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Exciting and fun chase scenes in Seondal: The Man who Sells the River, directed by PARK Dae-min, definitely owe to great locations. Picking up the right location was MOON Yong-chan’s job, the film production manager, who says to have been to “everywhere in the whole nation for location hunting, except for North Korea and Jeju Island.” The most important part of pre-production was also location hunting. KoBiz met MOON to hear about the hardship of location hunting.

 

 

It took about 4 months. You look through the scenario to discuss in the team what kind of location you want, for about one and a half months or so, and it took another 4 months for actual hunting. Among the 4 months, 2 months were spent on finding the right place for the important valley levee shooting. Nature does not have any location data, so we just had to go and visit everywhere. It was all the more difficult because it had to be the kind of location where CG and special effect could easily be applied. No matter how beautiful it may look, you can’t shoot a film there unless it can accommodate special effect equipment. So our final choice was the riverside in Jinan, Jeollabuk-do Province; and Inje, Gangwon-do Province; which satisfied CG, special effect, the view and everything. To film a river, you need to get permission from K-water, not the local government. So we consulted with K-water for 4 weeks.

 

 

The place where they fight is Inje and the area where you see the levee-like landscape is Jinan. We first picked a place that was completely dry, because of drought which had lasted two years. We picked that area because you could easily create water with CG. However, right before the shooting began, it rained a lot and that place got filled with water. Once filled, you see, it takes at least a few months for the water to drain, so we had to go up the river and find another place. It was very hard, but there’s no way a mere human being can beat the nature.

 

 

It was shot at Hantan River, Gangwon-do Province, with the helicopter camera team, producing team and directing team all combined. Of course the boat scene with actors was made by CG. The highlight of the film would be where the levee opens up, and it was shot at the aqua set in Goyang Aqua Studio. It took the longest time to prepare for all locations. We started to build the levee as soon as pre-production began. They also told us that we are the ones to have rented the set for the longest period. The levee was rather large; about 8mx5m. Especially for the gate, the actual size should be big enough, so that it will be easier to be resized by CG. We spent the greatest resources and time for building the levee.

 

 

It is near the set in Mungyeong, Gyeongsangbuk-do Province. There was no such road at all to accommodate a carriage, so we all worked together to make one for three days. For at least 1km along the road, we cut off the bush by ourselves. It was middle of the summer and it was boiling hot. It would have been much easier if we could use a truck with cutting equipment, but no car could go there. So we had to carry the cutting equipment on our back and cut off the bush all by ourselves. The steepest of all was where Bo-won’s cottage was filmed. Carrying all the material to build a cottage was one thing, and carrying horses there was completely another. We carried horses in a vehicle, but from a certain point, no automobile could go through, so we parked the vehicles there and all rode on the horses.

 

 

I began my production career at TV. I was then 20 years old. Then I moved to film because I was fascinated by this very detailed work, where it takes months to make one that only runs two hours or so. Being discharged from military service, I worked on TV dramas like Daemang (2002) and Taewang Sasingi (2007). They were both period dramas and for them, finding the right location was very important. Especially Taewang Sasingi had as many as 4 location teams. I was in the Jeju team. Both took a long time for production, so I accumulated quite a bit of location information by the time they ended. It has become my great resources because I can give the director a guideline when he wants a specific location. Location data on buildings change a lot, so it can’t be that valuable resources. However, the nature or public buildings do not easily change, therefore their location data are very useful resources. Currently, I am working on pre-production for a Chinese film and a project of Myung Films.