Kang Byeong-gyu, winner of the Broadcasting Grand Prize for the third time in a row, “The struggle against Corona is in line with ‘Jon Ae-won’” [This person]

“Turn off local broadcasting!”

This is something I often heard from my friends on the farm. It was almost like something really big would happen. If only I had done that. In the era of ‘mass’, the arrogance of mass communication inflicted a cruel ‘mess’ on the broadcasting industry with the cliché of cost-effectiveness. One of the things that was cut out was a radio drama.

Children’s radio dramas such as ‘Taekwondo Student Maruchi Arachi’ and ‘Father’s Face’ hit the airwaves in the 1970s, producing numerous dramas, but the glamorous era of TV has overshadowed their humble status. Just when radio dramas were about to be forgotten, the local broadcaster Andong MBC (CEO Yoo Jae-yong) resurrected the ‘ Vanish Drama Blown in the Wind ‘ in Andong. The radio drama ‘Jon Aewon’s Moon on the Nak River (written by Kim Soon-hee, directed by Kang Byeong-gyu), a radio drama depicting the ‘loving things with the heart’ spirit of Jon Ae-won, Korea’s first private medical institution, won the 50th Korean Broadcasting Awards hosted by the Korea Broadcasting Association. It won the Best Picture Award.
Andong MBC’s launch special ‘John Aewon’s Moon on the Nak River’ was first broadcast on Tuesday, September 13th last year, and was broadcast for 10 weeks, 15 minutes each episode, every weekday evening.
Jonaewon, which was established in 1599 after the end of the Japanese invasions of Korea, was an institution where 13 families in the Sangju area came together to practice the spirit of ‘respect for the things with love for the heart’ and treat and provide relief to people exhausted from war and famine.
This isn’t the first time.

Andong MBC won the Best Picture Award at the Korea Broadcasting Awards for the third time with ‘The Moon on the Nak River’, following ‘Imcheonggak’, a special radio drama commemorating the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in 2019, and ‘Nakdong River Front’, a special radio drama commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Korean War on June 25, 2020. won the award. All of this was created by producer Kang Byeong-gyu. I turned on ‘ Local Broadcasting ‘ and listened to the story of Producer Kang Byeong-gyu, who rewrote the history of local broadcasting with his honest efforts. Once you overcome the wall of stereotypes called 1-inch local broadcasting, a world encompassing all regions opens up.

Congratulations on winning the best picture award at the Broadcasting Awards for a radio drama that has almost disappeared from public memory.

” I am grateful. Radio dramas are not often heard on central terrestrial broadcasters, so I am grateful that I received a big award for a radio drama produced by a local broadcaster. ”

What led you to create this drama?

” It was in 2014. We have been planning/producing a short program of about 5 minutes called ‘ Spiritual Culture Planning Series Old Promise ‘ based on the historical and cultural heritage of Gyeongbuk, which has continued to this day. The fourth of the old promises was ‘ the spirit of respect and love . ‘ I thought it would be truly valuable to engrave the spirit of Jonaewon, the first private medical institution in Sangju in our region. Since then, I have produced my own documentary, and I have also encountered various contents based on John Aewon. I believe that good stories should continue to be created as content, and this time, I planned the idea of ​​turning the spirit of ‘protecting and nurturing one’s heart and loving others’ into a radio drama so that the public can easily access it. ”

Why Jonaewon?

” Sangju fell less than ten days after the Japanese invasions of Korea broke out in April 1592 in the lunar calendar. Among the regions of Gyeongsang Province, Sangju was severely damaged by the Japanese invasions of Korea, and famine and plague were rampant after the seven-year war ended. In 1599, 13 families in Sangju gathered their wealth and will to build Jonaewon. At the time, the power of the central government was beyond its reach, so these actions by local nobles were equivalent to their role in the public sphere. Jonaewon treated and provided relief to sick local residents, and later even served as an educational institution. This spirit of respect and love is still considered an important value that must be continued, but the coronavirus pandemic that swept the world made us look back on respect for the place. At a time when the importance of public healthcare, represented by K-Quarantine, was receiving more attention than ever before, Dr. Lee Sang-ho, director of the Center for Documentary Heritage at the Korea Institute for the Advancement of Korean Studies, who was advising on the program, said, He said that this was an example that was 200 years earlier. Nowadays, only one simple building remains, but Jonaewon can be said to be the world’s prototype of ‘public health care’ that began in the early 17th century. I thought that local broadcasting should reexamine this important historical and cultural heritage. ”

Please introduce the cast and crew.

” An important person who has discovered and created stories together is writer Kim Soon-hee. Although she was a director who had never produced a radio drama before, she thought that a writer who knew ‘local stories’ well was more important than a famous writer with drama experience. Writer Kim, who is from the region, knows the region better than anyone else, and strives to find local stories and turn them into content, is the number one contributor to this radio drama.

It was in 2019 that I started directing content called radio drama. It started with a work called ‘Imcheonggak’, which was made as a special project for the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Provisional Government, and the people who breathed life into ‘John Aewon’s Moon on the Nak River’ are the voice actors who have been with us since then. Of course, it started with 6 people, but now there are 12 veteran voice actors who bring the drama to life like one family. We are joined by veteran voice actors who have performed various characters with experience ranging from 10 to 25 years. As I played 3-4 roles in this drama, I realized once again that I am a heavenly actor. In sad scenes, people actually shed tears, and in fight scenes, the voice actors’ breathing alone without any sound effects makes you feel like you are in the middle of a fierce sword fight. These people are so serious about their acting that they have to take a long break after a scene because they are so emotional that they have to start recording again.

Let me introduce one more person. He is like a treasure in our drama. If you just look at it, you might think, ‘Is such a young person a music director?’ It may be possible, but director Choi Hye-in is a composer and music director who is active in a variety of genres, including film scores for movies such as ‘Along with the Gods’, ‘The Battleship Island’, and ‘Park Yeol’, drama OSTs, and documentaries. Radio dramas usually use scene transition music, but Director Choi goes beyond that and adds high-quality music to BGM and theme music for each character to increase dramatic tension. “The cast and production crew came together to complete ‘John ​​Aewon’s Moon on the Nak River.’”

There are a lot of mourning clothes

” I am grateful. In fact, after becoming a broadcast producer, I only had six months of experience working on radio programs. It was also a current affairs and culture program production. However, I had no idea that the unexpected genre of radio drama was such an interesting project. Fortunately, ‘Imcheonggak’, a special project for the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Provisional Government, and ‘ Nakdong River Front ‘ , a special project for the 70th anniversary of the Korean War , received the Broadcasting Award. It was truly a fortunate achievement. And this time, ‘ John Aewon Moon Rises on Nak River ‘ won the third Broadcasting Award for Best Picture. It is the honor of the family. ”

Because it is a radio drama, is it distributed only on terrestrial channels?

” That’s the most disappointing part. So, content is distributed through YouTube and audio platforms, but it doesn’t seem like as many people are looking for it as expected. However, it has been selected for the Korea Radio Agency’s overseas Korean-language broadcasting distribution support project, and content is being supplied by overseas Korean radio broadcasters. Also, one of my hopes is to combine webtoons with audio dramas and produce and distribute audio webtoons. Of course, the problem of how to overcome the limitations of production costs remains … ” .

Why are you so particular about the region?

” 25 years later, I am still a local broadcast producer. In the beginning, I also wanted to go to Seoul and central. It was a time when the value of the region was not properly understood. However, my experience as Secretary General of the ‘Regional Broadcasting Council’ in 2005 made me think about what the ‘region’ where I was born and live means to me. The more I created the program, the more I thought about my role as a local public broadcaster and what kind of broadcaster I should be. Even now, many local broadcasters in the region are working with the same concerns. At a time when concentration in the metropolitan area is becoming the cause of the downfall of the country, I think balanced development and autonomy and decentralization may be the only way for our society to survive. Shouldn’t we be a country where people can live well not only in the metropolitan area but also everywhere in the region, and a society where the value of human respect can be realized without imbalance in any field, including education, housing, and medical care? There is no future in a country where people flock to Seoul, where people waste three to four hours a day on congested roads. ”

What are your future plans?

”This year, we are also producing a radio drama based on the Joseon Dynasty’s first Yeongnam Maninso (1792). We have just finished recording voice actors, and there are 9 basic organizations in the Andong MBC broadcasting area. Of course, each region has a lot of interesting stories to tell. Our region is a treasure trove of traditional culture. In the meantime, we have been making radio dramas based on stories from various parts of our region, including the independence movement in Andong, the battle centered on the Sobaek Mountains in the early days of the Korean War, and the female nobles Jang Gye-hyang, Jon Ae-won, and Man In-so. If conditions allow, I would like to discover remaining local story material and turn it into a radio drama. If that happens, wouldn’t there be about 10 radio dramas made by local broadcasters? My dream is a bit big. ”

Reporter Kang Seok-bong ksb@kyunghyang.com