Filming in Korea, Directed from Sydney: How Our Seoul Film Crew Ran a Live Remote Shoot at AmorePacific HQ
The director was in Sydney.
The set was in Yongsan, Seoul, at Amorepacific's headquarters.
About 8,300 km apart.
Yet the director watched every shot live and directed it himself.
When you need to film in Korea, there is one thing every overseas producer worries about.
"I won't be on set. Will it be shot the way I want?"
This story is our answer.
Here is how Mfunny Interactive, a corporate video production company in Seoul, ran a fully remote, live-directed shoot for an Australian production company.
Project at a glance
- Client — A video production company in Sydney, Australia (customer story video for a global IT company)
- Location — Amorepacific headquarters, Yongsan, Seoul (atrium and courtyard garden)
- Format — Fully scripted (on-camera lines + voice-over)
- Directing — Director in Sydney, directing live over Webex. Mfunny on set for directing, interpreting and technical operations
- Our scope — Pre-production meetings, location recce, casting and crew (actors, camera crew, FPV drone pilot, hair & makeup), the shoot, rough cut and data delivery
- Delivery — Rough cut within 2 days of the shoot. HDD with the Premiere Pro project in Sydney within 2 days
1. Pre-production — we speak English directly and send a summary right after every meeting
Our first meeting connected Sydney and Seoul by video call.
The director's requests were specific.
We turned each one into a technical spec, on the spot.
- See the camera feed live from Sydney → Multicam output sent straight into Webex via a capture card
- Image quality that holds up on a giant screen → Sony cinema camera [Model], 4K, 10-bit, high bitrate
- Room for colour grading → Shot in S-Log
- 30 fps for talent, slow motion for B-roll → Talent in 4K 30p / B-roll in 60p
- Artistic shots of the building → Mostly prime lenses + a zoom lens on the gimbal, plus time-lapse
- Deliver the script word for word → Teleprompter (autocue) on set
- Clean audio even outdoors → Close boom mic + 2-channel wireless backup. Voice-over recorded separately in a carpeted room
- Drone and FPV shots → Flight permit requested in advance, FPV shot plan for every shot
- Faster than uploading → Original footage shipped by air on an HDD
The client's concern, and our answer
One topic made the director pause.
FPV drones.
In Australia, everyone within 10 m of a drone has to sign written consent, so FPV is hard to pull off.
We answered with a screen, not words.
We shared an indoor FPV piece we had shot before, right there in the meeting,
and confirmed the flight permit had already been requested.
We also suggested moving the drone work to a separate slot so it wouldn't break the flow of the main shoot.
Outdoor noise was something we raised first.
The pond and garden see a lot of staff foot traffic — the kind of thing only a local who knows the site would tell you.
That let us agree on the fix in the meeting itself: tight shots, close mics and voice-over recorded indoors.
After the meeting we sent everything we agreed as an English checklist.
Seven items, from the live feed and gear to drones, schedule and data delivery.
One email gave the director the full picture of our preparation in Korea.
2. Location recce — the director picked every camera angle himself
Most location scouts end with a few photos.
But a photo can't tell you the lens's field of view or the depth of the background.
So we brought a camera to the recce.
We connected the camera output to Webex
and let the director in Sydney choose the angles from the real camera image.
"A bit more to the left."
"Two steps back."
"Get more trees in the background."
We moved the camera as he spoke.
The atrium, the courtyard garden and a quiet room for voice-over —
every location was locked on the day of the recce.
The director effectively joined the recce without flying to Korea.
On the shoot day, we spent almost no time debating angles.
3. FPV drone shot plan — flight paths storyboarded in advance
A drone feed is hard to stream live over Webex.
That means the director can't direct during the flight.
So we agreed everything on paper before take-off.
Amorepacific HQ is a square building with an open courtyard in the middle.
We drew a sketch storyboard of the flight path and frames for each shot around that structure,
and shared an English version with Sydney.
- ① Ending reveal (top priority) — Looks down on the talent, then pulls back and up. The talent turns and walks into the garden as the whole courtyard is revealed. The full stop right after the last line
- ② 360° orbit — A wide orbit around the talent standing in the middle of the garden. Building and person in one move
- ③ Vertical rise and descent — Looking up while rising and falling. The scale of the square courtyard
The drone was flown by a professional FPV pilot we hired.
On the day, our on-set director held the shot plan and acted as the director's eyes.
His reply was short:
"I trust you with it."
4. The shoot — what Sydney sees is exactly what the camera sees
On the shoot day, we combined the main camera and cameras 2 and 3 into one multiview.
That feed went into Webex through a USB capture card.
In Sydney, the director watched exactly what the cameras were recording on his own monitor.
How we split the directing
- Angle and framing — The director in Sydney, commenting live over Webex
- Korean performance and emotion — Our on-set director judges and calls the OK
- Script — Approved lines delivered word for word via teleprompter. Both the original (A) and shortened (B) versions shot
- Interpreting — Mfunny connecting the talent and the director in real time
The director doesn't speak Korean.
So we took responsibility for the nuance of the Korean lines.
With roles split in advance, no two voices clashed on set.
Visuals to carry the voice-over
Most of this film is voice-over.
So the images under it mattered as much as the talent shots.
Gimbal orbits around the talent, 60p slow motion, time-lapse of the busiest hours —
all shot the same way, with the director approving them live.
5. After the shoot — rough cut in 2 days, in Sydney in 2 days
The job didn't end when the cameras stopped.
The edit was done by the team in Australia.
So we focused on handing over footage they could start cutting immediately.
- Multicam sync — Every camera and audio track synced on a Premiere Pro timeline.
- Best takes — Best takes for every shot documented with timecodes.
- Rough cut — A rough cut of the best takes, shown to the director within 2 days of the shoot.
- HDD by air courier — Original footage and the rough-cut Premiere Pro project shipped on an HDD, received in Sydney in 2 days.
Uploading hundreds of gigabytes takes days.
The director had found drive delivery faster in his own experience, and we made it happen as fast as possible.
The Australian team plugged in the HDD, opened the project file and started editing.
No time lost hunting through hundreds of clips for the right take.
Need a film crew in Korea?
On this project, the director never came to Korea.
Yet he chose the angles, and the film kept his intent.
Here is what Mfunny Interactive promises overseas clients filming in Seoul and across Korea:
- A recce you can see — Choose angles from the real camera image, not photos.
- Live remote directing — Multicam feed streamed live over Webex or Zoom.
- Your local voice — Korean performance directing, interpreting, location coordination and drone permits.
- Commitments in writing — Checklists, shoot schedules and drone storyboards, all in English.
- Edit-ready delivery — Rough cut in 2 days, Premiere Pro project and original footage on HDD.
If you're planning a shoot in Korea, get in touch.
We'll be on set. You'll be in front of the screen.
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