'Scripting Your Destiny' director on working with star writer Kim Eun-sook as creator
Director Kim Byung-soo poses for pictures during an online press conference for the fantasy romance series “Scripting Your Destiny,” Monday. Courtesy of TVING
By Lee Gyu-lee
The new fantasy romance series “Scripting Your Destiny” has been garnering buzz among K-drama fans as it is created by writer Kim Eun-sook, who wrote the mega-hit series "Descendants of The Sun," "Mr. Sunshine" and "Guardian: The Lonely and Great God.”
A poster for the series / TVING
With many holding high hopes for her latest project, the series director Kim Byung-soo gave a glimpse of what it was like to work under her leadership.
“Kim Eun-sook helped us a lot from the beginning with planning the series,” the director said during an online press conference for the series, Monday. “She gave us a lot of advice on general direction and tone of the series that would appeal to the viewers.”
Adding that the series writer Eun Sun-woo has long experience working under writer Kim, the director expressed the three worked harmoniously hand in hand. “During the meetings, Kim Eun-sook would come up with various unique ideas to use,” he said.
The first original drama by TVING, a streaming platform co-run by CJ ENM and JTBC, tells the story of Shin Ho-yoon (Ki Do-hoon), a god who controls human fate, and Go Che-kyung (Jeon So-nee), a TV drama scriptwriter.
The two cross paths when Ho-yoon starts stealing ideas from Che-kyung's script notes to write people's romantic fates. But things soon take a turn as Che-kyung's ideas are for "makjang" dramas ― a term for TV series with extremely sensational storylines.
The director said that he wanted to produce a “lighthearted and hearty series” in this coronavirus pandemic time.
“The most unique part about this series is that there are no annoying characters, no villains,” he said. “This is a feel-good series that people can enjoy lightly.”
Director Kim has a track record for helming fantasy series including "Queen and I" (2012) and "Nine" (2013). “With fantasy series, I am not bound by reality because it allows me to really play around with my imagination,” he expressed.
For his latest fantasy series, the director noted he went all out in making the computer-generated special effects realistic.
“Normally in other fantasy series, godly creatures usually come back and forth from the human world. But this series is about a romance between a human and a god… and the godly creatures of fate are living on and off the human world,” he said.
“So for the scenes in which those gods connect with each other in the human world, I needed realistic computer graphics to make it convincing.”
The 10-part series mostly stars rising actors as main characters, including Ki Do-hyun who came to public attention through Netflix's “Love Alarm 2.”
The director noted that it was crucial to cast actors who would sit well with the characters. “Since this is a fantasy series, the most important thing is that the characters resonate with viewers,” he said. “I've seen Jeon So-nee's acting since her debut, so I knew she would sync well with the series… and with Ki Do-hyoon, he had the physique and appearance that I was looking for in the god character.”
“Scripting Your Destiny” will be available on the streaming site from Friday.