YooYaaMooYaa Pictures Production is an independent team formed by KU students and focuses on producing social media content. ‘Yooyaamooyaa’ is a Hanja idiom that refers to unfinished business and oversight. The founders of the team came up with a fresh homonym; “Our name means ‘There is no night for those with ambitions’,” explained Lee So Eun (’15, School of Media and Communication), the director. “We are determined to give our projects our all, day and night.”

YooYaaMooYaa Pictures Production’s roots can be traced back to March this year when nine ambitious students decided to start a production team. Hailing from various majors such as History, Philosophy and Media and Communication, the nine were brought together through Dolbit, a movie club in KU. “When we first decided to form a team, we literally had nothing but a name. But we never stopped believing we could make something out of them,” said Shim Chang Min (’14, Korean History), the producer, recollecting the moment they left Dolbit.

Detective Gonwhan is the first project directed by YooYaaMooYaa Pictures Production. It is a romantic comedy detective web-drama that tells the story of the members of a detective club striving to catch a stalker. The production aimed to make unconventional web-drama that does not focus only on romance, as so many web-dramas do. “We wanted to make use of our story-telling techniques that we accumulated through film-making but also get some responses from the wider world,” explained Shim. “We decided a web-drama would garner much more feedback.”

The biggest obstacle for YooYaaMooYaa Pictures Production was lack of capital. “Poor working conditions of the production crew proved to be a problem when we started filming. Time is gold, so we could not afford much break time,” Lee recounted. “Physical fatigue aside, we could not help but feel the quality of the drama could have been so much better,” Lee explained, adding that the team had to spend a great amount of time reviving lost audio clips because they could not afford additional shooting.

After the release of Detective Gonwhan, the production team had several inquiries regarding subcontracts or collaborations. Not even a month after the end of the first project, the production team is busy having another all-night conference. “Although filming is both mentally and physically demanding, it still fascinates me in that I could literally make my dreams come true. I can try all kinds of methods including art and music in films,” says Lee. With Detective Gonhwan as its starting point, YooYaaMooYaa Pictures Production dreams of the future when they really become a full-fledged company.