In Your Radiant Season has been receiving praise from viewers for its tasteful direction and delicate emotional lines, and director Jeong Sang-hee's personal behind-the-scenes account of the production was revealed.
MBC Friday-Saturday drama In Your Radiant Season (planned by Namgung Seong-woo, written by Jo Seong-hee, directed by Jeong Sang-hee and Kim Young-jae) is a work that depicts an unpredictable "radiant" romance that wakes up frozen time when Chan, a man who lives every day like an exciting summer vacation, and Ran, a woman who has locked herself in winter, meet as if by fate. In particular, the directing method that visually unravels the flow of seasons, memories and emotions has heightened the show's immersion and provoked enthusiastic responses.
◆ painting emotions with seasons...the visual direction unique to 'Channeogye'
In Your Radiant Season depicts how the imagery of the seasons goes beyond a simple backdrop to intertwine with the characters' narratives and emotions, showing Song Ha-ran (Lee Sung-kyoung) and Seon Woo-chan (Chae Jong Hyeop), who had been staying in different seasons, gradually coming closer at the same temperature. The changing light and color and the changes in nature in each scene intuitively reveal the characters' inner worlds and draw viewers' empathy.
In particular, the drone footage in the episode 5 trip to Gyeongju and the scene that likened Song Ha-ran's longing for Seon Woo-chan to the moon filling from a new moon to a full moon, and the moment in episode 6 when Seon Woo-chan returns to Song Ha-ran with the first snow are cited as representative directorial choices that symbolically capture the change in their relationship.
Director Jeong Sang-hee said, "I approached the shoot hoping that the seasons would be felt not just as a background but as the narrative itself. Song Ha-ran is a person trapped in winter, and Seon Woo-chan is a person who lives each day like summer vacation. Their meeting is the collision of two seasons, and I thought that was the show's central image. On set we were always thinking, 'where is the season in this scene?' and tried to capture that on screen," he said.
He added, "In that sense, Gyeongju in the fall was a space-time that compressed many things. I thought the shot of the two standing in front of the fragrant tree of Yangdong Village, which has passed through many seasons, was a representative image showing Chan and Ha-ran's fate where meeting and parting intersect. Between the night when the new moon hung and the night when the full moon rose, their hearts were gradually filling, and we unfolded that together in the flow of time. The cinematographer beautifully captured those moments," he added.
He also said, "The first-snow reunion scene was one of the scenes we put a lot of effort into," adding, "Ha-ran's winter was being trapped for a long time in the person of the past, and this is the moment when Chan and she share winter for the first time. We wanted to film Ha-ran and Chan's radiant joy of reunion by likening it to the feeling and the air of the moment when snow falls."
◆ '1 inch of memory' emotions and time captured in distorted images
In scenes such as Seon Woo-chan's past recollections or the '1 inch of memory' scenes, changes in aspect ratio, blur processing and sensory distortion direction were used to leave a strong impression. The direction, designed so viewers can feel the incompleteness of memory and the characters' psychological states rather than simple recollection, acts as a differentiated visual device unique to 'Channeogye.'
Regarding this, director Jeong Sang-hee said, "From the script stage, I had a lot of 고민 about how to express the '1 inch of memory.' I thought that memories mixed with trauma don't come back intact as they were but remain like fragments," and "I considered that the day's temperature, smell and fleeting images linger for a long time, and when realizing Chan's flashback scenes, I put that point first," he said.
He went on to say, "I wanted to make it like a 'residue of the senses' rather than an 'exact reproduction.' The blur processing and changes in aspect ratio were also signals that this memory was not yet complete," explaining that he hoped viewers would also feel the hidden 1-inch sensation.
He added, "The '1 inch of memory' is a hidden mystery, but it is also the part that Chan has not been able to fully confront himself. The moment that one inch is filled should not simply be the revelation of a past truth, but the moment Chan is finally liberated from himself. We designed these visual distortions to gradually clear toward that point."
◆ '7 seconds of narrative' the change of the 'radiant couple' contained in the animated opening
The opening sequence of In Your Radiant Season has become another viewing point among viewers with its animated composition that changes slightly each episode. Within a short running time it compresses the mood and emotional line of the episode and functions as part of the narrative. The production team said, "From the stage when the writer was writing the script, an animated opening that contains the episode's content was planned," adding, "We agonized a lot to convey the emotion of an episode in the short time of 7 seconds. We composed it hoping that when all the animations are connected, the two people's journey would remain like one memory."
The production method also drew attention. The production team said, "We proceeded with character modeling after storyboarding based on the graphic design team's 3D modeling work," adding, "Although it looks like 2D animation on the surface, we used 3D modeling and motion graphics to bring out detail."
In particular, the opening animation was produced in parallel with filming and was continuously modified to reflect costumes, art and color, focusing on expressing the characters' emotions through seasonal elements such as snow and flower petals. In addition, the characters in the animation were designed to focus on 'the perspective of Song Ha-ran and Seon Woo-chan when they first became each other's salvation,' not the present, and reflected the forms and features of their childhood in costumes and hairstyles to reveal the characters' identities. The characters' movements were also varied by episode to capture the flow of their relationship.
In this way, 'Channeogye' is completing a differentiated emotional narrative through direction that organically links seasons, memory and relationships. Attention is focused on what ending the 'radiant romance' of Song Ha-ran and Seon Woo-chan, who are changing each other's seasons, will lead to.
[Photo] Provided by MBC
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