episode_0113
by fnovelpia“Hello. My name is Shin Man-jae, a writer for the YouTube SBN channel.”
“Hello.”
“Is the person who answered the phone Mr. Lee Min-ho?”
“Yes, that’s right. Are you a writer for the SBN channel?”
‘SBN?’
SBN is the name of one of the terrestrial broadcasting stations.
A very large broadcasting station that transmits news, entertainment, dramas, etc.
‘Why did you call me in a place like that?’
A somewhat relieved voice came from the other side of the smartphone.
“Ah, to be precise, ‘It’s safe outside the SBN blanket!’ I am the writer of the channel. Due to the large scale of this channel, there is a trend these days to divide channels by program.”
“I see.”
“……Is this your first time hearing ‘It’s safe outside the blanket!’?”
Author Shin Man-jae carefully asked me a question, perhaps because my reaction was milder than expected.
“Sorry, I’m not the type to watch TV.”
“Haha Our program is not intended for TV, but… that could be the case. So, if you have a moment, could you explain our program?”
I glanced at the clock hanging on the wall and sat down on a chair.
I think he was trying to explain the basics before making a full-fledged proposal, but I thought I should have the food delivered.
“Yes, please.”
“Okay. Huh……”
Author Shin Man-jae cleared his throat and began to explain skillfully, as if he had prepared a presentation in advance.
“‘It’s safe outside the blanket!’ is a program designed to revitalize the domestic tourism market in anticipation of the end of COVID-19. You can think of it as a kind of real travel entertainment created targeting YouTube and OTT.
Because we started production at just the right time, it was easy to get cooperation from local governments. To commemorate our tour around the country, we decided to produce a special episode that will go overseas this time.”
‘It seems that people who make programs like to use the word ‘real’.’
“I recently watched a video of Top Beast Survival in which Lee Min-ho appeared, and I felt that the image of him as a nerd who rarely goes out and the way he speaks English fluently fits the concept of our program perfectly.◦@ ◦
After introducing the program, writer Shin Man-jae slowly gets to the point.
“What do you mean…?”
“I will tell you straight to the point. Our production team would like Lee Min-ho to appear in this special episode.”
“Oh…”
“If the response to the special episode is good, the video may be uploaded to the SBN Entertainment Highlight channel. Then you can be exposed to a lot more viewers.”
“I see.”
I put the call on speakerphone for a while and searched for SBN and detailed channels on YouTube.
SBN’s main channel was a huge channel with over 6 million subscribers.
Considering that Crow Coach, who previously planned Top Beast Survival, had about 2 million subscribers, this was a huge number.
In comparison, it’s safe outside the SBN blanket! The channel was small, with about 200,000 subscribers, but its popular videos seemed to be reaching millions of views.
Although it may not be as good as the episodes created with top star casts as it is designed to invite ordinary people like me, it was at least a channel that always guaranteed tens of thousands of views.
‘Is there a big difference between tens of thousands and millions?’
With that in mind, I asked author Manjae Shin about something I was curious about.
“If I do appear, can you tell me what the filming period will be?”
“First of all, once the casting is over, we need to prepare in advance according to the number of people… so I think filming will start in a month. And, including filming for each cast member in Korea and filming overseas, I think it will take about two weeks.”
“The filming period is longer than expected?”
“Well, that actually only applies to our staff. Since Lee Min-ho is in the position of a cast member, the actual filming period can be considered to be about a week.”
‘About a week…’
That’s a schedule worth participating in without taking too much time.
Moreover, traveling abroad.
I got a ticket and went to all kinds of places, from a world where men and women were reversed, to dystopia, and martial arts, but in reality, I had never been outside of Korea.
After eating the language learning jelly, I was able to speak English like a local, but my fantasy about foreign countries still did not completely disappear.
‘If they’re going to recruit you for the program, they’ll prepare the plane tickets and accommodation for you, right?’
It was an opportunity to enjoy my first overseas trip with someone else’s money.
Isn’t there a law that says healing should only be done at travel destinations?
This was much more appealing and thrilling than the sweaty military entertainment that Bang Deok-soo described.
Writer Shin Man-jae must have sensed my worries and persuaded me without giving me time to rest.
“Once you appear on a program like this, your scope for expansion, whether it’s a personal broadcast or other small-scale entertainment, expands significantly. I’m sure you won’t regret it.”
Suddenly, I wondered how they would react if I refused to appear after making such an effort to explain things, but since this is reality, I decided not to say anything that I couldn’t take into account.
Anyway, I had already fallen for his words.
“I will appear.”
“You decided well! thank you! Just because we needed a performer like Lee Min-ho…”
It was a voice that clearly seemed to show writer Shin Man-jae heaving a sigh of relief.
“No, I am grateful for this great opportunity.”
“Then, we will inform Lee Min-ho of the filming schedule as soon as the preliminary preparations are completed.”
“Yes.”
“To give you a rough idea of the plan in advance, we plan to start by filming Lee Min-ho going about his daily life at home. I guess you have to show that you don’t want to go out at first so that the later scenes when you go abroad are more emphasized.”
Perhaps because he is a writer, Shin Man-jae seemed to be already planning in his head how he would film it.
“Okay.”
I took a quick look around the featureless studio room. It has a structure that allows you to capture my every move by attaching just one camera to the corner of the ceiling.
‘Well, that level of directing is okay.’
There is no need to really act.
All I need to do is show you my life before I got the ticket.
Instead, I might have to add a little seasoning to make it fun.
I hung up the phone with writer Shin Man-jae and decided to meet him in person a few days later to sign a contract.
I ordered pork cutlet through a delivery app and did some stretching.
“Ouch……”
‘Then, let’s just broadcast for the month left until filming.’
I need to get Sarah’s recommendations for computers and equipment first.
“Ah.”
‘But you didn’t ask me where I was going to film abroad.’
I thought for a moment and then leaned back in my chair again.
‘I guess we can ask when we meet later when we sign the contract.’
***
“It’s amazing……”
Writer Shin Man-jae muttered after finishing his phone call with Minho.
“What’s so amazing?”
Producer Park Tae-jun, who was watching the scene from behind, asked with a sullen expression.
He was in a state of discomfort after seeing writer Shin Man-jae, a talent he cherished, struggle with the phone for a long time just to get an ordinary person to join him.
This was true even though it was he who first proposed the idea of casting Minho.
“Ah, PD Park.”
Only then did writer Shin Man-jae, who remembered the existence of PD Park Tae-jun, turn around and look at him.
“Nothing else, I tried talking to Lee Min-ho on the phone and it felt strange.”
“Is it strange? What does it mean?”
Producer Taejun Park erased his sullen expression and hardened his face.
From his experience so far, he knew that after writer Shin Man-jae said something meaningful like that, something would happen, either good or bad.
“Are you saying it feels ominous? Should I call again and cancel the appointment? I haven’t officially signed the contract yet…”
“No, not that.”
As this is a special episode being prepared to commemorate ‘It’s Safe Outside the Blankets!’, which has been a lot of effort, writer Shin Man-jae stopped PD Park Tae-joon from reacting sensitively.
“Top Beast Survival is definitely the first time Lee Min-ho has appeared in front of the public, but when I actually called and talked to him, he didn’t really feel like an ordinary person.”
He continued while stroking his chin.
“You can hear that he is very relaxed in his voice. Am I casting a celebrity? And it was a bit confusing.”
“Aren’t you just arrogant?”
“It was a little different from being arrogant, but should I say it was an atmosphere…”
“No matter what, you will find out when you meet in person when you sign a contract to appear. I have to see it with my own eyes too.”
Producer Taejun Park snorted with his arms crossed.
Writer Shin Man-jae looked at that and scratched his head with an embarrassed expression.
Producer Park Tae-jun, who belongs to the mood group, is a person who stands out as much as he has good execution skills, so he needed someone by his side to control it like writer Shin Man-jae.
Because it was his characteristic to be extremely generous to those who entered his enclosure.
“Just in case, why don’t you just go and start a fight with the contestant?”
“Oh, of course. What do you think of people?”
“……”
Meanwhile, Deoksu Bang stiffened after receiving a text message from Minho refusing to appear on the program.
The text politely stated that he would not be able to participate in the proposed program due to an important schedule for the time being.
He had planned to use Minho, who could be said to be a hot topic, to draw pictures to suit his tastes, but as things turned out like this, he had to come up with a plan all over again from the beginning.
“Among the participants, there is no one who is attracting as much attention as Lee Min-ho…”
Bang Deok-su had no choice but to erase the top of the list that existed in his head.
“Ha… If Lee Min-ho isn’t there, we’ll just have to go without him. What would happen to the program if just one person is missing?”
Although the inspiration for the program came from seeing Minho working at a fire scene next to a U.S. military base, Deoksu Bang thought that there would be no problem if he had his own idea.
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