Wookie Creates A Musical Spectacular In Korea

What with 'La La Land' winning BIG at the Oscars last year (in Faye Dunaway’s eyes, anyway) and Jack Hugeman turning heads as P.T. Barnum in ‘The Greatest Showman’, it seems the world is ready for lush musicals again. Such was the thinking of Daehong Communications, the in-house agency of Korean conglomerate Lotte, whose latest foot-tapping spot ‘'Lotte Way Of Life’ is an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza!

Drafting in MassMessAge’s resident auteur Young-wook Paik (aka Wookie), the film’s Hollywood-style choreography, incredible locations and extraordinary aspect ratio (5:1, widescreen nerds) mark it out as an eye-catching production.

We were curious about the development of the idea, the complexity of the creation and the choice of ratio, so grabbed Wookie to answer a few questions.

What was the background to this campaign?

The creative team at Daehong Communications, Lotte's in-house ad agency, had been working on a project from early 2017. It was for a film that would be screened in Lotte's new 123-story World Tower. It would be part of Lotte's interactive history museum located in the tower and would consist of screening rooms that show Lotte's past, present, and future.

What happened next?

Under the guidance of Daehong Communications creative directors Hyunsun Kwon and Donghyun Kim, the agency developed several storyboards with local production company, Broad Factory. The main act, which was the present, needed to show the different business branches of Lotte, that would include Lotte Foods and Beverages, Lotte Mart, the posh Avenuel Shopping Mall, Lotte Card, The Lotte New York Palace Hotel, and Lotte Chemicals. Several boards went by until the agency came up with the idea of a musical!

The narrative would feature two main characters who would magically experience the 'Lotte Way Of Life' in different stages. The narrative would also ease the way for different business branches to be presented. Without a storyboard, the agency sold the idea to the client by editing footage from various musical films and commercials.

How did MassMessAge get involved?

In search of a director who would take on a musical narrative, Daehong Communications looked to several candidates. They eventually found their choice in me! As someone who had helmed many global commercial campaigns, I was seen to be the right choice to take on the immense project. Judged on my works, they could see that not only did I have a keen sense of music direction, I was also one of the few directors who had tackled short narrative stories with my award-winning shorts ‘One Shot’ and ‘Seoul Tour’.

What were your first steps?

I immediately went to work on a treatment. From only a mood film to work from, I had to construct an original storyboard from scratch. Once the treatment was green-lit, the first order of things was to find a composer, choreographer, and a musical stage director who could take on the responsibility of coordinating a Broadway-scale musical production. Shooting was to take place in both New York and Seoul.

Enter Dimo Hyun Jun Kim, Stage Director and Chairman of 'Dimo Kim Musical Theatre Factor Inc.' in New York. Kim has recently garnered spotlight for his series of thought-provoking off-broadway musicals like 'Comfort Women: A New Musical' (2015), 'Green Card: A New Musical' (2016) and 'Interview: A New Musical' (2017). He's also a member of the 'Stage Directors and Choreographers Society,' and is part of the advisory committee to the 'PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games'.

It was Kim's job to take my final storyboard treatment and turn it into a musical narrative with the right composer and choreographer. He found both in composer Tekgoo Kang, and choreographer Natanal Hyun Kim. Both had worked closely with Kim on his previous musicals.

How was the pre-production?

With no time to spare, music composition and choreography happened instantaneously. Everyone was working to match a deadline that seemed impossible at the time. From awarding the job to me in early June, up to the day of shooting (last week of July), it took less than two months of pre-production to compose, cast, choreograph, and find the right film crew for the job. Casting for the two main actors hadn't been decided until the last minute, which was a week before production. Once the two main leads had been decided, everything started moving into place.

Working closely with Cinematographer Sang-hoon Back, who I had previously worked with on my recent 'McDonald's' and 'Hyundai' car campaigns, the first thing we did when we landed in New York was a concrete tech recce. We had less than a week to map out and prepare how we would shoot the film. Everything from camera movement to angles had to be planned accordingly to the choreography and movement of the actors.

Actors were all brought on location to rehearse the movements to see if anything interfered with the shooting and timetable. Having song lyrics in the composition didn't make it easier. They had to be careful in timing the sequences correctly before the lyrics flowed over to the next scene.

And the shoot?

With three different main locations (Central Park, Lotte Palace Hotel, Lotteria Burger stand-in), more than twenty set-ups, and two full days of shooting, it was the belief and tenacity in making the impossible possible that allowed the entire crew to pull through. The service company, Hamburger Films, were great in this regard. But that was only half of the mission.

After New York, the crew had less than four days to pack up and fly back to Seoul for the Korea sequences. The Korean shoot had even more locations than New York. They included the Lotte World castle, Lotte Mart, Lotte Avenue shopping mall, two enormous set pieces that would include the finale, and a flying sequence which was to be shot with the actors on wires in front of a green screen.

Everyone was working on fumes!

The film has a pretty extreme aspect ratio. What can you tell us about that?

The screening room inside the Lotte World Tower had a special aspect ratio of 5:1. No such aspect ratio existed or was ever screened. So the production team had to consider the wide angle coverage of all the actors, background action, and choreography during the shoot.

Viewfinders and monitors were carefully tape-framed to show what exactly was in frame. Everything had to be shot in 8K in consideration of the screen size.

For a project of this magnitude, post-production also took twice as long as normal. The challenge for the post team at 'Vixen' was to create a clean backdrop for the intro castle scene, while creating skies and aerial views for the flying saucer sequence. Their efforts paid off and the results were stunning.