‘So So-yeon’, a story about a teenager’s first love… “Pursuing harmlessness as opposed to stimulation”

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Oh Myeong-eon = “We shortened the scheduled filming period. The story was completed earlier than expected. There was no reason to film more.”(CEO Yoo Gyu-seon)

Green rice fields spread out under a clear summer sky. A female student wearing her school uniform runs with her gun along the rice field, looking excited. The male student standing in front of her squats down, takes out her camera, and captures the scene.

TVING’s original series ‘Boy and Girl Dating’ (hereinafter ‘So So-yeon’), which will be released on the 5th, is a dating reality program that records the first love of teenage high school students who live together in a rural lodging with an analog sensibility. It’s clumsy but refreshing, and because it’s the first time, it draws confusing emotions.

Yoo Gyu-seon, CEO of ‘Black Paper’, a content production company that planned and co-produced ‘So So-yeon’, said in an interview conducted the day before at a cafe in Samcheong-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, “I wanted to create harmless content amidst increasingly provocative content.”

CEO Yoo, who became known by appearing on the entertainment program ‘Omniscient Interference’ as the manager of writer and broadcaster Yoo Byung-jae, co-founded content intellectual property (IP) production company Black Paper last year with Byung-jae Yoo and writer Eon-joo Lee of ‘You Quiz on the Block’..

CEO Yoo said, “Managers all have different ways of working, but I was a ‘planning manager’ who created characters that fit celebrities and planned promotions that fit their image.””I took on the challenge of creating content because I wanted to try it,” he explained.

‘So So-yeon’ is the first content produced by Black Paper with CJ ENM. CEO Yoo said, “It was two years ago when the plan for ‘So So Yeon’ first came out,” and added, “We spent a long time creating content that was harmless but felt fun.”

“‘First Love’ is a time that everyone has gone through or has to face. I thought everyone would be able to sympathize with it and watch it comfortably. The goal was to go in the opposite direction at a time when the public’s irritation is increasing.”

A total of eight boys and girls attending an arts high school appear in ‘So So-yeon’.

Regarding the reason for narrowing the scope to arts high school students, CEO Yoo said, “I thought arts high school students were students who decided something on their own a little earlier than others in that they were majoring in a field they liked.”He added, “They are more familiar with it than their peers of similar age. “I also had expectations that I would be able to express my emotions in a variety of ways,” he explained.

He then emphasized, “The production team only played the role of laying the groundwork for the cast to naturally act as they wanted.”

The reason for conducting interviews during filming was to minimize intervention by the production staff. Instead, the cast members kept a diary called ‘Sosorok’ in which they wrote down their inner thoughts every day.

CEO Yoo said, “I didn’t want to break the cast’s immersion through frequent interviews,” and added, “I think it was a good experience for the cast because expressing your feelings in writing helps you focus more on your own emotions.”

‘So So-yeon’ is drawing great expectations as it is a collaboration of veteran production staff, including CP (Chief PD) Park Hee-yeon of ‘Street Food Fighter’, PD Lee Hee-sun of the ‘Transit Love’ series, and writer Lee Eon-ju of ‘You Quiz on the Block’..

CP Park laughed and said, “The way the students expressed their feelings was so beautiful and pretty,” and “I felt envious as I watched them.”

He continued by saying, “Producer Lee Hee-seon’s unique strength, which knows how to tell the narrative in detail, seems to have been showcased well this time as well.”

“For ‘So So-yeon,’ we tried to remove anything that might be considered excessive and capture a comfortable, fresh feeling of excitement. We focused on depicting emotional changes naturally and realistically.”

coup@yna.co.kr

▶ Report via KakaoTalk okjebo