Category: Lectures
Long-form serialized lectures on Korean screen craft, examined from the editing room’s perspective. We bring a working director’s view to readers who want to understand how the work actually gets made — across acting, directing, plotting, and editing.
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Acting for the Cut — Lecture 4
Don’t Blink A long time ago, there was a young man I cast in a leading role after seeing his face exactly once. This was before we selected actors through auditions — back when I was such an unknown director that it felt awkward even to call people in to read for me. No casting…
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Acting for the Cut — Lecture 3
The Finger on the Scene Before Winter, 2013. Four in the morning. I opened my eyes to go to set — though, in truth, my eyes had been open all night. Not a minute of sleep. I was frightened. I had no idea how I was supposed to direct anything, and the dark in front…
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Acting for the Cut — Lesson 2. Excess Is Not a Flaw. It Is a Frequency
“Don’t overdo it.” “That was too exaggerated.” “You’re over the top. Way over the top.” Every actor hears this at some point. You gave everything you had, and that is the response you get. The confidence drops, the posture tightens. And beneath the embarrassment, a worse thought: I must have done something wrong. The Korean…
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Acting for the Cut — Lesson 1. The Era When One Second Tells You Everything
The brief sounded manageable. Five episodes, fifteen minutes each, for a YouTube drama platform — eighty minutes of total content including a teaser. The premise had real teeth: a twenty-something intern and a fifty-something intern competing for the last permanent position at a single company. Generational friction, office politics, the particular anxiety of precarious employment…
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Acting for the Cut — Lesson 0. Real Acting Survives the Edit Room
Park Sunjae is a Korean film and drama director. He has written, directed, and edited 31 works across film, drama, short-form, and music video, including Color Rush, First Love, And So I Live Today, and Crazy Love. He is pursuing a master’s degree in Cultural Content at Konkuk University and works as a freelance director.…