Making “Pachinko”: How Showrant Delivered So Hume’s Best-selling TV Novel

inside is obvious pachinkoThe first moments when Min Jin Lee Lee adapted the 2017 Apple TV+ bestselling novel of the same name contained several major sources of fun. The opening sequence ends with Japanese-occupied Korea in 1915 and New York in 1989, in contrast to the book, which highlights the saga of his multi-ethnic family.

What is less obvious is that production is underway. pachinkoThe first season was also performed out of order and sometimes in multiple locations at once, including Canada, Japan, and seven cities in Korea. At half-century intervals, two separate dates and directors, Kogonada and Justin Chon, were split into eight episodes; pachinko The team, made up of a 300-member multinational and multilingual team, managed to manage two divisions working together on an ambitious project that follows the young Sunja family matriarch (Minha Kim) who leaves Korea in Osaka in 1931 and nearly 60 years ago. Years later, she became engaged to a grandmother (Yuh-Jung Yun) in Japan, where her grandson, a Western-educated banker, Solomon (Jin Ha) is working to complete the biggest deal of his career.

While each director maintained their own signature style – actor Inji Jeong compared Kogonada and Chon to Monet and Basque – Chon also used different equipment to shoot different sets. “We’ve shot everything since the early 1900s on an amorphous handheld widescreen so you can see more and with vintage lenses,” he says. “It’s smooth [Solomon’s business deals]So I used Steadicam, Technocranes, dollies on a very clinical German lens. All by Major Sunja [Solomon’s grandmother] There was no camera movement as he is much more introspective and constantly thinking about the past. Let’s put it on sticks to make it tough.”

pachinkoThe Commitment to Authenticity started with presenting the story in the appropriate languages ​​– Executive Producer Michael Ellenberg He says the team never reacted to the entire English stage, which meant the Korean-born American not only learned to speak Japanese from scratch, but also worked with dialect coach Yu-Mi Kang to master many accents for the trilingual. Solomon. : Cannes, hometown of Osaka Even a more specific way of speaking Kanto and Korean in your professional life in Tokyo is different from that of an actor. “I used my trainer’s Japanese accent as a pattern for the Korean Solomon because he didn’t speak with an American accent like I do,” he explains.

Product designer Mara Leper-Schlup, art director Cho Kim and prop master Don-man Joo worked together to reconstruct the exact period scenes and locations, including a recreation of 1923 Yokohama on two continents (inland Korea and abroad in Vancouver). Seven, part of a totally original story for a television adaptation dedicated to the historic earthquake that devastated the region. “We built this interior room by mimicking the gimbal earthquake. “We could have paid for people because it was such a good trip,” jokes Shuran Soo Hugh. Leper-Schlup worked closely with special effects coordinator Minjae Lee to ensure that the color of the choking debris in the atmosphere was maintained on both sets. “Do you know how much we talked about dust for this show?” Hugh adds.

“It was very brave to think that we could do something like this,” admits executive producer Teresa Kang-Lowe, who first introduced Hughes’ novel nearly five years ago. “The idea of ​​creating a trilingual show with mostly Asian actors was difficult to realize. But while it was a deeply Korean story about real Koreans living in Japan, it’s also an incredibly universal family story. It all comes down to having a creative vision, and the mastery of these actors, the crew and Susa gave us confidence.

The story first appeared in a separate June issue of The Gossipify. Click here to subscribe to the magazine.