Chapter 1491: Opening for Business (1) |
Kang Jin-Ho sagged in his chair, completely exhausted.
Since he was in this state, it went without saying how much worse it was for the other people.
“I think I’m dead.”
“Since when did the monitor become blurry? Or is it just my eyes?”
The souls of all the crew here were trying to leave their bodies through their gaping mouths. In a film set that resembled a scene from a zombie apocalypse thriller, only one person was still moving and shouting energetically.
Bak Gang-Seong cried out, “One more! Just one more take, and we’ll be done! I promise!”
“D-director, someone might really die at this rate.”
“What are you talking about!” Bak Gang-Seong shot a glare at his cinematographer. “Just one more take! That’ll be enough! Can’t you feel it? This ad! It’s gonna be a viral hit! Not just any hit, but it’s gonna change history, okay!”
When scary sparks erupted from Bak Gang-Seong’s eyes, the cinematographer flinched nastily.
The cinematographer couldn’t finish what he wanted to say and groaned deeply.
This is why I keep saying that directors can be such as*holes!
What was the point of shooting several more takes at this stage? The cinematographer had never seen additional footage obtained this way being used in any meaningful way until now, after all. As a matter of fact, how many times did he see all the footage filmed through so much toil getting discarded in favor of the stuff shot earlier in the day? Far too many times to count, that was what!
When one thought about it, that was an obvious conclusion. If the crew were too exhausted to continue, that could only mean the actors were also exhausted, didn’t it? And the footage shot while everyone was exhausted wouldn’t be of a better quality than the ones shot earlier in the day.
However, despite knowing all that, the species called “directors” just didn’t know when to let go.
“Look, Mister Bak! Don’t you think we already have enough great footage to use? Even without the post-production magic sprinkled on it, the stuff we have already looks incredible, so is there a need to keep filming?”
“Yes, I agree that what we have is enough. It certainly is! But enough is not enough for this ad! Because this ad will become the defining moment of my career! Please, help me out this once! Please!”
“Mister Bak…! Please get a hold of yourself. It’s already evening.”
“Eh?”
Bak Gang-Seong hurriedly turned his trembling eyes outside the cafe’s windows. Sure enough, the sun had set over the horizon, and the darkness was quickly descending on the land below.
“N-no, it can’t be!”
The setting for this ad was a lazy afternoon. Which meant the scenes had to be shot during the day. And for obvious reasons, the footage filmed in the evening would never perfectly match the shots already in the can. The incoming darkness would force the crew to re-adjust or even outright switch the spotlights and color filters on the cameras. But that wouldn’t be quite enough to mask the difference.
Bak Gang-Seong began biting and chewing on his nails.
“N-no, this is bad! Really bad! All I need is three more takes! I can feel it in my soul…!”
Didn’t this bastard say he only needed one more take? The cinematographer slowly shook his head.
“Mister Bak, you can film a thousand takes and still won’t get the footage that everyone likes. It’s about time we call it a day and move on.”
“Hah-ah…” Bak Gang-Seong sighed deeply. “Sounds like there’s no choice, huh.”
“Yes, Mister Bak. You’re making the right…”
“We’ll just delay the additional photography till tomorrow morning!”
No! Stop it, you lunatic!
***
The director’s decision to film additional scenes on the following morning had to be shelved when Choi Yeon-Ha, energized by the pleading gazes of the crew, grabbed a nearby tumbler. Even the director could see that any further insistence could lead to that metallic object slamming into the middle of his forehead, so he was forced to swallow his tears and declare his surrender.
Usually, Choi Yeon-Ha didn’t shy away from additional filming if the director said so, but not this time. Even she couldn’t endure it anymore.
I mean, seriously! I wouldn’t have minded if only he was changing things up every so often!
The concept of this ad was as simple as it could get. All Choi Yeon-Ha and Kang Jin-Ho had to do was stare at each other with cups of coffee between them. That was it! They would act naturally and relaxedly, grin awkwardly and sheepishly look away sometimes, as the camera panned further and further away to reveal the cafe and its logo.
That was the entirety of this ad’s concept. Since that was the case, what would change or improve by filming the same thing over and over for a hundred times? Even the excuse of finding the subtle differences in emotions wouldn’t be enough at this point!
Heck, Mister Jin-Ho’s face doesn’t even look that handsome anymore! That’s how long we’ve been doing this!
Imagine how fatigued she must’ve been, and how long she had been staring at that face, to feel this way!
Choi Yeon-Ha sighed deeply. At least she could say Kang Jin-Ho and her had given their all to today’s shoot. As proof, Kang Jin-Ho was half-buried in his chair, the look of stupefaction etched on his face.
“It’s time to go, Mister Jin-Ho. It’s finished.”
“R-really…?”
“Yes, it’s finished. Stay strong, okay?”
Kang Jin-Ho slowly covered his face with his hands. “I haven’t felt a need to scrub myself clean this badly in a long while.”
“Stop whining.”
“No, I’m not whining, but… Mm.” Kang Jin-Ho sat up straight before groaning deeply. “I didn’t think filming commercials would be this hard. You sure have it tough, Miss Yeon-Ha.”
“Tough?” Choi Yeon-Ha chuckled helplessly. “I’m not the one with a tough job, you know? In fact, you could say my job is one of the easiest in the world.”
“What do you mean?”
“Plenty of people in this world have jobs hundreds of times harder than mine but get paid less than one-one-hundredth of what I get paid. Knowing that, how could I dare complain about such a thing?”
“…”
Well, Choi Yeon-Ha was right about that.
Kang Jin-Ho couldn’t help but view Choi Yeon-Ha in a new light just then.She sometimes whined excessively on things that didn’t warrant such a response, but in things where people wouldn’t have minded her whining, she’d always stop herself from doing so. Was this the quirk of a behavioral pattern that was slightly different from normal people’s?
Well, I’m in no position to point that out, though.
He chuckled helplessly, then glanced at Choi Yeon-Ha again. “In any case, it’s over for good, yes?”
“For today, yes. We only have to shoot still images tomorrow, anyway.”
“…”
Oh, that’s right. There was that, too.
“A different director will oversee the shoot tomorrow,” said Choi Yeon-Ha. “Even the crew will be different. So, stop whining and get lots of rest at home, okay? And come back tomorrow with your batteries fully charged.”
Kang Jin-Ho sighed deeply again. “Is it easier to take still photos?”
“Yes, it is. So much easier. And less troublesome, too.”
“I see. That’s a relief.”
Kang Jin-Ho shook his head. Today’s experience helped him gain a renewed appreciation of the adage, One mustn’t bite off more than they could chew.
Different people were good at different things. As for Kang Jin-Ho, one could say he was extremely specialized in one thing: fighting. He was confident about kicking someone’s butt, but things like acting just didn’t match his personality or inclinations.
“I hope everything will work out tomorrow,” said Choi Yeon-Ha.
“Yes, me too. Me, too.”
Kang Jin-Ho replied earnestly. It’d be great if all their hard work would be rewarded handsomely at the end of the road.
I wonder, do they even know I’m putting myself through this for their sake?
A wry smirk formed on Kang Jin-Ho’s face for some reason.
***
“Seriously…?”
Seong Ju-Chan’s eyes were powerfully quaking right now.
Of course he could understand. It was normal to feel anxious, after all!
The grand launch of the cafe franchise was only a few days away, so who among the franchisees wouldn’t be anxious about what the future holds? Every human being in these people’s shoes would’ve turned into a nervous wreck by now.
Even Seong Ju-Chan had gone through this experience, hadn’t he? He could still vividly recall how nervous he was back when he inherited this cafe from his senior and opened it as his own. The anxiety of starting a new life was not something mere words could describe.
So, he could definitely understand the plight of these people, but…!
“What the hell?! I get that you’re all nervous and sh*t, but why are you getting all nervous in my cafe?! Why?! When I haven’t even opened the doors for business yet?!”
Seong Ju-Chan roared at all the people filling up his cafe.
His cafe was currently being renovated so that it’d match other cafes in the franchise. Despite its doors being closed, though, it was still filled to the brim with all the glum-looking franchisees!
“Oww, come on, dude! Don’t be so petty, okay? Besides, I came all the way from Busan today! Don’t you know how long it takes to get here?”
“No one told you to come here, you crazy bastard!”
Seong Ju-Chan continued to yell, but that only led to everyone glaring at him in dissatisfaction.
“That bastard! He’s getting a bit too full of himself, isn’t he?”
“We are all worried and want to talk to each other about it, yet he can’t even stomach that? Wow, what a petty bastard.”
“Leave him be. He’s only like that because he’s got nothing to worry about.”
White steam began gushing out of Seong Ju-Chan’s ears.
Dear Lord in Heaven, please forgive this sinful son as he’s about to go to Hell for murdering all these motherf*ckers!
If he had his way, Seong Ju-Chan would’ve already shoved all these bastards in a meat grinder and turned them into bloody meat paste!
His senior told him to watch out for difficult customers, but for some reason, Seong Ju-Chan never really ran into people that might qualify as difficult until now. He wondered if he got lucky, and every customer had been kind-hearted or something. However, he now knew that wasn’t the case.
No, spending time with these lunatics had dulled his senses to the point where most difficult customers didn’t feel difficult in his view anymore!
“Come on, man! Stop being so harsh, okay? Imagine how hard it must be for us to slum it out here.”
Look, I hear you, okay! I get all that! And I would dearly love to make you feel better somehow! But why do you have to do that in my cafe! When I haven’t even opened it yet, you abominable useless bastards!
“Ju-Chan! I need my coffee refilled!”
Seong Ju-Chan snapped his head in the direction of that voice. “Listen here, you dipsh*t! You’ve already had five refills, okay?! You aren’t even going to pay, either!”
“Why pay for refills, though? When it's free?”
These bastards’ thought process differed significantly from Seong Ju-Chan, didn’t they? He promptly gave up arguing with them and lifelessly took the empty cup away.
Please, please! Dear Lord in Heaven, please let these bastards open their stores as soon as possible. Before they kill me first!
At least they would stop coming here and wasting his time once their shops opened. Because they would be too busy with managing their business and whatnot!
“Besides all that! Didn’t you idiots go through the customer service training? I heard it was pretty strict and stuff?”
“Yeah, we did. We know how to welcome customers and stuff. In that sense, your customer service skills are non-existent, dude.”
“Come as a customer before saying that, you bastard!” Seong Ju-Chan yelled before pounding his heart in frustration.
“Geez, look at his temper, man! Look!”
“I’m telling you, that dude is no good.”
Seong Ju-Chan glared at the duo while gritting his teeth. “Listen here, you dipsh*ts! Instead of killing time like this, go do something more productive! Like, sweeping the front of your cafe! Or train your part-timers! You’re opening your stores in a few days, so what the hell do you think you are doing!”
“We’ve already done that, okay? You think we’re all brainless lazy bums like you?”
Seong Ju-Chan suddenly calmed down and seriously addressed everyone in the cafe. “All of you, let me ask you something. Do you know how much money has been invested in this venture?”
“Of course we know. We footed the bill, after all.”
“Haaah… Seriously? Do you think that pitiful little money you coughed up was enough? It wouldn’t even have covered the interior fitting, okay?”
“…”
The cafe’s interior suddenly became quiet.
“Sure, the head office of a franchise business is also supposed to invest some money. That’s true. But that’s supposed to be for the R&D side of things, okay? And managing the brand and stuff. Do you know that our chairman is currently dumping a ton of his money into this venture? It’s like he’s trying to fill a cracked pot with water right now. Even if your stores take off and things go as well as you have hoped, you’ll still need at least three years to recoup the investment, okay?”
“Three years? That long?”
“I said at least three! It will be a miracle if we can recoup the money that quickly!”
Seong Ju-Chan groaned loudly. These idiots simply had no concept of running a business. Maybe the training program they had received earlier had taught them what it was like to own a business, but even now, they were far too oblivious about how much crap MK had to go through to make things easier for them.
“The Assembly Master… No, the chairman told us it’s a win-win situation for everyone, but the way I see it? This is definitely not a win-win, okay? If he wanted to, he could have launched a totally different business venture, one with a much higher potential revenue. But he’s still doing this, so that all of you idiots can put food on your table every day! Don’t you get that?”
“No, we get it, okay?”
“If you do, what the hell is the matter with you?” Seong Ju-Chan glared murderously. “You better give it your all, okay? If I ever hear about some fool offering crap customer service or arguing with customers, Imma tear your intestines out with my own two goddamn hands! If you wanna go destitute, do it alone, okay? Don’t harm your comrades or the chairman in your quest to ruin yourself! Especially the chairman! You do that, I will kill you! For real!”
Seong Ju-Chan’s murderous aura and icy voice prompted the people in the cafe to exchange silent gazes with each other.
Everyone found it comfortable to tease Seong Ju-Chan because of his kind nature. That was why they were camping out in his cafe, weren’t they? But now, that mild-mannered Seong Ju-Chan was glaring at them with veins bulging in his forehead while saying all these things. How could anyone retort snarkily to that?
“Look, Ju-Chan. You don’t have to worry about us, okay? We’ve fully resolved ourselves before starting this thing, anyway.”
“I seriously doubt that!”
Seong Ju-Chan groaned and shook his head.
“Besides, you don’t have to tear anyone’s intestines out, anyway.”
“Huh?” Seong Ju-Chan quizzically looked at the man who said that.
“I mean, c’mon. You think Chief Lee will sit by and do nothing?”
“…!”
That was when Seong Ju-Chan’s imagination automatically generated the scene of the enraged Lee Hyeon-Su kicking the door down and barging into the cafe.
Wow. Looks like I better step up my game, too.
He dearly wanted to avoid encountering that sight if he could help it!
Bang!
Just as his thoughts reached that far, someone kicked the door of his cafe open and waltzed inside.
“…”
That dude will never become a gentleman at this rate.
