some time. This kind of thing is fun.”

“Playing house is always more fun than running a real house. So, what are you going to do”? If you refuse, that friend of mine will call me and start nagging.”

“Does that person have your weakness or something? That isn’t like you.”

“He’s taking the photos for the wedding album.”

“Aha, that makes more sense now. So that goes down the drain if I don’t do it?”

“Our friendship isn’t that cheap. We made this promise a long time ago. Also, I’m paying him. Among the people that work in this industry, not even one person likes doing something for free for a friend.”

Miso turned her head around before shouting. You guys are speeding up! - Hearing her shout, everyone flinched before slowing down again.

“The reason I told you about that shoot, was only because it could help you out. Don’t have too high standards. They just started off after all.”

“To be precise, it’s not they, but her. I told you right? That they don’t have any intentions of making a film despite being a film production club. Right now, just one girl is jumping around everywhere trying to make this a thing.”

Miso blinked several times.

“They aren’t at the stage where the whole club is preparing for it and they called you when just one kid is fantasizing?”

“Pretty much.”

“Forget it. Don’t do it. I thought that they were all preparing for it and that one girl popped out in particular. If what you say is true, then that means that she’ll be a one-person director, and if she doesn’t have anything prepared at this point, that’s game over.”

“I thought you told me to go easy on her.”

“I thought she would have the basics down at least.”

“I’m a guy who will do things if people tell me not to, so I somehow want to help them out since you said that.”

“Why don’t you come up with a better lie? I can clearly see that you have zero intention of helping them.”

“I do have some. Like what you said, they are students, so they can’t be perfect. It’s not that I don’t have any time either, so I can help them out if I really wanted to. But like I said before, they weren’t able to show me just what kind of a film they were trying to shoot, so they don’t sound attractive right now. I’m not getting paid for this, so that’s even more of a reason not to do it if it’s not fun either.”

“Do you know that you sometimes sound like you’re a veteran at life?”

“My motto in life is that money is the best. Didn’t you know that already?”

“I did realize that you weren’t right in the head, when you wrote down 300 million, but I didn’t know you were that crazy for money,” said Miso with a laugh.

Maru also laughed back.

“So, what’s the conclusion? You’re going to help them if you find it interesting?”

“You told me that it will be a good experience. I’m going to wait it out a little longer before deciding. That Sora girl isn’t entirely dumb. If she has the desire to shoot the film, she’ll get herself ready before calling me again. I’m going to make my decision then.”

Maru placed a few pieces of MDF on top of one another. It should be about done if he nailed these together and pasted the paper onto it.

“What if it’s lacking at that time as well?”

“I don’t really mind it being lacking. I raised my expectations since she looked so confident, but they’re currently at rock bottom right now. The environment for shooting, minimum preparation, and also, a bit of respect. As long as she has those, I’m planning to talk to her properly.”

“Respect?”

“She was taking for granted that I will be participating in the film. She didn’t look like she was trying to persuade me. She looked like she was announcing facts to me, so I grumbled a bit yesterday.”

“How picky.”

“Another one of my dreams is to become a splendid kkondae. I should build up for that while I’m still young. Using my connections to flex, using money to persuade people, and being treated like an important person. That’s my ideal life.”

Miso raised her thumb, saying that that was splendid.

“I’m thinking about this big for the door. What do you think?”

“We’re going to place two, so it’s not bad.”

“I should really finish making the set and go watch the others. It’s also a little boring to do it by myself.”

“You’re the only staff member for now, so do your best. If you don’t like it, you can always come to the actor team. You’re very welcome there after all.”

Maru shook his head as he looked at the club members frowning as they walked slowly. It was much better to nail stuff here rather than joining that group.

“I am practicing the basics on my own, so I’m okay.”

“Really? What a pity. It would be really fun if you could join us.”

Work hard - Miso turned around after adding those words. Maru whistled as he heard the groans of the others. He could already picture them going home in pain.

* * *

It had been a while since he didn’t have a shoot on a weekend. This was because the episode about Yeseul’s one-sided love was starting. From what he heard, Yeseul, Jichan and Giwoo had a shoot from Saturday through Wednesday.

“I’ll go up to the clubroom today.”

“You don’t have a shoot today?”

“It’s been a while since I didn’t have a shoot on a Saturday. I’ll go up and see how the others are doing. Is senior Miso coming today?”

“No, she’s not coming today.”

“Also, I heard that you decided to meet up on Sundays as well.”

“That’s because we decided on the script. There’s yours in the clubroom too so take a look later.”

“There’s mine as well?”

“Well, we made a copy for now. So that you can help when we go over the lines.”

“Uhm, president, I’m a staff member though?”

“Do it anyway, you’ll help out, right?”

“Whew, our little Park Daemyung has gotten a lot more evil.”

Daemyung went up first. Maru shrugged before returning to his class.

“Maru, let’s start cleaning.”

A classmate tossed a broom at him. He was going to the faculty office, since he was supposed to clean it, when he saw a man walking up the stairs with a tripod and a black bag. From what he saw in that brief instance, there was a Sony logo on the bag.

‘Is that him?’

It seemed that he was the graduate from the film production club. He also looked to be around his early thirties, so Maru was probably right.

After finishing the cleaning of the faculty office, Maru went up to the clubroom. He saw thirty bags lined up neatly on one side. The small clubroom only acted as a storage space for bags, since there wasn’t enough room. It was good that they had a lot of members, but that came with its drawbacks as well. He stepped between the bags to go to the display stand. The script that Daemyung talked about before was placed there. He grabbed a copy before going up to the 5th floor. When he climbed about half way up, he could hear some loud voices. It seemed that they were doing a vocal exercise, and since there were more than thirty of them, their voices reverberated throughout the corridor.

He quietly opened the door and entered. The juniors were looking towards the window. He greeted Daemyung, who noticed him coming in, with his eyes, before sitting down in a corner.

“You have to make a sound as though you are pulling out all the air you breathed in. You might feel dizzy, so watch out for that.”

The juniors all voiced out upon Daemyung’s instructions. Daemyung looked quite good as an instructor. Maru flipped the pages of the script so that he didn’t interrupt them. Just when he was looking at the first page, a shadow loomed over him.

“Should I tell them that you’re here?”

“Forget it. That’s not why I’m here. But their focus is pretty good. Not even one of them turned around even though the door was quite loud.”

“That’s because they suffered enough of instructor Miso’s punishments. They would have to run laps around the field if they lost focus after all.”

“That’s true. How are the 2nd years faring?”

“Ever since they heard that skill will decide who will go up on stage, they’ve been practicing like mad. They are putting even more effort in than last year. Dowook seemed to want to do it as well.”

“That’s why this country will never abandon competitive studies. It’s effective. So, when are you going to decide on roles?”

“I’m talking to the instructor about it right now.”

“Don’t you need to decide soon? It’ll be April next week.”

“We will. She seems to be picking some people as well in her mind. She’ll probably tell me soon.”

“How do you see it? Does anyone catch your mind?”

“I’m torn because everyone’s good.”

“What a happy worry you have there. You are going to do the read-through today, right?”

“Yeah.”

“May I add some input after I listen to it?”

“Of course.”

Just then, there was a knock on the door. Maru thought that he was mistaken and looked at the door for confirmation when he heard the knock again.

“I’ll go get the door.”

Maru stood up before walking towards the door. He waved his hand at the first year students who glanced his way before opening the door.

“Ah, seonbae-nim.”

Sora was standing outside. It wasn’t just her. The members of the film production club were there as well.

“What brings you here?”

“The script is done.”

Sora carefully took out the script from her bag. Her attitude had slightly changed from last week, when she boldly put the synopsis in his face.

“You could’ve texted me though.”

“There’s something else I need to talk about as well.”

“Something else?”

Sora fell silent and looked at Ando standing next to him. Ando coughed before stepping up.

“We want to try creating a movie with the acting club. We wanted to talk to you guys about it, and that’s why we’re here.”