Movie '12.12: THE DAY', Hwang Jung-min's special makeup → behind-the-scenes production from costume details

The movie '12.12: THE DAY' (director Kim Seong-su), which exceeded 7 million viewers in just 20 days of its release, revealed the production behind-the-scenes.

'12.12: THE DAY' is a movie depicting the nine hours of action to prevent the rebellion of the new military regime that occurred in the capital Seoul on December 12, 1979. The behind-the-scenes look at the production of 'Spring in Seoul' revealed by veteran staff members who completed the details of the movie, from filming, lighting, art, to special makeup, costumes, and CG.

◆ Jeon Doo-gwang (Hwang Jung-min)’s special makeup

Hwang Hyo-gyun, CEO of CELL, who has pioneered the field of special makeup in Korea, including the zombies in 'Kingdom' and 'Train to Busan', the labor makeup in 'Remember', and the Park Tong makeup in 'The Managers of Namsan', is the gateway to Jung-min Hwang becoming the leader. Special makeup was mentioned.

He said, "There were many cases in Hollywood and other countries' movies that reproduced past characters as if they were real. Director Kim Seong-soo said that 'Spring in Seoul' is not a documentary, so it is not intended to resemble real people. “The goal was to create a feeling by adding the makeup. I think the best special makeup is when the audience moves on naturally without breaking their immersion in the movie without noticing the makeup.”


◆ The essence of detail, what is the costume production process?

Costume director Kwak Jeong-ae, who designed costumes for 'Decision to Break Up', 'Victory Ho', and 'Managers of Namsan', said, "Each character belonged to a different unit and had a different rank, so I studied it and asked the advisory team to create a table while working on the characters. “Most of them were high-ranking people, so we had to preserve the fit and angle of the military uniforms, and the fabric had to be luxurious, so we went out of our way to produce about 260 to 270 sets. Because the world of soldiers was unfamiliar and the system was perfect, we felt a lot of difficulty,” he said.


◆ VFX that recreates the day of December 12, 1979

VFX Supervisor Jeong Jae-hoon said, "When watching the movie, I thought the audience should feel like they were in that time and era. We used the director's collection of photos as reference for each cut. We used the many photos that the director had collected as reference for each cut. “We replaced the other sides to suit the times, focusing on the terrain that was difficult to handle,” he explained.

In addition, editing director Kim Sang-beom, who can be said to be the living history of Korean film editing, joined in, including films containing famous scenes from modern Korean history such as 'Decision to Break Up', 'The Hunt', and 'A Taxi Driver'.

Reporter Ha-neul Lee, Ten Asia greenworld@tenasia.co.kr