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Interview: Hangul Celluloid: The first 25 minutes of 'Remember O Goddess' have been completed as a short film. Was it always your intention to make a feature length film of the story? Yoon Jung Lee: I wrote the original story 17 years ago—when I was 16—and had forgotten it. Two years ago, I found the notebook where my story had been lying dormant and decided to make it into a feature length film. So, I shot the first segment hoping that the short version would be a push to help fund the rest of the film. In the short film, I intentionally left some questions unsolved in the plot, such as who sent the cigarette or who is Kim Jin Young—the name mistakenly considered as the lead character’s. Hangul Celluloid: I have spoken to other directors who have mentioned difficulties in getting short films screened in Korea. Did you also find this to be the case? And do you feel the fact that 'Remember O Goddess' is a Korean/American joint production has resulted in the film being perceived in any way differently by the Korean film industry than a solely Korean production? Yoon Jung Lee: Yes, I have screened all of my short films more internationally than domestically. But I can’t provide you a reasonable analysis on this matter since you can’t hear sincere feedback from those people who rejected your film. Some of my films look like American productions since I worked with American actors, but obviously, ‘Remember O Goddess’ couldn’t have been discriminated for that reason. The short version ‘Remember O Goddess’ is solely produced in Korea. The rest of the film will be a joint production.
Yoon Jung Lee: No. People who are in charge of screening decision couldn’t have known it. They might have recognized some names from the major film industry in the ending credits, but I don’t expect the festival judges had paid attention to the credits while they were watching hundreds of films.
Yoon Jung Lee: The major financial sources for independent films in Korea are the local or national governmental film grants. I’ve applied for them with several different projects and never have succeeded in getting support. In addition, they don’t offer on-going submission opportunities, and they have all different timelines. So I have to spend about a year to raise a barely sufficient amount of money for making a micro-budget film. Think about it this way. There are about 10 different funding sources; average 5 people will make each funding decision; then you spend a year waiting to hear from just 50 people—they don’t actually tell you much. On the other hand, Kickstarter funding takes only about a month; you get exciting feedback from hundreds or thousands of people from all over the world. There was no reason not to give it a shot.
Yoon Jung Lee: Kickstarter funding is all-or-nothing, which means that if we don’t hit the goal by the time the campaign ends, we will return home empty-handed. So I feel nervous no matter how fast or slow the campaign moves forward. And at this early stage of the campaign, we got a significant amount of pledges from our friends or our friends’ friends. However, since I’m not extremely social or popularly known, this friendly well is already drying out. Now it’s time for us to speed up reaching out to the nice strangers who care about independent arts and films wherever they come from. Yet I remain hopeful about the future of our campaign thanks to the amazing supporters like you who I’ve met through running the campaign since I launched it 6 days ago.
Yoon Jung Lee: I appreciate that you recognized my intention very precisely. I can’t even think of what to add, but I’ll try.
Yoon Jung Lee: Yes. The scene depicts an instant relationship among the people living in the modern cities. You can reach out to anyone through phone calls, text messages, emails, and all the other communication tools, but it’s so hard to get your message across. A sender and a receiver often exchange totally different messages, and conversations get interrupted before they reach an agreement or understanding. I wanted to show it in an awkwardly funny manner so the audience will have some time to digest the situation in their own ways.
Yoon Jung Lee: I would not say that I was responsible for creating some of humor or tones in those films that I worked for as a script supervisor—that was not my job. I was rather keeping an eye on having consistency in the tone of humor in each shot and scene, according to the director’s vision. I guess my films reflect a certain side of my personality. The funny-but-sad or tragic-but-awkwardly-happy mood continuously appear in my films and scripts. I’m not always happily funny, but I can’t stand serious seriousness at the same time. Luckily, I was able to join movies that I like the most—this doesn’t happen all the time in the film industry, you know. I have learned a lot from the two directors who are highly proficient at playing with the diverse tones of humor.
Yoon Jung Lee: A literal English translation from the Korean title will be ‘Do Not Forget Me,’ which sounds too dry or heavy. I also considered ‘Forget Me Not’ to go a little poetic, but it didn’t sound right to me either. So I dug into classical literary works—which I often do when I can’t think of a good title—and in Homer’s Iliad, I found the enchantment “sing oh goddess” repeated throughout the whole epic. The voice of chorus in Greek epics is always interesting to me because it speaks to the audience as well as to the characters, which a title of a film may do. I also found it interesting that the act of enchanting to a goddess shared a similar desire with one of writing a suicide letter to an unknown love. So I replaced ‘sing’ with ‘remember,’ then I deleted ‘h’ from ‘oh’ in order to match it with my previous film’s title, ‘O Sweet Virgin,’ borrowed from Mary’s prayer.
Yoon Jung Lee: The dynamics among the people who are involved in the production become critically important in independent filmmaking. In the film industry, we share a certain level of expectation on the responsibilities and performances of each filmmaking role, so when you complete recruiting the crew members and actors, you’ll be able to expect how the production will progress and even how the movie will come out. However, when you make independent films, there is no firm agreement on the job responsibilities and performances among the filmmakers no matter where they come from. Building secure relationships and common expectations with your crew and actors is the key to end up with a good film—or even just a completed film.
Yoon Jung Lee: First of all, I had the contacts. Many of them were my friends or my friends’ friends. But since they are all busy professionals, you can’t just rely on friendship. They work for their passion in film, but not for their friendship with anyone. So most importantly, I had to convince them that we would finish every step of filmmaking very quickly, since it was very hard to get their schedule open for a long time for a non-paid job. I spent only a month for pre-production, four days for shooting, a week for editing, seven days for creating music, and three sessions for ADR and sound mix. The whole production took about two months from recruiting the crew members to distributing the DVDs of the finished film with my thank-you note to the people who were involved in making of the film. As long as you are prepared, working with the great professionals in a limited time can be very productive.
Yoon Jung Lee: I made a series of personal experimental films on 16mm or super8mm. ‘I Wish, On TV’ is one of them and it’s available for viewing online: https://vimeo.com/14043479. I strongly prefer to screen this piece on film, but I hope you can still grab my idea of experimenting on a specific film technique of in-camera-double-exposure by viewing it on digital streaming video. I made a musical film titled ‘O Sweet Virgin’ and other narrative shorts, which are not available online. I also did video projection/installation designing for theater performance ‘Closer,’ dance-based-media presentation ‘Silence,’ and many other music concerts, dance and mixed-media performances.
Yoon Jung Lee: My ultimate goal is directing films in the major film industry so I’ll be able to focus on directing job. I’ve been writing the scripts that seek that aim. However, I don’t want to wait forever till someone recognizes my talent and tells me “you are now a director.” I always want to go back to the set after spending several months or a year writing for myself. Working as a script supervisor fulfils my desire to work for the films that I want to see being made. That’s the initial place where I’ve been wanting to direct films. I have the films in my mind that I want to see in theaters. That’s the most important thing.
Yoon Jung Lee: I used to teach at The Korean National University of Arts one semester, one of the privileged film schools in Korea. They had the nicely gender-balanced classes, but I haven’t seen as many female filmmakers or directors in the industry. The jobs open to women in the industry are quite limited. We have many female script supervisors, but few 1st AD’s. I don’t know any of the female cinematographers or lighting directors in the industry. And I don’t think they celebrate female directors as much as the male directors. However, as many talented female filmmakers have been emerging recently, I expect we will be able to see more interesting films made by women in the near future.
Yoon Jung Lee: Honestly I don’t necessarily relate myself more to the works of female directors than those of male directors. We have small numbers of the films directed by women, and there are so many great works done by male directors throughout the history of film. I think I don’t care so much about which gender the director of a film belongs to. However, I am conscious of the way my gender may interfere or interact with the experience of viewing my films. I was asked several times during the Q&A sessions after screenings at the film festivals if there was a male screenwriter who wrote the script of ‘Remember O Goddess.’ I intentionally avoided having my name appear in the opening sequence because I didn’t want the audience to recognize that this film is directed by a woman before they actually see it.
Yoon Jung Lee: As I said earlier, my films have been appreciated better outside Korea than inside. The international film market tends to embrace more diversity than the Korean independent film market, which is very small. So the international market allows me to trust my own vision and go beyond the limit that the Korean market is likely to draw.
Yoon Jung Lee: I understand why they think that way. The Korean movies that depict violence in the society are quite good and unique in that sense. The Korean audience also embrace them because they address the darkness of the society while the counter medium TV has failed to do it right. However, I’m against those violent movies representing Korean cinema since the other important attempts in Korean cinema are likely to be overseen by the international audience.
Yoon Jung Lee: Most importantly, please check out the short version ‘Remember O Goddess.’ It’s not late to consider backing our project after seeing it. I don’t want to ask you for charity, but I desperately want to get connected with the people who support our vision. We have a long road ahead, so please join the new wave in Korean independent films.
Further Information and Links: Lee Yoon Jung's continuing efforts to secure funding/backing to complete her feature film 'Remember O Goddess' are taking place via the Kickstarter project - a funding platform for creative projects. 'Remember O Goddess' Synopsis:
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