So for those of you who are avid drama watchers like I am
We've all had that experience where about half way through a drama
Things start getting really weird and the acting start sucking
and the plot goes haywire and you're like
"What is going on ?! This drama was so promising !"
For today's video w'ere gonna be talking about why this might be happening in Korean dramas
and we're also gonna be talking about some of the factors in the Korean drama industry
which are unethical and unhealty
for the cast and crew involved.
Now as a disclaimer what we're gonna talk about today,
does not represent every single Korean drama out there.
What we're gonna be talking about is only what we found in our research
as well as what we've discussed with some our friends
who are actually working in the korean drama industry,
on some of the biggest dramas that you very well know
which I sure as hell I'm not going to name
because definition laws in Korea are really bad
so just say; you know some of these dramas but I'm not gonna name it
and you know you can't make me.
So le'ts start with the script writer, shall we?
one of the biggest issues with korean dramas is that the script writers don't often have
a clear vision of what they're trying to put out there.
They might start out with a clear concept,
but after about 5 episodes are finished, things start getting fishy.
For example, let's say that a drama is suppose to air on March 1st.
Production should probably start around the middle of January
and from the middle of January up until the begining of March
we're gonna make 4 really solid episodes.
But once the TV show starts being aired,
then the rest of the show is gonna be dictated and based on your response.
And from March on wards pretty much the show doesn't have as much time
as it had in the first 4 episodes, nor as many resources
And everyone starts getting really really tired by the end
Which is why it's starts really dropping off.
I just can't believe that at some point, as a writer
You have this concept of the plot,
and then Netizens online are like, "I want these people to get together" or "I don't like how this is going."
And you just agree with them for some reason!
And you just change it like why?! That's crazy! That's terrible story-telling!
I mean like Game of Thrones;
All of your favorite characters are dying,
Have died, or will die,
And the writers don't give and sh*t about what you think
They're gonna give you the show
and you're gonna love it.
And guess what; you do love it.
Now not only is the script constantly changing
The writers are also writing the script maybe
Like a few days up to a few hours
before they start filming
This is all scrambling at the last minute
to try to get everything done.
So the cast and the crew are often
Sitting around, waiting
For pages of the script to come through
Literally, like we live in digital media city in Seoul
And this is where most of the filming happens.
And we always see the film crew at like, midnight
1 a.m., 2 a.m. just sitting around,
waiting for the script to come in.
That's insane! It's terrible!
It makes no sense
And what's bad about this as well is that
When the writers hand in the script
Often times they don't even hand it in chronological order
so at the begining of the day
They might film scene 6 of an episode.
But then they'll get the papers for scene 3
Many hours later
As the writer's writing it.
But the problem is that the actors will think to themselves
"Well, if I would've known what happens in scene 3
I would've acted differently in scene 6."
So the actress can't really portray
a consistent character at all
which is why the characters start being really weird
And bizarre most of the time.
Okay now I've gotta say like as a Korean drama watcher
I can attest that this is happening a lot
especially between a lot of like, weird love plots
Or decision making skills where
Somebody obviously did not like someone or
was not interested in them
and then suddenly like, 6 or 7 episodes in
They're interested in them and you're like
"I never saw that growing, blooming
Like, I saw no connection."
There is no character growth
There is no character development
It's just like, regurgitation of a line on the spot
And the actors can't really put themselves in to the role.
One of my favorite examples is from the actor who starred in "Queen of Ambition".
He complained that they had been shooting the series finale
30 minutes up until it was aired.
So you're filming the ending
the ending hasn't aired yet and then 30 minutes beforehand
You might as well just live stream it at that point
How do you even have time to put together something good
to do any good with it?
You're just rushing it and it's just like high school essays just about.
Or university essays!
Well I was in university, so I dunno about you
Now we're hoping that this last minute script thing is gonna change soon,
because I recently heard in November
there was an announcement that Kim Woo Bin and Suzy are gonna be in a new drama
and it's going to be entirely pre-produced and shot
before it airs.
So that whiny babies on the internet
can't ruin the script anymore
This is gonna be supposedly a lot better.
Yeah.
Now the last minute writing of scripts
is just one of the issues
that factor into the bad quality of some Korean dramas
but another huge issue is how often these shows are published.
Often times, Korean dramas have two episodes per week,
which is not like what we're used to.
Like for our favorite TV shows
like Breaking Bad, or Game of Thrones or what not
usually you only get one episode per week.
If you watch Sherlock-
You get nine episodes in the entire year.
Not nine, three episodes!
Oh right they made nine.
They only made nine for the entirety of the entire thing.
But I want you to think about this.
They are making two episodes per week,
each episode is roughly 60 minutes
two of those is 120 minutes,
that is a Hollywood movie.
that's a two hour movie every single week
done with the same cast,
done with the same crew.
This is exhausting and soul-crushing work.
Now because they have to produce so much content per week,
that means there isn't a lot of time for things like sleeping
or resting, or eating, or going home to your family
or having a nutritious meal
or having any hobbies.
All you do is pretty much work on set 23 hours a day.
It becomes so extreme that it is totally common
and acceptable
for actors to have IV drips
in order to get their energy back
because they aren't consuming any food
and they are totally exhausted.
There have been many examples of people passing out on set,
getting an IV drip, and going back and everyone's like
"Good job! You can do it!"
So you guys know Song Ji Hyo from Running Man.
There was an example of her filming on set
and she had only slept four hours in three days
and she ended up passing out from exhaustion.
So she went to the hospital for an IV drip
and the doctor was like,
"You really need to take some time off to rest."
The doctor told her specifically, you need to rest.
But you know what? She went back to set
Then supposedly had an allergic reaction to the IV
and had shortness of breath and all this panicking,
sent back to the hospital, the doctor's like,
"You really need to not do this."
I'm not joking here, I went to university for this s**t!
It's my degree! Stop!
and she passes out again on set.
Now what's weird about it is that
when everyone found out about this online, people were like,
"She's so amazing, look at her pushing through."
What really upsets me about this
is when you see people online saying stuff like,
"Fighting!" or "You can do it!"
and they keep on encouraging their favorite actors
to work through inhumane and completely unethical situations.
People instead should be saying,
This isn't right. I want you to quit
and I want you to take care of yourself
because I care more about you as a human
than your character or television.
Back in 2011, there was an actress
who was the main star of "Myung Wol the Spy".
You guys might remember this.
She couldn't take the stress anymore of filming those insane hours
Left! She fled the country,
She went to the states and she was there for 48 hours
and people ripped into her.
They said it was irresponsible of her
What about her crew? It's selfish.
Instead of saying to her,
Good for you for standing up against these terribly s****y
and unreasonable condition.
They thought of her as selfish for this
which completely blows my mind.
Now you guys might be feeling really bad for the actors,
which I agree with, but I'll tell you who I feel worse for.
The film crew who have it significantly worse than the actors in my opinion.
Now here's some data as of 2013:
74.2% of all crews work more than 13 hours per day
Only 1.3% of them work eight hours a day
That's a regular shift,
only 1.3% of the crew work a regular shift.
1.3% That even rounds down to 1%
Yeah, 99% of people work more than eight hour shifts per day.
and what's royally f****d up about this is that
only 9.2% of them get overtime pay
91% of them do not get paid overtime.
and when they say over 13 hours,
we're not talking 14 hours,
we're talking like 23 hours a day
Let me give you an example of this.
What happens for some film crews is that
they will start filming everyday at 7AM,
If they are supposed to film more than 24 hours,
then they are going to work up until 6:45AM the next day,
23 hours and 45 minutes
and then the production staff will say,
"Okay, shift is over. Come back in an hour or so."
So they are essentially working more than 24 hours
but they are skipping that overtime pay
by getting screwed over by the production team.
And here's the kicker as to how s****y this is:
these people are working insane hours,
sometimes 23 hours per day,
for months and months on end,
You know how much they get paid?
$1,000 dollars a month.
For 23 hours a day, $1,000 dollars a month.
Now you might be thinking to yourself, how can this be legal?
So first you have to understand some terminology.
You've got the broadcast companies themselves.
That would be like KBS, SBS, JTBC
These are the ones, like MBC
They broadcast the TV shows.
Now these broadcasting companies will have a few of their own people working on the show,
but they will also hire an outside production company
to actually make the show for them.
Now that company is independent from the broadcasting company.
They are the drama production crew
and then they will go on to hire the rest of the staff.
Now the vast majority of people that are hired by the production company
are temporary workers on temporary contracts.
So from our friend's drama that they were working on,
on a set of 50,
only five of them were working for the major broadcasting company
and 45 of them were actually temp workers hired from the production company.
Now since the majority of the film crew is on a temporary contract,
that means they have no legal right to unionize themselves
and call for better working conditions.
So basically if any of the temp workers want better work conditions,
they'll just get fired,
and somebody else will be hired
that will accept these s**t work conditions instead.
So if you're asking how the exploitation of the film crew is legal,
The big companies aren't liable for this,
they're just paying the production company for a product
for a final drama
and to them, it's not their concern
if it's given to them ethically or humanely,
they're just paying money for a product.
No, wait, you may be saying
Why don't people actually protest against this?
How come they haven't come together?
There are unions for the actors
and there are people that are protesting,
the problem is that it hasn't made change.
Back in 2012, actors in South Korea
held a protest in Yeouido
to ask that the broadcasters pay for their outstanding wages
because they still weren't paid yet.
The Korean broadcasting actors union
has actually asked for a standard contract that would guarantee these three things:
1. Actors would be paid within 15 days of airing
2. They will not be forced to film more than 18 hours a day
3. They will guarantee that scripts come at the latest, three days before shooting
However, the broadcasters said this is impossible
because it's unrealistic.
Yes! It is unrealistic for you not to film at least 18 hours a day.
This is outrageous according the broadcasting companies.
Can you believe it?
How does the rest of the world survive like this?!
Oh I dunno, there are tons of TV shows that are super popular-
No that's unrealistic, that doesn't happen.
Breaking Bad... Modern Family...
No that doesn't happen. No way.
Now this isn't to say South Korea is the worst country in the world when it comes to filming conditions.
We have friends that work in the film industry in lots of other countries as well,
and they have their own share of problems as well.
LA and the Hollywood scene,
We've heard so many scary stories
We've had lots of friends that have actually fled the Hollywood scene as a result.
Yeah. But one of the things I will say is that
over time, the complaints that people have been having,
about work conditions or not being fed, safety
slowly people start to chip away at it,
until they make a union,
or until you have to have this on set.
and I think that change needs to start happening in Korea.
and some of you have asked,
Why we don't do that much Korean TV
Well, I think you might kind of understand a little bit as to why.
Now we've had some good experiences on Korean TV definately
but the bad experiences were super scary and awful
They have really soured a lot of our experiences
and we're really scared to do a lot of Korean TV
so you might understand why we don't do that much of it anymore.
Yeah, so if you want to read about our stories
about the experiences we had,
which I realized we've never shared with people,
Yeah. You can click here and look at our blog post,
and we'll tell you those kinds of stories
So here's our question for you guys:
for those of you that work in the film and TV industry,
whether it be in Korea or outside Korea,
are these experiences similar to you?
or have you had different, better, worse experiences?
Or if you've read anything about this online in your countries,
we'd love to see what it's like in your country as well
so please leave a comment so we can have some points of comparison here.
Now for those of you that are avid Korean drama viewers,
we can feel this point here,
What drama do you think went from good to awful just abruptly?
and we're not talking about The Heirs,
because that was awful from the get-go.
From the start to finish, it was just terrible
Hey Lee Min Ho!
I'm your white friend! Is that a bag of cocaine?
Let me snort all this powder that you have!
Oh no! It's bean powder! I'm allergic to bean powder!
All Americans! Squeeze boobs and put things down shirts
That one doesn't even count. Episode 1.
Oh my god, so bad
I don't wanna talk about that
I made it pretty far into that
I watched that drama with a glass of wine
I don't understand how you have the patience
I didn't finish it. Because it was Lee Min Ho. I love Lee Min Ho.
S: I'm Sorry. M: He was my favorite in Almost Paradise
That's a big Lee Min No