Dreaming in classrooms, schooled in life
A film crew prepares for a shoot at a location in Seoul. / Korea Times
Film school graduates
struggle to script their
way around decaying
job market
By Jung Min-ho
Kim Mae-il, a 27-year-old Seoul resident, had great expectations for life after college.
Brilliant as a high school student, he managed to get a high enough score in the state college entrance exam to enroll at Konkuk University’s highly-coveted school of film and photography.
The university had established the department in 2004 in anticipating increased demand in talent from the country’s growing film and broadcasting industry and encouraged students like Kim to dream big.
Fast forward to 2013, and Kim is neither a filmmaker nor television producer, not even anything close to it. He barely managed to find a job as a low-paid technician in a magazine company, a position that didn’t require a four-year university degree.
Students endure high tuitions and grueling studies in universities with the hope that it will open new doors. But doors are irrelevant when there isn’t really anywhere to go.
“I really wanted to work in the film industry, but the reality hit me hard after graduating from the school,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “It didn’t take me long to figure that only precarious jobs, which pay much less than the minimum wage, were available in that field. I had to make a choice.”
While the movie industry has never been bigger, the compensation and work conditions remain poor for everyone apart from in-demand directors and actors.
According to the Korean Film Council, the average income of film crew members like cameramen and experts handling sound, costumes and special effects remains significantly below the minimum wage line of 11.48 million won a year.
Some could afford to weather out these financially difficulties to wait for their big break. Kim wasn’t one of them.
According to the data of college information provider Higher Education in Korea, the employment rate of university film schools around the country last year was lower than the average employment rate of four-year university graduates at 55.87 percent.
For Konkuk University, only 25.8 percent of graduates landed a job last year, dropping from the 42.3 in 2011. The reality is even worse than the numbers indicate, Kim says, as the employment rate has been padded by people like him who are forced to take lowly jobs unrelated to their major.
Lesser-known directors like Lim Dae-yeon find themselves shooting wedding videos and magazines photo spreads and moonlighting as a cashier at a 24-hour convenience store.
``Hey, this is a country where even Bong Joon-ho, director of the biggest Korean movie ever, The Host, is unable to borrow from a bank. Then how do you think life is for us?’’ said the 38-year-old.
Kim isn’t ready to give up his dream about being a filmmaker. His decent studies at Konkuk University have allowed him another learning opportunity in the Korean-German Institute of Technology with a research assistant position.
While working on a master’s degree in new media, he made some short films and won several awards, including the Korea 3D Contents Contest hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2011. And when he won the grand prize with 10 million won ($9,212) at the LG 3D UCC Challenger last year, he thought things were finally going for him.
Not quite.
"Reporters were interviewing me and I got some media exposure, so things were good for a while. But nothing really changed,’’ he said.
Aspiring actors and actresses are also struggling to deal with uncertainties about their future.
Kang Jin-ah graduated from a four-year university in Seoul in 2008 and has yet to find much use for her acting skills gained in school. She is now repeatedly asking herself will she ever become an actress.
“I work mostly for the students’ movies in which actors and actresses barely get paid. Since the audition opportunities are extremely rare for unknowns like me, I am fishing for jobs on websites,” Kang said. “I have seen many of my friends give up on finding a job in the film industry after graduation. The situation is quite tough here.”
Jobs are mostly minor roles that pay a pittance if you’re lucky, Kang said.
“Sometimes, staff get instant gimbap for a meal and end up with no money because the production costs come from the producers’ own pocket,” she said.
To make ends meet, having a side line job has been inevitable for Kang since she left her hometown Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, for her college education in 2004. From a restaurant waitress to an event management company staffer, she has spent more time and energy on a side job during and after her college years.
“One day, a staff member said my roles would be limited since I’m already 27 years old. It struck my heart, and that moment, I realized that I had been unconsciously concerned about my age as well” Kang said.
When asked about why she still stays in the film industry wrestling against adversity, she said, “It feels like I didn’t give my all in it yet.”
Only one or two graduates out of 20 continue their career in the acting scene, according to another would-be actress Kim Jae-yeon.
“It is almost like winning a lottery,” she said, noting that college education didn’t help much in terms of getting a job in acting.
The 23-year-old said there are many different ways to become a mainstream actor and actress, and going to a college is just one of them.
“One downside of studying acting in college is that it gives students a false feeling of security, but the fact is it doesn’t guarantee anything,” she said.
“I hope this struggle enriches my acting performance as an actress later if I end up being one.”