MC Park’s Philosophy on Directing: How to be ‘Completely Not Ready’
Director/Partner in Korean shop MassMessAge talks about creativity in Korea, working for the web and how to know when you’re ready to direct.
|
MC Park’s Philosophy of Directing: Director and partner in Korean production company MassMessAge talks about creativity By Anthony Vagnoni
Well, I usually nag and preach here and there (he says with a smile), but I usually counsel people on life. For example, our Assistant Directors are easily exhausted because of the high intensity of our work. I send them off on holiday once a year and allow them time to look back. It’s a time where they search for answers on their own. They’ll one day become directors, and once they’re able to support themselves I set them free to set up their own production company in the form of a joint-stock company. How long have you been directing, and how did you get into the field? How would you describe your approach to directing? Majoring in Visual Design at Hongik University, I naturally came in contact with the advertising scene while attending a moving image class taught by Professor ‘Kim Jong-duk’, who was also a commercial director at the time. Before that, I started a small cartoon club in university called ‘Nemorami,’ and worked on cartoons and illustrations. We would make sketches on paper, photograph them, print them out and shoot them on a VHS camcorder frame-by-frame, to play them out as moving images. It’s a job that kind of drove me crazy. I could feel I was more interested in moving images. So eventually after graduating, I started as an Assistant Director for a commercial production company, and my friends, who at that time had worked together with me in the cartoon club, have now mostly become commercial directors or comic book artists. I once asked one of the Directors I was assisting, “When will I finally become a Director?” Thinking about it now, it’s such a childish question. The Director smiled and gave me a wise answer: “When you’re completely not ready.” He was right. In December of 1996, I shot my first commercial for a blue jean brand called “NIX.” That opportunity came by chance, and I wasn’t ready. It was simply a lucky start. There was a time when people watched classic movies or news through a black and white television. It’s hard to believe, but Korea had only switched to color TV in the early 1980’s. I myself remember watching Hitchcock’s “The Birds” in black & white. It’s only later on that I found out that the movie was released in color. I have fond memories holding a spoon in my hand, hoping that the mentalist Uri Geller would also demonstrate his supernatural ability over live TV, or watching video artist Paik Nam-jun create his version of George Orwell’s “1984” via satellite in the video art installation piece “Good Morning Mr. Orwell.” To me, the amazing world of live broadcast was always more impressive in black and white. Because I had come in contact with the non-color medium first, I still find black and white pictures more comfortable to watch. I like the simplicity of light and dark, so the first spots I directed were in black and white. I had shot so much in black and white for almost a year that people started to question if I was colorblind. Sometimes it created the illusion of watching a black and white TV, when my spots aired one after the other. Most clients are very hesitant to use black and white because it can look very dark and grotesque.
What’s the MassMessAge approach to working with agencies and advertisers? Do you have a company philosophy that guides the way you deal with scripts and creative briefs? Not all projects or work are handled the same way. Because we have different Directors, they all have their unique ways of working with agencies or advertisers. Of course they can motivate each other or be motivated, but overall each Director cannot survive in the industry without their own style. I don’t know how the other Directors in our company work, but I usually organize my thoughts about jobs into three subject areas: 1. Art: When the Director wants a storyboard that can reflect his or her style. In the first case, the level of expression is pretty much free. The client or agency simply requests that the Director shoots something “completely different” or something that “creates a buzz” when the spot comes out. This is usually the daring case for launching brands, or developing brands that have yet to create an image for themselves in the market. In these cases, I usually get involved from the planning process of the storyboard. It could be an image, a sound, or a unique story. But I’d like to think of it as leaving an instant impression. That’s why I like everything that flashes and moves.
In the third case, well, just don’t be late for the shoot! As a director, what do you think is the biggest difference between directing for Korean agencies and clients and other Asian agencies or clients? I think the more precise question should focus on the difference between who I work with on what project, instead of which country the project is from. Eventually it’s people, not nationalities, who work in advertising. If it’s a more open and flexible project, the agency or client will be more open to new suggestions or changes, whereas if it’s a project that requires many levels of decisions and precision, it’s likely the project will proceed securely within the boundaries of the fixed creative without additional interpretation. I think this is the case in any country. However each country has its own cultural difference on the level of expression, so this would be something I would try to understand. How would you characterize the creative quality of Korean advertising? Do you feel it is on a par with the work produced in other Asian countries? I think the technical and external qualities of advertising have definitely gotten better in Korea. Recently we’ve seen such a surge in campaigns handled by global agencies or foreign staff that it’s becoming hard to define “Korean” advertising anymore. Whether you’re looking at it from a client standpoint, or from an agency, it doesn’t seem easy to pick a standard.
Although the pre-deliberation of the ‘Korea Advertising Review Board (KARB)’ was ruled unconstitutional, things haven’t changed that much. Conservative organizations like the review board are a big hindrance to creative people in this industry, who are constantly looking for ways to break taboo and produce more creative ideas and expressions. A few years back, as the Internet became even quicker, I was able to watch various spots from all over Asia. Everyone seems to be influencing each other these days, as more and more personal exchanges are being made in the industry. Once I received a reference spot from an agency that wanted a certain style, only to find out that the reference spot was a spot I had directed myself. As a partner in a production company, what trends do you see in the industry that most concern you? Where do you see the greatest opportunity for growth in the next few years? The TV’s on, but where are all the children? Let me explain. There’s a new word in the broadcast community in Korea called ‘Bon Bang Saa Soo.’ It simply means ‘defending the original broadcast.’ As more young generations watch their favorite programs by downloading them on the Internet instead of watching it on TV, clients are beginning to ask themselves two questions: How can we expose them to our spots on TV? And how long will this method (TV advertising) be effective? It’s kind of ironic but I, myself, haven’t watched TV for years. You may ask, “What? A Commercial Director doesn’t watch TV?” (He smiles) On the other hand, Internet commercials, regardless of consumers’ satisfaction with them, show precise numbers of exposure, which would lead certain clients to assume its more effective advertising. Since you’re pretty much free from time limits or censorship issues, depending on how you utilize it, you can combine it with an entertainment medium or use it to upload large graphics like a moving image flyer. Another trend we see is simply this: If it isn’t interesting now, nobody will watch. Until now, the Director has been at the heart of a production company in Korea. A few years back, PD production companies (that is, production companies run by former agency producers, as ‘PD’ is short for producer) started to come onto the industry scene. Eventually what has happened is, two production companies have started to work together on one project, and during the process a few Director-owned production companies have filed complaints and refused to work within this new order. The problem all seems to come down to production costs, budget cut downs and reduction of manpower. Carefully observing this chain of events, I think to myself and ask this question: Are we just ants on a leaf—simply working hard to make commercials—while the leaf is floating down a huge stream of change? Are you being asked to shoot films that will run just on the web? If so, are there any differences about this kind of work compared to work you do for traditional broadcast outlets? Recently I worked on a few small projects for Amore Pacific’s ‘Laneige’ and ‘Hera’ cosmetic brand line-up that were initially produced for the Internet to provide a more interesting and unique set of copy points that was difficult to deliver on TV. On the other hand a few years ago, a few new Directors from MassMessAge shot a series of Internet viral spots for eBay Korea’s ‘Auction’ site and stirred quite a controversy using tabooed subject matter in their spots. They were branded ‘Mak Jang’ (it’s a slang term here that means nothing-to-lose, extreme, thoughtless) advertising in the headlines of both TV and newspapers and was eventually banned, even from the Internet. If you think about it now, the spots were quite charming and didn’t even compare to the level of ‘extremeness’ seen in movies or TV dramas. However the client in charge of the campaign had to step down because of this incident. It shocked me by how conservative and intolerant Korean society was on a small humorous campaign. The Internet may not have any boundaries, but it will always mirror the society it serves. |
What role do you play in the company in addition to being one of its directors?
I’m a person who aims toward the past. I like things that are old. I look back in time and find things to create different impressions. I recollect the things I’ve seen—what I’ve been influenced by—and re-create them as moving images. So when I’m directing an actor, I usually tell them only a brief description of the situation and just wait. Sometimes the best scenes come naturally when the camera isn’t rolling. I like how not giving direction becomes the best direction, because in that brief moment nobody is aware. It’s kind of like the wind naturally blowing the actor’s hair, compared to blowing it with a fan.
The second case focuses on the importance of interpreting the storyboard. You can be lucky and be given a good campaign, or meet a great Creative Director. However, the opposite can also happen, which is why you need to keep an open mind and listen carefully to what the idea’s originator wants to do. Because there have been cases where the Director puts so much emphasis on his or her style that the campaign was completely destroyed. You have to be like an Oriental doctor who checks their patients’ physical constitution beforehand by checking their pulse. You ask yourself: Does the company and brand really want change? If yes, how much of it do they want? You always need to think from the client’s perspective.
The Korean advertising industry is very capricious. Consumers’ preferences, or the duration of trends, are getting faster and ever-changing. It’s one of the reasons why Korea is used as a test market for various international companies, before they launch their brand. If you look at just the creative aspect, it’s also true that Korea has its own style of content or celebrity-driven marketing which people relate to that can earn high brand awareness levels in shorts amount of time. This formula may not be the answer, but the important issue may be that this kind of celebrity marketing still works here. This is one of the reasons why creative driven campaigns are still seen as a naïve way of communication in Korea.
Membership
