The fluorescent lights in the classroom hummed a discordant, off-key score, casting a sickly yellow pallor over everything. To Kim Do-yeong, it was a poorly lit indie set, a low-budget sitcom desperately in need of a proper gaffer and a more inspired director. He slumped in his seat, his elbow propped on the scarred desk, chin resting in his palm. His gaze drifted across the room, not seeing his classmates, but a series of mismanaged extras, each failing to understand their blocking.
This wasn't just school; this was a film, a slow-burn existential drama that desperately needed an editor. If Christopher Nolan were to direct this morning's geometry lesson, Do-yeong mused, there'd be multiple timelines, non-linear progression, and probably a dream within a dream about the Pythagorean theorem. But no, this was linear, predictable, and frankly, visually uninspired. It was a single, unbroken take that Tarkovsky himself might find excruciatingly long, but without any of the profound, soul-stirring melancholy. Just... boredom.
Do-yeong imagined a wide shot, capturing the sheer monotony: the teacher droning on, the dust motes dancing in the singular shaft of sunlight brave enough to penetrate the grime of the windowpane. He mentally added a subtle, unsettling ambient track, something vaguely Lynchian, just to give the scene some tension. The way the teacher, Mr. Lee, scribbled equations on the whiteboard, it was less a captivating performance and more a series of uninspired jump cuts. No art. No rhythm.
His eyes flickered to Han Ji-eun, two rows over. She was diligently taking notes, her head bent, a stray strand of hair falling across her face. Do-yeong momentarily considered her as a potential protagonist, an observer in this cinematic wasteland. Her focused intensity had a certain quiet dignity, a composition that Bong Joon-ho might find fascinating – the subtle social dynamics encoded in the meticulous act of note-taking. What inner world, what unspoken critique, might she be hiding beneath that studious facade? He pictured a close-up, slowly pushing in on her pen, the scratch of graphite on paper becoming the only sound.
Then his gaze drifted to Choi Ha-rin, by the window, idly sketching in her notebook. She saw the world in colour palettes, he knew. She was the one who would point out the way the afternoon sun hit the worn edges of the desks, or the specific shade of grey in the teacher's jacket. An aesthetic counterbalance, indeed. If this classroom were a film, Ha-rin would be his production designer, instantly spotting the visual flaws, the lack of intentionality in the mundane set dressing.
Do-yeong pulled out his own well-worn notebook. Not for geometry. Never for geometry. He flipped to a blank page, pen poised. Scene 1. Take 1. He began to write, his thoughts already translating the mundane into something cinematic. INT. CLASSROOM - DAY. A tableau of adolescent ennui. The air is thick with the unspoken weight of routine. A low-angle shot reveals the worn-out sneakers of students, anchored to the present.
This wasn't just school. This was a sprawling, chaotic production, and he was the only one with a director's eye, desperately trying to find the narrative, to impose some kind of directorial vision onto the uncooperative mess of reality. Every moment, every glance, every whispered comment was a frame, and Do-yeong was determined to stitch them into something greater, something worthy of the masters he revered.