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Hi guys, the interview was posted at a most fortuitous time, because the documentary is premiering in Korea this Friday, 13th of October, 1am. And it will be repeated on the Sunday, 15th October, 7pm. I suppose the narration will be in Korean, and I believe the dubbing will be removed, leaving
the original Korean voices (a damned good thing!) The audio quality will be much better than the downloadable version too.
I have all these photos I really want to share, but I can't because I'm at a conference in Cannes and the internet in my hotel has been down for three days (sigh. French.)
So for now, I'm just posting from a common computer in the conference hall.
The story of Korean premier is very interesting, because it ties in with CJ and WCG as well. It's just one more example of the Korean mindset and how they've made the experience of this documentary so incredible.
Every year, Nat Geo commissions about 11 hours of documentaries from Singapore and the rest of Asia. These 11 hours are then shown in a series in Asia called "Showreal Asia". Every year, they've looked for a sponsor, but this year, with the economy being a bit shaky, they couldn't find one. As a result, the telecast of these films have been delayed.
We really wanted to see the docu premier in Korea before the WCG, and so did WCG themselves. We explained the problem to WCG and WCG spoke to Coach Cho. Now, CJ Media, the sponsor of the team, owns the network that carries Nat Geo Korea. When they heard the news they immediately purchased the documentary from the Nat Geo head office to premier it in Korea, even though there was no sponsor yet.
They didn't have to do this, since none of their players are in WCG this year. They didn't have to do this because it would eventually come their way anyway. But they did it, and I'm just so grateful to CJ Entus, CJ Media and WCG for making this possible.
Ongamenet also had a part to play in all this. All the in game footage in the docu came from Ongamenet. They were hesitant to let us use the footage because Nat Geo is carried on CJ Media, which is their competitor. But the producers in Ongamenet eventually decided to let us use the footage for free, in spite of them receiving almost no recognition for it, because they believed that this would be good for Xellos and his team.
Without all these Koreans going out of their way to help us, this documentary wouldn't have been possible at all. There are more, including Uhjoo, but they are too numerous to list here. Whenever I look at this documentary, I think of them, and feel immensely grateful.
Finally, just a little request, as this documentary starts to be shown all over Asia. If people could translate things like interviews and posts and post them on Chinese and Korean and other non English forums I'd be very grateful. Same goes with the photos.
But more than that, I hope that everyone who watches this documentary because they like Starcraft brings a buddy who doesn't like Starcraft. Let's face it, the Starcraft community is kind of small. Hopefully this documentary will lead to a little bit of a Starcraft revival, or at least a little more understanding of what computer games are all about.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for posting the interview!
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Starcraft revival : D
Its great OGN worked with competitors like that.
Once again thanks for creating the documentary.
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Osaka27172 Posts
Thanks for the news update Kevin. Indeed, that is great news about CJ picking up the documentary. It seems that the feeling of brotherhood amongst the progaming scene hasn't completely dissolved in the face of giant corporate sponsorship. Please keep us updated in whatever you are involved with in the future.
Trevor Allen.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
<3 wow
koreans rule
and so do you! i hope the doco comes to NZL, thatd be sweet..
anyway.. that is so nice of CJ and OGN... =D
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wow thats awesome man. I love all this background information "behind the scenes" if you call it.
Good stuff. Keep on truckin.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
I read the first 2/3 of your interview, and by gosh, you may seriously want to consider uploading the video to youtube once it is aired throught the world.
you could say "look bishes, 150,000 views on youtube~~"
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Baltimore, USA22259 Posts
Thanks so much Storyteller, I'm amazed at the effort and dedication you put into this, long after production. It just shows how sincere you are about opening as many eyes in the world to progaming as you can, and we need people with your talents to show everyone what they're missing. 
Hell, I even showed the documentary to my girlfriend, who wouldn't have been able to tell you what a zergling was to save her life, and even she got caught up in it. She was genuinely upset when Xellos lost to SC, and was cheering out loud when Androide sent him packing.
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On October 10 2006 05:57 EvilTeletubby wrote:Hell, I even showed the documentary to my girlfriend, who wouldn't have been able to tell you what a zergling was to save her life, and even she got caught up in it. She was genuinely upset when Xellos lost to SC, and was cheering out loud when Androide sent him packing.
Lol I showed my girl too, and she really admired Xellos and thought he was cute and admirable. I think she liked the part about his hardships as a kid and when he was speaking with his mother.
After watching the documentry I admit I felt a little anger towards Silent Control, he was really made out to be the bad guy
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United States5262 Posts
We already s2 you here at TL The Storyteller. Well I know I do. s2s2 ^^
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Braavos36390 Posts
someone explain to me what "s2" is?
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On October 10 2006 06:03 YoiChiBow wrote:
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Baltimore, USA22259 Posts
On October 10 2006 06:44 Freezer_au wrote: [removed quote within quote]After watching the documentry I admit I felt a little anger towards Silent Control, he was really made out to be the bad guy
Yeah, they had to do it that way, every story needs a 'bad' guy.
And I don't think you were really supposed to feel anger for him, it's just that you wanted him to lose, and Xellos to win. ^_^
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Korea (South)11595 Posts
On October 10 2006 06:03 YoiChiBow wrote:
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This quite explains it perfectly
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is awesome32277 Posts
On October 10 2006 02:31 The Storyteller wrote:
Finally, just a little request, as this documentary starts to be shown all over Asia. If people could translate things like interviews and posts and post them on Chinese and Korean and other non English forums I'd be very grateful. Same goes with the photos.
Im currently working on spanish subs for the documentary : )
I really dont have much time this week, but im in minute 12/47. I hope i can have it done by next week. : )
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On October 10 2006 07:24 Hot_Bid wrote:
someone explain to me what "s2" is?
Best Russian starcraft team with the likes of Advokate and Yan. It is so awesome, that it has become synonymous with love.
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i vote Storyteller for admin.
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Poll: S2 or <3 ?
(Vote): S2
(Vote): <3
Either way, a whole lot of them go out to you storyteller <3 S2
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is awesome32277 Posts
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:3
<3<3<3
s2 ;o.
Storyteller wins.~
You are amazing, keep it up.~
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<3 > S2 rofl n00b ez win /w rep 3-0
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cool btw, CJ has reason to buy it :D , go -> CJ now,
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Okay, pictures have been scanned in. Here they are:
The crew prepares to film Xellos being injected with radio active glucose. In a drama, one can do several takes of the same action, and then choose the best take. Sometimes that\'s possible in a documentary as well. But in cases like this, it just can\'t be done, for obvious reasons. So this was a one take shot.
We needed a control subject for the test, of course. So our researcher grabbed a pal and asked if he\'d like to play a game against Xellos. \"Yes! Yes!\" he said, \"I\'ll do anything!\" until he found out that \"anything\" included getting an injection. Then he changed his mind and asked a buddy to stand in for him instead.
Following the injection and the playing of Starcraft, the players moved into a room to have their brains scanned. Here you can see director Eric Lim preparing to shoot the scene:
In the documentary, you will see Silent_control preparing to leave the boarding house to face Xellos. That scene was actually shot a couple of days after WCG Korea, and the van went no further than round the block. Here you can see Silent_control, the Rock and someone else I can\'t make out getting ready to charge into the van like they\'re the Power Rangers or something. The girl with them is our production assistant/translator, Baek Jinhee.
We were going to shoot more of the Pantech team, but they had a match with KTF the next day and objected to the amount of shooting being done (we spent about three hours there). We wanted to shoot Silent_control going shopping and stuff as well, but that night he came down with the flu and the shoot was cancelled. Poor guy.
The supermarket shopping scene was the last scene we did in Korea. After that, the team presented me with the GO keyboard bag:
The bag was sponsored by Airwalk, the only sponsor they had before CJ came along. The uniform was also sponsored by Airwalk. The manager of the company is a great guy. They also gave me the T-shirt and jacket:
Yes, if clothes maketh the man, I too would be earning 100,000 a year and appearing on Afreeca... oops, I mean Ongamenet and MBC. Not to mention be at the top of PGtour.
They made me an honourary GO team member, but I thought that I smiled too much for that, so I had to try to look intimidating instead...
... but I hadn\'t had enough practice, so I ended up looking constipated.
I thought that the jacket was just a spare, but on my way back to the hotel, I suddenly notice this label on the jacket (I\'ve placed a piece of plastic over it so that you can see it more clearly):
Holy crap, those hangeul words say \"Seo Ji Hoon\"... That used to be HIS jacket, and he just gave it to me! What a great way to end the shoot!
More stuff happened after, of course. My girlfriend flew up to join me for a short holiday, Uhjoo showed us around. The manager of Airwalk bought us dinner. Coach Cho also bought us dinner at Bizbar in COEX. It was about USD50 per pax (maybe more), and he insisted on paying. I tried to pre empt it by slipping the waitress my credit card, but for some reason the payment couldn\'t go through and the ruse was discovered. All the Koreans scolded me and said to let the coach pay. He did, though how he managed to do it without a sponsor is a mystery to me.
*and now, over to Singapore...*
We spent one night and half a day camping out in the gaming hall in Singapore to get the shots in the documentary of people setting up. We spent about 10 hours filming, and edited it down to less than a minute.
The gorgeous Fiona Xie (you can get a fair number of pics on Google), one of Singapore\'s most famous actresses, was hosting a daily round up of the WCG Grand Finals 2005! And she interviewed Xellos! Of course, everyone rushed to take photos with her, including me!
Actually, there were two hosts, a guy and Fiona Xie. The Korean team leader (in charge of baby sitting the players) went up to them and shyly asked if Fiona would take a picture with him. She agreed to, and the two hosts took up position on either side of him. That\'s when the team leader objected.
\"No, no, I don\'t need you. Just Fiona.\"
I don\'t think anyone took any pictures with the guy host, actually... Then I asked Xellos if he wanted to take a picture with her and he said no, but then as we were leaving the scene of the interview, Fiona called after us, \"sorry, Jihoon, could I take a photo with you?\" The ever-gallant Xellos agreed.
On a somewhat related note, when we first came back from our recce trip (short for recconaissance, where we go to meet our key characters and check out good shooting locations), one of the commissioning editors of Nat Geo expressed doubt over the docu.
\"Who wants to watch a geek walking around?\" she asked. \"I\'d rather watch a boxer (snigger snigger) or a race car driver.\"
So we showed her Xellos\'s photo.
\"Oh!\" she said, her eyes lighting up. \"Can you get him to take off his shirt?\"
He never did take off his shirt, but the female fans love him anyway... and I love the female fans... and the female fans love me...
To repay their hospitality in Korea, my girlfriend and I took everyone out every night for dinner. After fOru won, we had dinner, and were joined by some Korean fans who bought some stuff for Xellos and fOru and had managed to navigate their way in a strange country to wherever we were having dinner! Very touching. After dinner, and after the fans left, we went back to my and my girlfriend\'s place to have a few beers.
Clockwise from 9 o\'clock: Coach Cho, Xellos, fOru, Kang Dongwon (Korea\'s team leader) and Wendy, my girlfriend.
Clockwise from 9 o\'clock: Coach Cho, Xellos, fOru, Kang Dongwon (Korea\'s team leader), Gigi, the Chihuahua-cross from Hell and me. Not sure why Xellos lost his smile in this one =)
Finally, on the last day, I met them for a drink, and they presented my girlfriend and I with a Swatch watch each. Again, this is before they had a sponsor. I don\'t have a shot of the one they gave my girlfriend, but here\'s the one they gave me:
-The End-
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So how did the Korean debut go?
BTW those pictures are awesome ~_~.
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great post~
who is Fiona Xie? lool. rofl on Xellos owning her.
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On October 13 2006 22:41 SuperJongMan wrote:
So how did the Korean debut go?
BTW those pictures are awesome ~_~.
You're in Korea and you're asking me? =) Not sure yet. I'll ask WCG next week, or maybe after the Grand Finals. They're probably busy as hell right now!
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Great pictures Kevin. It's a nice looking watch too. That GO jacket is priceless.. If things don't turn out the way you want to and you become extremely broke you could sell it for $2000 in Korean ebay.
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is awesome32277 Posts
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nice pics, sounds like you had a good time there
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