-Huh? Vanguard already opened their YouTube?
-Lolololololol for real, first thing I did was smash subscribe!!!
-GN looks like they’ve got their heads on straight and are working hard lololol
-Of course they had to open it fast, they’re crazy popular in Korea and they can pull in the Japanese crowd too
-Gotta spread this to other communities!
-Shared on Insta!!
-Vanguard fan accounts are already going insane lolololol
-Then that means stuff like Vanguard’s debut teasers will go up on YouTube, right??
-Looking at the results, EY was trash and GN was an angel.....
-ㅠㅜㅠㅠㅠㅜㅠ!! Vanguard YouTube!!!
It started on one community site, but the fans’ fingers were fast, and within a few dozen minutes the rumor had spread far and wide. The news that “Vanguard’s” YouTube channel had opened. After the community sites, it rode through social media, and from social media it was passed on through all kinds of messengers.
By this point, the press caught the scent.
《[Star Talk] “Vanguard” Opens Official YouTube Channel as Soon as Group Name Is Revealed / Photo》
《The Red-Hot “Vanguard,” Fans React to YouTube Channel Opening: “Subscribing Right Away!”》
Public opinion, followed by the media, had joined in to promote them.
Thanks to that, the “Vanguard” YouTube channel was—
[Channel Name: Vanguard]
[Vanguard Official YouTube Channel]
[This is Vanguard’s official YouTube channel.]
[Subscribers: 11,000]
[Videos: 3]
—at 10,000 subscribers the moment it opened. Of course, this was not even the beginning yet. Now that the fire had properly been lit, the speed at which subscribers increased would be terrifying.
At present, three videos had been uploaded to “Vanguard’s” YouTube channel.
-Practice Room Choreography Practice Video / Vanguard - DANCE PRACTICE VIDEO｜Vanguard
-SBC Acting Awards Congratulatory Stage + Rojun on the Red Carpet!｜Vanguard
-Vanguard TALK EP.1｜Vanguard
The members practicing, the “SBC Acting Awards” congratulatory performance that was still setting the internet ablaze, Rojun’s imposing presence, and finally a video capturing the daily lives of the “Vanguard” members. As word spread among fans in an instant, the views and comments on each video were increasing by the second and by the minute.
And that wasn’t all.
News of “Vanguard’s” YouTube channel opening had even crossed over to Japan. Japanese fans convulsed with joy and cheers. The reason was simple. Their popularity in Japan was no less than in Korea, but compared to Korea, the amount of content they could watch was limited. For example, things like the live broadcast of the “SBC Acting Awards.”
But now they could watch it on “Vanguard’s” YouTube channel, so of course they had no choice but to jump for joy.
With things like this—
《“Vanguard’s Form Is Insane!” Less Than 2 Hours After Opening YouTube Channel, They Hit 100,000 Subscribers! / Photo》
—the “Vanguard” YouTube channel’s subscribers quickly surpassed 100,000, and about thirty minutes later, around 9 p.m.—
-[Subscribers: 207,000]
—they had gone over 200,000.
It was a speed that anyone could see was extraordinary. Naturally, it had no choice but to become a hot topic, and the number of articles increased. This situation was due to the powerful influence of the members, including “Geubaekpeu,” in both Korea and Japan, but as expected, the one who boasted more than half of that power was Gang Rojun.
-I got into Rojun because of Rental Lover and ended up embracing Vanguard lolololol
First and foremost, Rojun’s destructive visuals. On top of that, his influence during “Geubaekpeu” and his power as a writer and actor were pulling in subscribers from Korea and Japan.
It was, how should one put it, as if all the issues from his first appearance until now had condensed and were flooding toward the channel’s subscriber count.
Gradually, the speed at which subscribers increased grew steeper.
Then, when late night passed and dawn arrived—
-Practice Room Choreography Practice Video / Vanguard - DANCE PRACTICE VIDEO｜Vanguard
-Views: 1,503,128 / 2020. 12. 21
—each video’s views had surpassed one million, and at the same time—
-[Subscribers: 712,000]
—the subscriber count had broken through 700,000. Even at that very moment, it was visibly continuing to climb. Korean fans, and even Japanese fans, were still continuously pouring in.
Then morning dawned on Tuesday the 22nd.
Gang Rojun and the members left the dorm. In the waiting van, Director Kim Gibaek was nowhere to be seen. That was because he had meetings scheduled here and there since early that morning. In any case, the car set off toward GN Entertainment, and the members turned on the YouTube channel they had been monitoring nonstop since last night on their individual phones.
The first to widen his eyes and be shocked was Sihu.
“Wow······”
Next were Dogyeong and Gangmin. Gangmin, in particular, who was exotically handsome, even rubbed his eyes as if he had seen wrong.
“Is, is this real??”
“This is insane.”
Gang Rojun, who was looking down at the group’s YouTube channel, also let out a pure exclamation.
“This is crazy, seriously.”
They were numbers that deserved it. The views on the uploaded videos were—
-Views: 4,821,556
—nearly five million. The other two videos had also surpassed four million and three million. It was only natural for the members to go wild. In addition, the subscriber count of the “Vanguard” channel was currently—
[Channel Name: Vanguard]
[Subscribers: 1.32 million]
[Videos: 3]
—a whopping 1.3 million and beyond.
《[Big Issue] “Vanguard” Surpasses 1.3 Million YouTube Subscribers in One Day After Channel Reveal···Proves Themselves Monster Rookies! / Photo》
《Following Group Name Reveal, “Vanguard” Opens Official YouTube Channel, Surpasses 1.3 Million Subscribers in Under 24 Hours》
And it had not even been twenty-four hours yet.
Around noon.
The location was “BG Pictures,” one of the top three film companies in Korea. Dozens of people had gathered in one vast conference room and were in discussion. To be precise, it was the first production meeting. Familiar figures could also be seen around the square-shaped table. Director Jang Hakseon, who had led the meeting with Culture Drawer, and even Director Yu Jiheon, who had fallen for Gang Rojun’s scenario and was always counted among the great masters.
It seemed Director Jang Hakseon was leading the production meeting, and many people, including Director Yu Jiheon, were listening attentively.
Then what was the subject of this first production meeting?
The answer was easy. Director Yu Jiheon was part of the meeting, after all. The subject of the meeting was the film scenario by Rojun that “BG Pictures” had recently purchased. And the people gathered around Director Yu Jiheon were the representatives of the production teams, such as cinematography, lighting, and art.
In other words, the key staff.
In truth, Director Yu Jiheon had moved immediately after acquiring Rojun’s scenario.
At present, they were in pre-production, and the recruitment of the production crew had already been completed. Of course, since Director Yu Jiheon was taking the megaphone, financing had also been completed.
With investment and production crew secured, it was only natural for things to pick up speed.
Soon, Director Jang Hakseon, standing before the director and over a dozen key staff members, pointed at the screen illuminated by the beam projector.
“Director, what would you like to do about the continuity boards?”
Director Yu Jiheon, whose face had a flushed, alcohol-toned color, rubbed his cheek.
“Hmm.”
Then he slowly lowered his head. He was looking at the freshly printed scenario placed right in front of him. Rojun’s name was stamped on the cover of the rather thick scenario.
-Title: Blood Hunt
-Director: Yu Jiheon
-Screenplay: Rojun
It seemed the title of the scenario Gang Rojun had written was “Blood Hunt.” Of course, this scenario was still top secret to the outside world. Only the people present here could see it. Then, after thinking briefly, Director Yu Jiheon spoke in his uniquely rough voice.
“It would be better to go with the scenario as it is, without any adaptation.”
Adaptation meant that a director or others added new flesh to or revised an existing scenario. In other words, Director Yu Jiheon was saying he would shoot it exactly as Rojun had written it. This also meant that the master-class Director Yu Jiheon was acknowledging Gang Rojun’s screenwriting ability.
“Understood.”
Director Jang Hakseon nodded and moved on to the next subject. As this was the first stage of pre-production, a broad range of many discussions took place. From writing the continuity boards to storyboards, detailed production schedules, the overall estimate or production budget, and—
“Lastly, it concerns actor casting. Hmm—this is probably the part we’ll have to spend a lot of time on.”
Director Jang Hakseon, who had already finished searching for actors, printed out the casting board. It was lined with S-class top actors anyone would know, A-class actors, and even supporting actors. This was simply Director Jang Hakseon’s first selection of actors who seemed suited after reading the scenario, and it could change plenty depending on the actors’ schedules or the director’s opinion.
“Is there an actor you have in mind, Director?”
“I do. Jongsik is missing.”
“Ah—Actor Jeong Jongsik. I’ll add him.”
Because actors were one of the cores of a film, just as Director Jang Hakseon had said, many opinions came out, and it consumed time. When roughly an hour had passed, there were actors who had disappeared from the initial casting board, and actors who had been added.
Around then, Director Yu Jiheon tapped one part of the open scenario with his index finger and opened his mouth.
“And, you see, this role. It may be a supporting/minor role, but it holds the key to the work.”
“Pardon? Ah, I know which role you mean.”
“Yes. I’d like ‘Rojun’ to take that role.”
The dozen or so key staff members around them murmured slightly. Regardless, Director Jang Hakseon, who had a pleasant impression, asked.
“Mm, but wouldn’t his image stand out too much?”
“Because Rojun is too handsome? On the contrary, that’s why I’m drawn to it even more. A good-looking face and personality can be completely different things.”
Soon, Director Jang Hakseon smiled.
“Yes, Director. I’ll set up a meeting with GN right away.”
“A meeting won’t be difficult, but will we be able to make the casting happen? Rojun looks like he’s in the thick of things right now.”
“It won’t be easy. There will be many places besides us coveting Rojun too. But GN may also be aiming for Rojun to appear in this ‘Blood Hunt.’ The meeting between you and screenwriter Rojun will be noisy enough, but having one more punch would be much better.”
“Hmm—”
Director Yu Jiheon slowly nodded and closed the scenario he had opened.
“I’m counting on you.”
Late afternoon, in GN Entertainment’s spacious practice room.
The “Vanguard” members, including Gang Rojun, gathered in the center of the practice room. Standing before them was Director Kim Gibaek. He had a withered air about him, but his eyes were sparkling. He showed the members two thumbs up.
“You’re all doing well. The ‘SBC Acting Awards’ ended well too, and the reaction is noisy. Thanks to that, the ‘Vanguard’ group name was properly promoted. The PR and marketing team is grinning from ear to ear.”
It was only natural.
Usually, it takes considerable effort for the public to become familiar with the group name of a rookie idol group. Naturally, idols run around music shows like crazy. Of course, there are also plenty of idols who cannot even cross the threshold of music shows. That was why PR teams had to endlessly shoot out articles or go around social media and work themselves to death.
But “Vanguard” was different.
Director Kim Gibaek opened the diary in his hand.
“There’s quite a lot to tell you, but first, regarding ‘Vanguard’s’ debut album.”
Sihu, Gangmin, and Dogyeong swallowed hard without letting it show. Gang Rojun’s eyes turned curious. As if noticing that, Director Kim Gibaek’s lips twitched.
“The debut album will not be a single, but a mini album. However, instead of one title track and several included tracks, you can consider every song on the album a title track. No matter how many songs there are, we’ll film music videos for all of them at high quality, and you will, of course, have to record the decided songs and learn the choreography.”
The “Vanguard” members were slightly surprised. According to Director Kim Gibaek’s explanation—
‘All the songs will be title tracks??’
—no matter how many songs were decided, it meant they had to learn the vocals, choreography, and so on all at once. On top of that—
‘We’re debuting, and it’s straight into a mini album?’
It was rare for a debuting idol group to start with a mini album instead of a single. A mini album had at least three songs no matter what. In other words, whether it was three songs or four, they had to debut after perfectly mastering every single song. What was interesting was that there was no fear on the faces of the “Vanguard” members.
If anything, they looked ready for battle.
Gang Rojun in particular was overflowing with confidence.
‘It doesn’t matter if it’s a hundred songs or a thousand.’
Thanks to that, Director Kim Gibaek—
‘They look like they can hardly wait. Fortunately, they don’t seem burdened.’
—confirmed the heat in the boys’ eyes.
“It will take some time to collect and decide on songs, but once they’re decided, things will proceed quickly again. Ah, and Rojun, Sihu, your songs were also delivered properly to the A&R team.”
Director Kim Gibaek, who had been talking about the members’ compositions, seemed to recall something and met Gang Rojun’s eyes.
“Rojun. No matter how many debut songs are decided—”
He recited what he had been thinking.
“How about you take charge of writing the lyrics for all the songs?”