American Cinematographer - October 2017 - 48

◗

Fear Itself

Top: Georgie Denbrough (Jackson Robert Scott) encounters Pennywise in a storm drain while
chasing after a paper boat. Bottom: The crew readies an earlier shot in the scene, in which
Georgie floats his paper boat in the rainwater alongside the curb.

and acting at South Korea's Dongguk
University. As he talks with AC in a
trailer on the set of It at Pinewood
Toronto Studios in September 2016,
Chung further notes that he can relate
to It's young cast, as he was a child actor
himself.
"I've been acting since I was 5," he
says. "Instead of going to kindergarten, I
went to acting school. I got my foot in
the door through my dad's televisionproducer friends. They were looking to
make a show, and cast me as the lead
48

October 2017

character. It got made and it was a huge
hit in South Korea." The series -
whose title translates to Naughty Cheol
Ee - aired daily for three years, and
Chung's acting career lasted for 15.
At university, he directed several
shorts that did the festival rounds and
won him awards. Desiring to maintain
visual control, Chung functioned as
cinematographer on his projects as well,
and soon other student directors were
asking him to shoot their films. At 25,
he was approached by director Yang
American Cinematographer

Yun-ho to shoot the 1996 feature Yuri,
and he's remained on the cinematographer path ever since.
Chung's experience shooting
Deus Ex Machina, a sci-fi epic that
ceased production halfway through,
changed the course of his career. An
editor on the film recommended Chung
to director Park Chan-wook, who was
searching for a director of photography
for Oldboy. The resulting partnership
has yielded several features, including
their 2013 Hollywood breakthrough
thriller, Stoker, and the South Korean
period piece The Handmaiden, the latter
of which premiered across town at the
Toronto International Film Festival two
days after this interview.
Chung, who now resides in Los
Angeles, also counts director Alfonso
Gomez-Rejon's 2015 teen comedydrama Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
among his Hollywood projects. "I
wanted to meet more directors and
crew, and broaden my spectrum," the
cinematographer says. "In South Korea,
filmmakers usually retire young. A 50year-old cinematographer working
there is rare. Most directors are very
young and want to use young cinematographers."
Muschietti is one young director
who is thrilled to be working with
Chung, who had received a ringing
endorsement from their mutual friend
Natasha Braier, ADF, the Argentinean
cinematographer known for The Neon
Demon (AC July '16).
"Whatever [Chung] contributed
would make what I had better,"
Muschietti recalls. "Our discussions
were about temperature. I wanted a hot
summer with everyone sweating all the
time. I love characters with shine on
their faces. We also discussed the
balance of making something realistic,
but with that element of intrigue - that
something is not right."
Chung mulled over the notion of
a period look, but ultimately the 1980s
feel is conveyed chiefly through production designer Claude Paré's sets and the
work of costume designer Janie Bryant.
"Trying to make a movie set in the

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of American Cinematographer - October 2017