"The Wonder Coach" production team candidly spoke about their feelings during the two consecutive losses.
On the afternoon of the 17th at the MBC building in Sangam-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, an ending press conference was held for the MBC variety show 'The Wonder Coach.' Directors Kwon Rak-hee, Choi Yoon-young and Lee Jae-woo, who were in charge of directing, attended the conference and talked.
'The Wonder Coach' is a club founding project featuring volleyball legend and volleyball emperor Kim Yeon-kyung returning as a rookie coach. 'The Wonder Coach,' which premiered on Sept. 28, drew rising viewership through word of mouth and elicited a strong response, recording a peak of 4.9% (Nielsen Korea, nationwide households).
Originally, 'The Wonder Coach' started with a rule that the team would be disbanded if it lost four times out of seven matches. When asked about their feelings after the two consecutive losses, PD Choi Yoon-young said, "The two consecutive losses were in the match against Japan. The atmosphere among the production staff was so bad that we never wanted to go back. Sports are unpredictable, so we had no choice but to trust Coach Kim Yeon-kyung and the players. Looking back at the Korea-Japan match, we were winning but then lost after a comeback. So honestly we were in shock watching it unfold. After the match with Japan ended, I remember having an all-night strategy meeting in the hotel lobby in Japan about what we should do," she confessed.
PD Kwon Rak-hee also said, "The moment of the two consecutive losses, our hands and feet went cold. We thought the team might really be disbanded. Usually on variety shows, if an episode is filmed well you say, 'We filmed well today, let's edit it well and air it,' but with this, depending on the results you don't know what will come next, how the game results will play into the story — it completely slipped out of our hands. The production team was affected in real time by the pledges, and the players and coach were inevitably heavily influenced. We realized that what story will unfold next was truly out of our hands. I felt that was at once an attractive and fatal device. The reason we had an all-night countermeasure meeting after losing to Japan was the anxiety that we didn't know how this story would develop from now on. I felt that uncertainty itself would become a big part of the entertainment," he said.
He continued, "After we won three straight, all our staff developed jinxes. Up until the Jung Kwan Jang match, each person had a rule about the color of underwear they wore, the color of their outerwear, and saying 'we'll probably win' was banned. Many such jinxes arose. I remember staying quiet during the Jung Kwan Jang match and then standing up to high-five when the final point was scored," he recalled.
Meanwhile, 'The Wonder Coach' will air its final episode on the 23rd.
[Photo] MBC
[OSEN]