Story · The Film
I just want to walk with you
Haeseong & Chaeyeon · Haebangchon, Seoul · 2024
iyagi
Haeseong and Chaeyeon met studying theater and film, he a senior back to finish his degree, she a freshman. They have been together a long time. When they quit acting they held each other and cried, then pooled their savings, bought a camera, and flew to Thailand. We first met them on a video call on November 1, 2024, recorded it, and talked for 48 minutes. That recording decided the film: their voices carry it, and everything we planned came out of what they said on it.
The film opens on a typewriter striking HS&CY, their initials, and a magenta record dropping onto a mint turntable. That opening came out of our first call: Haeseong keeps a wall of vintage cameras and the two of them have an analog streak, so we wrote the title as objects instead of a graphic. Then the studio interview, the two of them across a round wooden table with a framed painting between them, him in a grey striped shirt, her in a blue-violet sweater. We had heard the whole story once off camera, so on the day we rolled sound and let them ask each other. The tape opens with the day they met: she had tagged along to a class that was not even hers, he watched her tie her hair up and step on it, and she caught him staring.
Haebangchon was once the poorest quarter of Seoul and still keeps the old texture: uphill alleys, worn stairs, rooftops under tangled power lines. It matched the couple, so most of the treatment's middle chapters were placed here and in Huam-dong next door. On November 13 we walked them up the hill with banana-milk drinks, sat them on a rooftop ledge above the city, and stayed wide while the conversation ran long. That is where the audio goes deep: he remembers calling his mother to say he was quitting acting, and her answer, "So now that you have something you want to protect, you're giving up the thing you most wanted to be good at." Their own Thailand footage cuts in as memory, from the trip they took with pooled savings and a camera they shot entirely on auto, and the one beat we staged is the night bridge, walking apart against the traffic light trails, because their rule for fights is one day is enough.
The last stretch of November 13 was scheduled backwards from sunset. Golden hour got the walk under the yellow ginkgo trees, the hug in the alley, a shared lollipop, and the crouch at the old 현대문구 stationery shop; at Baekbeom Square they changed into dressier clothes and answered questions on the grass, where they trade the line "You and me, a married couple" and agree it still sounds strange. Four days later we came back for one more dusk at Nodeul Island and sat them on the Han River bank, the green railway bridge behind them. In the cut the night bridge resolves, they meet and hold each other above the city lights, and the film ends on Chaeyeon smiling wide on the sofa and Haeseong at his desk under the wall of old cameras. The last clear word on the tape is hers: "I love you."
It began with a video call on November 1, 2024, recorded from the first minute, 48 minutes long. From that recording we wrote a seven-chapter treatment in Korean, then a scene-by-scene schedule, then shot it over two days. The voices under the finished picture are the same two people, telling the same story again to each other.
We met Haeseong and Chaeyeon over a video call on November 1, 2024 and recorded all 48 minutes of it. The hair story from the day they met, the confession and the twelve days she took to answer, quitting acting together, the Bangkok trip with a camera on full auto. We planned nothing until we had heard it once.
From the recording we wrote a treatment in Korean, seven chapters, each one tying a part of their story to a place and a time of day. The typewriter and the turntable open it because the analog side is really how they live: Haeseong works at a desk under a pegboard wall of vintage cameras, and the film ends on that exact frame.
We scouted Haebangchon and Huam-dong ahead of the shoot and wrote the schedule scene by scene, backwards from the light. November 13: the studio interview first, the hillside through the afternoon, golden hour in the alleys, sunset at Baekbeom Square. November 17: a second, shorter evening at Nodeul Island for the Han River at dusk.
Mostly we set the scene and stepped back. The rooftop conversation ran long on purpose, and the laughing hug in the alley happened while we stayed wide. The one fully staged sequence is the night bridge, the two of them walking apart against the traffic, standing in for the fights they give one day and no more. Its repair, the embrace above the city lights, closes the arc near the end.
There is no narration from us and no subtitles by design. Their interview runs under the whole picture, so the edit follows the rhythm of how the two of them talk. The grade is warm analog film that shifts cool for the night bridge, with their own Thailand footage sitting inside it as memory. It closes on Chaeyeon's smile and the wall of old cameras.
Their treatment was written in Korean: seven chapters, from a freshman and a returning senior to the small dream they are building now.
A full set of photographs from the shoot, made by our photographer in the same light as the film.
The Film starts the same way every time: a recorded conversation with the couple before we plan a single scene. From that recording we write a treatment, scout the locations, and build a schedule around the light. The package is a short preview, the full film, and a set of photographs taken alongside the shoot.
