Sold out in 45 seconds for 60 million won, C-class sensibility SF’Incheon Stella’

“My dream is to make all genres of movies in the world until the moment I die.”

Baek Seung-gi (39), a self-proclaimed C-class filmmaker, challenged an ultra-low-budget science fiction film. ‘Incheon Stella’, which will be released on the 25th, is a parody of the 10 million movie’Interstellar’ directed by Christopher Nolan from the title. Based on the blueprint that flew in space with an unidentified rescue signal 27 years ago, the spacecraft’Incheon Stella’ was completed, and the exploration team headed for space on it will reveal the secrets of the past.

In the play subtracting one letter from NASA, the unknown star name’STARGAM’, a comically pronounced’sensibility’ from the Asian Aerospace Administration (ASA), is a spaceship that looks just like a car, a silver foil paper, and a calculator. With space exploration technology, a family love that transcends time and space was combined with the ugly setting. At the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, which was invited last year, all seats were sold out in 45 seconds after the reservation was opened, and the Korean Fantastic: Distribution Support Award was even received. On the 18th, I met Baek by phone interview.
In his feature debut film’Suho-gu’, which was made nine years ago with his total assets of 1 million won, he was attracted attention by depicting a comical love story of a young man with a parody of the movie’Avatar’. In the silent film “Fuck, Nome: The Beginning of Humanity” (hereinafter referred to as “Nome”), he even took a location in Himalayas with an ultra-low budget of 13 million won to uncover the origins of mankind. Thanks to the ingenious imagination, such as’peaceful today’, which sublimated the experience of actual used laptop fraud damage into a comedy to eradicate crime on stage in China (actual filming location in Incheon Chinatown), he was regularly invited to the Bucheon Film Festival, and fixed fans were created.

‘Incheon Stella’ invested about 60 million won, the highest production cost ever. Thanks to the know-how that was continuously filmed in her hometown, Incheon, it was selected as a production support film by the Incheon Film Commission, and a small business person PPL was directly recruited for 50 million won received. It’s about 1/3300th of the 165 million dollar production cost of’Interstellar’, but it’s a blockbuster in’Baek Seung-gi Universe’. “With no budget, I tried to take a picture with the lights off in the room without CG (computer graphic), but thankfully I received production support. Since it is an Incheon citizen tax, I paid quality by grinding my soul to avoid wasting it.”

The Baek Seung-kipyo movie he says is “a kitsch mise-en-scène that can be obtained around the world at a low budget, and a movie played by Son Lee-yong in Incheon.” Son Lee-yong, who took the lead in all of his directing works, is a high school junior and has been working together as a two-member dance group’Risky’. The starting point of’Incheon Stella’ is also by hand. In January 2014, when I went to the Himalayas with actor Son Lee-yong and filmed’Nome’, I came up with my first idea.
“It wasn’t long after Son Lee’s father passed away. He wanted to go to the Himalayas in his lifetime, but his son walked it alone. How about letting me meet my father even in a movie? Actor Son and both got drunk and climbed into the Himalayas, and the inspiration for the scenario came from space. It’s like the scene in this movie where Lee-Yong Son grabs the light with his hand.”

I remembered the last’Super Nova’ of the trilogy that follows the English title’Super Virgin’ and’Super Origin’, but the content was very similar to’Interstellar’, which was released a few months later. ‘Hey, this is ruined’ and I thought that I would rather break through the front in 5-6 years because of the despair of buying a laptop. “The boundaries between homage and plagiarism are ambiguous. Rather, parody should be outright no matter who sees it. I thought it wasn’t more polite if I followed it poorly. I generously put all my favorite space movies.”

The composition of the father going to space with his daughter’s boyfriend is’Armageddon’, and the scene where the daughter, who was isolated in a box, meets her father’s fantasy is taken from’Gravity’. The purple fantasy is’Contact’, eating potatoes on an isolated planet is’Martian’, and the scene that cuts through the universe is a parody of’Captain Marvel’. It’s not a space movie, but the car from’Back to the Future’ and the sunset beach waltz from’Bungy Jumping’ were also borrowed.

The shooting location hunting is also plausible. The unknown star’Gamseong’ was shot at the hillside of Incheon Airport, and the towering high-rise ASA headquarters was taken from the observation deck near Wolmido Island. These are the places that Director Baek usually pays attention to while visiting Incheon.
“It’s not that C-class movies are unconditional, let’s pretend to be stupid. I always do my best in the given conditions, but it’s an ironic rule to give up boldly giving up because of insufficient budget and take advantage of the surroundings.”

In fact, Baek’s main job is as an art teacher. After creating the film production company Gudeogi Studio more than 10 years ago, he worked as a fixed-term art teacher to raise production costs during film production. Recently, I was assigned as a homeroom teacher for the first year of high school. ‘Incheon Stella’ is the first work that has been released during the semester. What do teachers, directors, and humans Baek have in common? He dreams of good influence. “If you look at the four episodes made so far, love for humanity is the theme. I think I’m interested in humans themselves.”

“When I first made Gudeogi Studio, I didn’t have any equipment or learned a movie, so if you can’t make it anyway, let’s make it the worst in the world. He said that if poverty isn’t a sin, don’t pretend to be there, and if you don’t know, let’s show our colors without knowing.” It was said that the sense of responsibility increased as he looked at forty. “There were some of the few’Movie Kids’ that were inspired by me. My attitude toward movies has become more serious.”

The next generation is the supporters who devote their entire lives to the sports team they support and are enthusiastic. “A while ago, I watched a video of an unfamous soccer team fan alone in a big stadium playing drums, singing, and cheering. When the cheering team player scored a goal and went to him to greet him politely, he cried like a child. I was impressed by the scene. In other words, maybe we want each other to be supported by each other. I think that the cheering culture will be fun to solve.”

Reporter Na Won-jeong [email protected]