hankyoreh

"It feels like the whole course of my life has been altered as a result of the Sewol tragedy. Before, I’d have some vague ideas about doing computer programming, but after what happened with the Sewol, I realized that I could share the message I wanted to communicate with the media by creating videos and music for healing and remembrance. That’s also why I joined the film and video department in the hopes of being a film score composer.”

Jessie Yun Ji-su, who turns 20 this year, is a sophomore in the film and video department at the Asia Campus of the University of Utah (in Incheon’s Songdo region). In March, she and six other composers from five countries (the US, Germany, Finland, Belgium, and South Korea), along with a cellist, collaborated to make “Farewell to the Souls,” a commemorative album for the Sewol ferry sinking, which they made available through YouTube and other channels. Lasting 23 minutes, the album includes seven pieces representing the solemn “epic” genre of music often used in film trailers, each of the numbers infused with feelings of both sadness and hope. Yun spoke to the Hankyoreh by telephone on Apr. 27.

“I assembled composers by advertising in February on a composer/music lover community server I manage, explaining that I wanted to make a commemorative epic music album for the Sewol tragedy with ‘hope’ and ‘comfort’ as keywords,” she explained.

“Later, I created a separate room on the server where the composers could post excerpted music and trade feedback as we developed the songs. The technical aspects like the mixing and mastering were done by Sami Laine, a composer from Finland, while I was in charge of the general fine-tuning with things like putting the songs together.”

What were the feelings that motivated the different overseas composers to take part?

“They each have different stories. One of them expressed a strong sense of solidarity with the Sewol tragedy, explaining that there had been a similar major maritime disaster in Europe. Another composer said this experience was the first they’d heard about the Sewol tragedy.”

Yun made her own commemorative album for the Sewol tragedy three years ago, when she was a second-year student at Kyungil High School in Seoul. At the same, she was not well acquainted with composition and came up with only the melody for one piece.

“In my first year of high school, I did the same thing as this time, advertising on a platform [Newgrounds] where animators, composers, and other creators communicate and upload their work, and it took me a year to produce the album,” she recalled.

“We communicated by email. There weren’t any limits in terms of genre, so it included a mixture of rock, classical music, and emotional orchestral music.”

Since her main focus with the first album was on raising awareness of the Sewol tragedy, Yun focused on the storytelling aspect, with images from CNN news broadcasts included in the video.

Sewol could happen anywhere

“The Sewol tragedy is the kind of thing that could happen anywhere. I wanted to raise overseas awareness, since I saw it as an issue that wasn’t exclusive to South Korea. I felt like we all need to be preparing to ensure that disasters like this don’t happen,” she explained. During the winter break of her second year in high school, she produced a commemorative video for the tragedy using images that she had produced herself.

“I developed a commemorative story and produced an animatic video, which is the stage before animation,” she said.

At the time of the Sewol tragedy in 2014, Yun was in her second year at Jeju Girls’ Middle School. Although she was born in Seoul, her father moved around for work, and she lived in Jeju from the time she was eight until her second year in middle school, she explained.

“The students from Danwon High School [on the Sewol] suffered that disaster while they were on the way to Jeju Island for a field trip. It was really heartbreaking for me as a Jeju resident -- just shocking,” she remembered.

“Two years later, I became a high school student like the victims had been, and I felt even sadder about it. Around the same time, I happened to read the book ‘Recording the Sewol’ by Oh Joon-ho at the school library, and I made up my mind to create a commemorative album.”

Yun’s commemorative creations have drawn a number of replies sharing messages of sympathy and support. She described this support as a major boost for her dreams of becoming a film score composer.

“In my second year of high school, I began studying composition on my own. With my first album, I didn’t have the composing skills, and I couldn’t really write songs. With this latest work, I’ve achieved that dream,” she said.

“It’s tremendously gratifying. I so badly wanted to make my own songs to commemorate the Sewol,” she added.

Yun also said she had been receiving requests for music from commercial music companies since last year, when she entered university.

“I wrote two pieces for a film developed by the British YouTube group EliteProductions as a Minecraft game. I’m also working on an album by the film trailer music production company Gothic Storm Music with Sami Laine, who collaborated on the commemorative album.”

Why epic music?

“When I first heard epic music, it felt like my mind was being opened wide,” she explained. “It instilled positive feelings. Listening to that music made me feel like a hero. I felt like I should create epic music that was infused with a Korean sensibility.”

The commemorative album is to be the final part of the Sewol commemoration project that she began in her first year of high school, she said.

“This album contains all of the messages that I wanted to express to the family members [of the victims] and the people who are remembering them,” she said.

How did Yun’s parents respond to their daughter’s project?

“My parents have always told me, ‘You don’t always need to get 100%. You should just work on getting 80% while doing the things you enjoy and love,’” she said. “When I was attending high school, they told me it was okay if I [composed] on weekends and during vacations.”

Yun currently attends a US university with a campus in South Korea.

“I chose it because I’m very interested in overseas culture and I wanted to have diverse cultural experiences, but I also wanted to attend university in South Korea,” she said. “I also took into account the fact that the department I joined has a lot of internship programs with Hollywood studios and other places.”

“I’m used to English after listening to a lot of English-language CDs and DVs since I was a kid and talking with foreign teachers since I was an elementary school student,” she added.

What is Yun’s dream today?

“I want to share a message of hope with people through my creative activities, whether that’s film or music,” she said.

“Contemporary society is harsh and dark. I’d like to help people like positive lives through easily accessible media like movies.”

By Kang Sung-man, senior staff writer

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