Inside the art and Seoul of a movie making machine
He may well have the most famous feet in South Korea. As a technician in the sound effects recording room of the Seoul Studio Complex (SSC), the smiling, middle-aged man provides the ominous footsteps you hear in countless Korean slasher flicks as they follow hapless victims through the dark woods.
Dressed in a baseball cap and spandex shorts, he clomps through a neat square-metre of dirt in heavy boots - before changing into women's high heels to jog frantically on the spot over parquet tiles. Beside him are a dozen pairs of shoes, each of which makes different noises that are recorded by microphones suspended from the ceiling.
This is the kind of behind-the-scenes action that visitors can see at the 1.3 million-square-metre SSC, Asia's largest filmmaking complex and a testament to South Korea's booming film industry. Built in 1997 with a government grant of $100 billion won (HK$670 million), it's where more than a third of all Korean films are now made, from start to finish. And about eight out of every 10 Korean films - 327 since 1997 - pass through the SSC's gates at some point before being shown on the big screen.
The SSC's facilities cover every step of the filmmaking process. 'Our main goal is to have a central role in the entire industry,' says studio management director Yi Kyung-yull. 'We've achieved our goal to be able to have the full course of production in one place.'
The SSC's funding body, the Korean Film Council, is pushing the local industry, providing loans to independent filmmakers and helping boost domestic releases at the box office.
'We give incentives to cinemas to show more local and artistic films because commercial theatres sometimes are reluctant to show anything other than blockbusters,' says council executive director Youn Jong-doo. 'The filmmakers work entirely independently. All the government does is provide the infrastructure to allow them to develop more efficiently.'
In turn, the films make about seven billion won a year for the SSC, with the money reinvested into upcoming projects.
The SSC's latest plan is to fashion itself into a tourist attraction. Already, Korean movie stars are so hot that fan clubs from all over Asia make pilgrimages to Seoul. The SSC is eager to ride this wave by turning itself into a smaller version of America's Universal Studios. (Even its rabbit mascot, Octorong, bears a striking resemblance to Bugs.)
Located more than an hour east of Seoul, it's not the easiest place to find, although its setting makes perfect movie-making sense. Its buildings run along the bottom of a picturesque valley, which means that, no matter where you point a movie camera, the view is framed by lush green mountains and dramatic misty-blue peaks. The SSC's public relations machine is spinning the experience as 'Cinema Paradiso in the woods'.
The SSC now has a filmmaking museum, movie camps for kids and guided tours of its huge sets, such as the detailed re-construction of the Demilitarised Zone used for blockbuster Joint Security Area.
The traditional Korean town set is a big hit. It's a fully functional 19th-century village, complete with 31 thatched cottages for peasants, roof-tiled houses for richer families, a geisha district and stores selling everything from rice to ceramics. The most expensive movie set ever built in Korea, the 2.2 billion won village was originally constructed for the historic film Chwi-hwa-seon, and has been re-used endlessly for South Korea's many period dramas.
The film culture hall gives visitors a glimpse of how movies are made. You can: tour storerooms containing 50,000 costumes and 400,000 props; view exhibitions dedicated to the history of filmmaking; and play with primitive Zoetrope and Thaumatrope cameras.
The visual effects hall is more hi-tech. Some exhibits may be lost on those who don't speak Korean, although anyone can enjoy the blue matte process hall, in which the secrets of special effects are revealed. Climb up a rope ladder barely a metre off the ground and watch an image of yourself dangling out a helicopter door hundreds of metres above a rain forest. Take a step up an indoor climbing wall, and watch yourself superimposed on the sheer cliff of an ice-capped mountain.
The SSC also has a number of 3-D cinemas, including one in which they're experimenting with smells that can be released during a film. Heaven help anyone who watches Hollywood Hong Kong here.
During our tour, a sound technician proudly let us see Korea's only Dolby mixing machine, before showing us the just-finished trailer of horror flick Spider Forest, which is due out in cinemas this month.
In the audience that day was Home Affairs Secretary Patrick Ho Chi-ping, possibly taking notes on how Hong Kong might give its movie industry a kick-start like this, too.
