The reason why the writer of “Extraordinary Attorney Woo” added the word “Strange” to the Korean title of the drama
Moon Ji-won, who wrote ENA’s “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” told the story of how she wrote the first draft of the drama.
“I remember how the Korea Creative Content Agency gave me 1 million won every month for eight months in 2013, and I was able to focus only on creative activities because I was freed from worries about making ends meet thanks to that.”
Writer Moon Ji-won, who created the popular ENA drama “Extraordinary Attorney Woo,” told the story of when he was preparing for her debut while working part-time at a short-term job in an interview posted on the Naver Post of Korea Creative Content Agency on August 5th.
“When preparing for my debut, my’ income is bound to be unstable,” Moon said. “I also constantly worked a low-wage short-term part-time job to secure time and energy to make short-term movies and feature scenarios for my portfolios, so I was worried about making ends meet because I couldn’t make money properly.”
“2013 was the first year I got to join Chungmuro to make a feature film,” she recalled. “I studied film here and there, and I took my first step when I won a feature scenario pitching project at a film festival, but I didn’t know how to continue after that.”
Writer Moon participated in the Creative Talent Companion Project of Korea Creative Content Agency in 2013 and received mentoring from senior producers and support fee for creative support. The Creative Talent Companion Project is a project to foster representative content-making talent of Korea Creative Content Agency, which provides mentoring from top content experts and monthly creative support funds to its participants.
Writer Moon said, “I saw the announcement of the creative talent partnership project, and I immediately applied because both ‘mentoring’ and ‘creation support fund’ were essential help for me. The support fund itself was a huge help,” she said. “I’m not a former film school graduate or former staff of any commercial film crew, so the stories of the film industry told by mentor producers helped me get a sense of the movie filming scene.”
“While several projects I had prepared to become a director were failures, ‘Witness’ won the grand prize at the Lotte Scenario Contest and I made my debut as a writer first,” Moon said. “’Woo Young-woo’’s drama production company, which enjoyed ‘Witness’, suggested me to write a 16-episode drama script.”
Regarding the name of the main character, “Woo Young-woo,” she said, “I was walking down the street three years ago while thinking about making a drama, and suddenly, I want to name the main character Woo Young-woo. It’s Woo Young no matter how it’s read. The thought of ‘like kayak, deed, rotator, noon, racecar’ came to my mind,” she said. “Every time Young-woo says this line in the drama, I feel good because I remember the memory of that day vividly.”
“The word ‘strange’ explains the character Woo Young-woo well,” she introduced. “Strange people are often referred to as ‘weird’ when they talk about people who are unusual, unfamiliar, peculiar and extraordinary,” she said. “Weird people make a lot of people nervous and afraid, but they also change, enrich, and make the world we live in more interesting.” She then added, “I hope everyone can feel the strange power of strange people through ‘Strange Lawyer Woo Young-woo’ (literal title).”
Writer Moon said, “Woo Young-woo contains various stories about diversity,” adding, “I don’t think it’s a drama that reveals the message at once, but if I have to say the topic in one sentence, wouldn’t it be ‘respect diversity?'”
Regarding the appearance of a character with autism spectrum in the drama “Witness,” she said, “I happened to study about the autism spectrum while coming up with the scenarios for “Witness”. As a creator, I tried very hard not to make any mistakes in building the characters without a minimum understanding of the autism spectrum in both “Witness” and “Woo Young-woo”.”
When asked to give advice for prospective future creators, writer Moon said, “After finishing the script for ‘Woo Young-woo’, I started jogging right away. This is because I suffered from a drop in physical stamina while writing the script for three years,” he said. “Creativity seems to come from physical strength.” Regarding her next work, she said, “It is a project to adapt a novel into a movie, and I am in charge of both screenplay and directing.”
Meanwhile, 1,339 mentors consisting of top content experts have participated in Korea Creative Content Agency’s Creative Talent Companion Project over the past decade, producing 2808 talents.
Source: nate
