Creative Lecture 2 – Director Yoon-Mi Seo
Date and Time: Oct. 17, 2018 15:00 ~ 16:30
Place: #302 Hyehwa Annex at Dongkook university
Lecturer: Director Yoon-Mi Seo
Director Seo with a subject ‘Musical writing technique and stage’ said, “Creation has no answer but some experiences I got from this business might help you, so I am here to tell you information and feelings while I have been working until now.” Then she explained the process to make performance on the center of her experience at ‘Black Mary Poppins’ and lectured about writing technique by considering stage.
Set up the story you want to tell, and think what kind of genre to tell
The first step for creation is to set up the story you want to tell through your work. This is an essential question to ask from you to the audiences as a writer. In case of director Seo, the beginning of question was ‘Heart-broken people can be happy’, then she said ‘Black Mary Poppins’ as an answer of ‘What is a real happiness?’ But you cannot make every story into your work even if you set up the story you want to tell. You need to consider whether it’s suitable to stage, why this should be made on the stage, and how attractive it would be. About this matter, Seo said, “I’ve got an award for a documentary about the process to heal after the sexual assaulted child and parents played with wearing masks, but it was hard for me to bring out people’s sympathy through the camera of ‘objectification.’ Focusing on the time itself is also meaningful, however I at least wanted to tell the story that I could console somebody through the work for the people’s sympathy on characters’ emotions, and happiness could also grow up on person’s broken-heart. So she thought this work might be attractive on the process of embracing one’s wound by crying together with characters when the attractiveness of sympathy is maximized.”
Once you decided your own story, you now consider how you are going to tell
Director Seo developed her continuous thoughts ‘Are we happy unless we have wound?, Is it better to erase our wounds, or heal them nevertheless of pain?, How are we going to deal with those memories of wound and heart-broken mind?’ Then she said she started considering about the characteristics of the ‘memory’ which was the cover of wound connecting with her material. Big picture and structure of the work was also inspired from the impressionism painters series like Monet who assemble to the character of ‘memory’. The serial works of Monet are completed style with each one work, however, the big subject ‘Every material changes according to the light’ shows up when watching several works. She set up the points that memory continuously covers up and changes, and the memory could be different according to the character and situation just like the real impression changes according to the direction of light as a formal concept.
She said that she wanted to talk about growing up by protecting each other inside trauma, happiness could always come to them on their wounds, and they could walk forward to light inside the darkness. Also she wanted to think together how valuable the memory to protect each other is more than their unhappy memories, why they can be happy themselves without erasing their memories, why they could be able to embrace other’s wounds instead of being depressed inside their own wounds through the process to lead 4 children into the liberation on the situation that the most grown-up Anna breaks her long hypnosis in ‘Anna’s room’ which was the final shape, and confessing during the hypnosis through Jonas who “remembers”, Herman who “does not want to remember”, and Hans who “tries to remember” the wounds from unconscious guilt about the incident. Also she hoped this will be remembered as a work to embrace us who have been living with smiling by locking up our own wounds inside our unconsciousness whether it was big or small.
Director Seo thought about the story telling style, named ‘Black Mary Poppins’ by setting up to show the process of healing the wounds inside the one big frame which has “memories” that change into various shapes like this. ‘Black’ for ‘Black Mary Poppins’ stands for the characteristic of memory. This is a memory, way inside the unconsciousness as if we could pull it up only by hypnosis because it is too far away of darkness. So she decided to make the story inside the motive of a fairy tale, named ‘Mary Poppins’ because the story was too dark so that it needed a paradoxical system to make it lighter. Then she planned detail storytelling such as each character’s occupation, reason why they felt guilty, why they lost their memories, how they respond and choose when they recover their lost memories, and how they heal their wounds. She said the reason to make a background in Germany, “I hoped audiences could focus on characters’ emotions by bringing the story which is much far from the certain Korean history.” Also German under the Nazi regime was the era to invade human’s independent dignity with erasing memories by a big power, so I thought how the wrong justice and faith about “rightness” can harm inhumane, and I also thought that the situation to terminate any experiment with human even if they say that this is for human, is not that much different from the current condition, so that these experiments are such a persuasive just because those were connected to Goebbels, Hitler and Freud politically and theoretically. Characters were sometimes brought from the real person, so in case of Anna, Anna Freud was the motive. Freud is a person who is a little bit progressive than her father as well as an old generation. She thought that it was matched as suitable background to draw her story about “going forward” into happiness through the grown-up defense mechanism such as altruism and sublimation free from the room, named ‘wound’, because she was the person to research that defense mechanism to protect itself from the unconscious wounds instead of ending up on the trauma.
Tell your story to touch
Meanwhile, you need to be careful when writing that the contents in category of “literature” is actually not made for the purpose of reveal but for “being touched.” If the stories are extended enough, then deleted. Moving heart can bring an emotion of touching. So that is why you need to “compress” the important scenes into the center of subject again by choosing each scene on the basis of being touched of audiences’ point of view.
Director Seo also emphasized, “Creating pop culture is not a pure art, so each creator needs to choose wisely between the art that I really want and the commercial responsibility. stick to the story that I really want, but also the creator should have an eye to catch the point to be agreed from the audiences. Furthermore, once you chose the performance, it is not an art only from you but from many people and agreed. You should be responsible for your work by considering on the various points so that anyone could be wounded for your work, and the standard should be ”being touched“ no matter when you are confused.”
The most important matter is CONFLICT on the stage
Director Seo talked about the importance of conflict by explaining that the dramatic literature is a genre to solve with maximizing the conflict than novel. Creator should try to summarize into one paragraph what is conflict inside the work, and should calculate and set up how this conflict is solved. Conflict is not only made among characters on the stage, but made from the situation of the person who is not even on the stage, so the creator should set up each character detail whether he/she is on the stage or not when creator casts them. In case of ‘Black Mary Poppins’, Hans and Herman are the main axis of conflict to opposite whether they put their memories out or not by making tension inside the play. Outside of the play has conflict between Mary and Dr. Granchen healing by themselves, and some conflict with huge existence which takes human’s identity and independence, all these kind of conflict factors and the process of solution influence on the incident.
The best scenario is the scenario to direct
Considering about the music on the stage is also pretty much important because it’s musical. Musical scenario should be firmly connected to the music, so the writer should be able to calculate about the fact that which part should have BGM and which part should stop. Once you set up well, it’s pretty much helpful for composer to compose good music. When writing scenario, it’s useful for the writer to write by listening to the favorite song as a reference. Seo said, “Musical writers should hand over the best things to music.” and advised, “Yield the most important part to the music by reading again after writing your story as detail as possible.” She added, “We are the people who provide stage for actors to act. You can write your scenario what you want to write, but you should set up the stage for actors at least to show his attractiveness by acting live. You should yield to the actor’s appearance from behind aggressively if it transfers the play better than your script. Because your writing is not a text just to transfer, but a scenario for the entire play on the stage. Lighting and switching stage should all be harmonious.” Once the work enter the exercise room, you need to get rid of your thought that the work is yours, and you need to be flexible to change the scenario according to the circumstances on the process of development and actor’s potential. But, the creators should have confrontation attitude to answer off the reel no matter when the background knowledge about the incident or certain person’s circumstance are asked.