Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1531774
7 8 P E R S P E C T I V E | J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 2 5 October 12, 2024 Last night, I finished the season 2 finale of Pachinko. With that, I had completed a major career circle: vision, scope, drive and process. Watching my work on screen, in a language foreign to me, I found myself feeling both an outsider and an insider. I was in complete awe of the masterpiece I had been a part of. I felt deeply committed to getting it right, being an outsider working hard to become an insider, capturing the world of Pachinko with authenticity and empathy. I received my first call about season 2 in late June 2022. It was from my agent. Second season offers are always tricky. If I like the first season, there's a lot of pressure to bring something new while also ensuring continuity. Yet, I always worry I won't do justice to what came before. I immediately realized the scope of season 2 was vast and far more complicated. Season 1 had filmed in South Korea for historical Korea, but now we had to make Korea look like wartime and post-war Japan, an entirely different challenge. My first meeting with Soo Hugh, the showrunner, was on June 30, 2022. She told me upfront that it would be harder than I could imagine, and she was absolutely right. I have traveled extensively in my career, worked in many countries, but I had never worked in Asia. It felt like a wild high dive into the unknown. I didn't have many, if any, personal connections to Asian culture before this. But T h e D e s i g n J o u r n e y o f a L i f e t i m e P A C H I N K O S E A S O N 2 B Y R U T H A M M O N , P R O D U C T I O N D E S I G N E R A