Squid Game, from director/writer/producer Hwang Dong-hyuk, is set to release its third and final season this June. The South Korean dystopian survival thriller streams on Netflix and revolves around a secret contest in which financially-strapped players risk their lives for the chance to win a fortune. Nam Na-young edited Season 2 and says there was a great sense of responsibility, considering all the love the show received from viewers worldwide.
"I spent a lot of time considering things from the viewer's perspective during the editing process," she reveals. "Having worked with director Hwang Dong-hyuk for a long time, we were able to exchange opinions comfortably and had many discussions about what would be better while trying various things."
Season 2 brought in more characters, and Na-young says she tried to capture the situations and emotions of all the characters as much as possible.
"Given the nature of the series, it was important not to lose the tension," she explains. "To maintain that tension, it was necessary to add mysterious aspects to each character throughout the story and then resolve them towards the end. Therefore, I focused on the details of actors’ performances that highlighted these aspects, gradually building up each character's narrative to create tension and suspense, which would eventually culminate and be resolved at a certain point."
She relied on his Avid editing system to cut the series and points to the Mingle game as one of the more interesting sequences, since it's a game split into short :30 segments.
"I spent a lot of time thinking about how to effectively showcase the various characters' situations occurring simultaneously within that :30. Director Hwang and I discussed focusing on the game's situation and emotions while making it clear that these events were happening concurrently, and we utilized a lot of cross-cutting. We chose an editing style that made the different characters' situations appear connected through linked cuts. For example, in a scene where three people need to gather, we would show a cut of one group of three entering a room followed by another cut of a different three, making them appear connected. We believed this would prevent monotony and allow the emotions to gradually build up. In this game, there are scenes that particularly stand out in terms of character narrative, such as the situation where Yong-sik has no choice but to leave Geum-ja, or the scene where Young-mi dies. We paid special attention to ensuring the emotions were visible without being overly emphasized in these moments."