MPSE Wavelength

M OT I O N P I CTU R E S O U N D E D I TO R S I 73 EM: Back before you came to the US, you worked in post-production sound in South Korea, as you mentioned, on some incredible films. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance is an all-time classic. What are some of the main dierences that you've noticed between the expectations in sound editing on Korean films compared to US films? SRC: It's basically the same filmmaking. It's the same language, the language of making films. But when you look at it in detail, there are some fundamental differences. How they cover scenes is different. I left South Korea about 15 years ago, so I don't know how they work these days. American filmmakers will make a scene and break it down in coverage. Korean films, they make the shots and then make the scenes, so it's the reverse way. In sound, it's harder in Korean films to find alternate takes while dialogue editing. There's more dialogue editing needed to make a scene cut together. There are a lot of time differences in their shooting too, which can be a minor thing. The fundamental difference is that the world that they're presenting in a Korean film is different than in an American film. For Korean filmmakers, they feel like their mission objective is to reveal the cruelty of the world, like their reality, and the world they're presenting is not nice. It's based on their experience of the social political history of Korea that they've been watching. Korean filmmakers from my generation grew up seeing their friends in prison. If they present the world as a nice place, they feel guilty. So what that means in sound is, for instance, in the movie Snowpiercer, when I worked on effects, I made sure the effects are cruel. Like the axe is really gorey. If that was by an American director, they would not like it. Like, "Ew, that's too much." If it were a Korean sound editor in front of it, they'd say "Ew," and the Korean sound editor will say, "Ew, in a good way?" Unfortunately in America, that "ew" means let's take it down. It was a small culture shock moment for me when I started here like, "You don't like this sound because it's too gross?" Another thing is lip smacks. In Korean films, lip smacks were never a problem. It's natural. There's a slurping YouTube video, where people are eating, slurp, slurp, slurp, for more than two hours, and people are watching it, enjoying it. I find that American audiences are very sensitive to lip smacks and high-frequency spikes. In Korean films, there are one or two films where I added in lip smacks and I boosted them 6 kilohertz or 7 kilohertz for an elderly character because I liked the harshness, they were a little dry. Older Zen-type characters are interested in how their lips smack, so for that movie I actually added in lip smacks and boosted the frequencies of it. I'd never think of doing that in an American film. Mixing wise, I think Korean audiences like their high frequencies a little abundant to make it sound crispy. I've found that American audiences like their high frequencies rolled off nicely. I think the biggest difference is the film world that each type of filmmaker is presenting. What they're trying to do with the film is a little different. EM: Is there ever a fine line when you would cut on Korean films, for it to get so brutal that it was funny? SRC: Oh, in Korean films, they want it to be as violent and painful as possible, but also as real as possible. If it is real, then it doesn't go that way. If you alter it to make it sound good, then it can go that way. If you want it to be real and painful, from my experience, it doesn't go that way. Sometimes blops, I find that American audiences find blops... they have a little resistance to it. Blop, blop, blop, sounds. I think it's important to think about how to make it as real as possible, to take it down from a sound perspective. It doesn't have to sound good, it just has to be real. EM: You mentioned working on Snowpiercer, which is incredible, and was directed by now Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-Ho. What's he like to work with? SRC: He's a super-nice guy. I didn't work closely with him on Snowpiecer, but I did his debut " In sound, it's harder in Korean films to find alternate takes while dialogue editing. There's more dialogue editing needed to make a scene cut together. "

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