hankyoreh

By Nam Ji-en　

Han Ye-seul, lead actor in the KBS drama “Spy MyeongWol,” has stated her intention to resume filming and returned to Korea. But though the broadcaster has avoided having to replace a lead actress half way through filming, the fact that she ceased filming, demanding better working conditions, means the controversy surrounding Korean TV drama production practices has yet to subside.

No sleep

Filming through the night for several days in a row is an age-old practice on TV drama sets. On August 17, the manager of one actress who recently played the leading role in another drama said, “Once shooting for a drama begins, you work six days a week. You repeatedly stay up all night or get only about two hours of sleep. Even on the one day off, you get home at dawn so you can‘t really call it a break.”

One veteran actor who appeared in a different drama said, “There are a lot of so-called ‘live broadcast shootings,’ where the show to be broadcast on a certain day is filmed on that day. I was amazed that the drama went out properly after filming like that.”

Park Sin-yang, star of the 2005 drama “Lovers in Paris,” once criticised, “There are production environments where you work for 42-hours non-stop and actors and staff are exploited,” and called for improvements.

On Aug. 17, veteran actor Lee Sun-jae said during a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh, “Actors currently shoot dramas in highly dangerous conditions.”

Actors starring in dramas have been involved in a string of road accidents. Actress Hong Su-hyeon, from the KBS drama “The Princess’s Man” had an accident while returning home after filming until the early hours, while Yu Seung-ho of SBS drama “Warrior Baek Dong-su” and Park Sin-hye of MBC drama “You’ve Fallen for Me” had accidents on July 29 and 18 of last month, respectively. Their mishaps cannot be directly linked to their work on drama sets, but their managers maintain that driving at night after a completing a hard work schedule was one of the contributing factors.

The hardest shooting schedules are those of mini-series broadcast two days a week. Involving the broadcasting of two 70-minute episodes in seven days, such series are the equivalent of shooting a full-length feature film in one week. Outdoor shooting, too, is frequent.

It is in this context that some have claimed that broadcasts should be reduced to one episode per week, as a means of improving production practices. This is the case with mini-series in the United States and Japan. The method of broadcasting two episodes a week became common practice with the emergence of mini-series in Korea in the mid-1990s. With the exception of some dramas that were broadcast daily, the norm before the 1990s was to broadcast “weekly dramas” with one episode per week. Competition between Korea’s three terrestrial broadcasters made twice-weekly dramas take root. If a 16 to 24 episode mini-series is broadcast once a week, viewers lose attention, audience ratings fall and, eventually, advertising revenues are affected.

As the drama production system became commercialized and competition over audience ratings intensified, production conditions grew worse. Outside producers were employed more frequently, while shooting and production sets grew more pressurized in proportion to the intensifying competition for profits through advertising and sponsorship.

“From 2000, drama production conditions grew more commercialized and the production environment grew worse,” said Lee Sun-jae.

One executive from the drama department of a terrestrial broadcaster said, “As competition over audience ratings intensified, drama broadcasting times increased from 60 to 70 minutes, increasing the amount of shooting. Dramas have to be long to get good audience ratings and attract advertisers.”

Some advocate advance production as an alternative, but this, in reality, is not easy.

“Until now, all dramas produced in advance have failed,” said Park Seong-su, head of the drama department at MBC. “Korean viewers like to be involved with and communicate with dramas, but this is not possible with dramas that have been produced in advance.” Lee Jin-seok, head of drama production company J. S. Pictures, said, “One alternative that certainly works is producing half the drama in advance, then beginning broadcasting. Broadcasting mini-series just once a week could be an alternative if all three broadcasters agreed on it, but in reality that seems unlikely.”

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]