ugftv – REEL K-POP

K-Pop is Art – let’s take it seriously.

on May 30, 2020October 18, 2021 By francesca_ohop 1 Comment

When I was fourteen, K-Pop was starting to pop up in western reaction videos. Random YouTubers would either post on their own channels or congregate with bigger names like the Fine Bros., where they would react to videos such as “Fantastic Baby” and “I Got a Boy”. One of the things I noticed repeatedly through these reactions is how much the videos were played up as a joke. People would look at the brightly colored hair and hear the English choruses mixed in with the Korean and laugh because the phrase “Fantastic Baby” seemed like a stupid non-sequitur compared to everything else going on.

Obviously, being a fourteen year old, I thought the videos were hilarious as well. Nevertheless, when I finally took my deep dive into K-Pop during high school, I began to actually look at the videos more closely. I noticed the burning cars in “Fantastic Baby” and remembered that one of the members, Daesung, had been in a car accident where someone had died, and had taken a break from singing for almost a year out of guilt. He was chained to a wall, like a prisoner. That got me wondering what was going on in the video as a whole, and I started looking into it more closely. I found very few analyses that covered it in any detail – which is actually one of the reasons I started this blog.

Fast forward about seven years later. I’m complying with the stay-at-home order and working on some personal projects. I tend to listen to music while I work because it keeps my brain from wandering too far. In this case, I was listening to a lot of 4minute, and I stumbled across their song “Whatcha Doin’ Today” and started listening to it.

I got incredibly distracted because I didn’t know what on earth was going on.

Sohyun was cleaning a carpet, Gayoon was playing with the Disney Channel wand, Jihyun made men make out with magic candy and has their heads inflate like balloons, Jiyoon was sitting on a toilet with her pants around her ankles, and HyunA was…being HyunA I guess. (Ironically she may be the least weird in the whole video.) Everyone’s wearing shiny dresses and bows, up to childish antics or over-sexualized antics, and partying like it’s the end of the world. And there’s no clear story to any of these scenes, so it’s really unclear what’s going on at any point. For all we know this is a day in the life of 4minute, though I doubt any of us would be surprised.

Screenshots from 4minute’s “Whatcha Doin Today”

I wasn’t going to write the video off, though. It was weird, but K-Pop usually uses weirdness as a thematic device to communicate something. Even the most bizarre images are done with very specific intent. After way too many viewings, I can infer that “Whatcha Doin’ Today” is probably a satire of various traits of masculinity and femininity. It’s not necessarily making a statement on whether or not those traits are bad or good, but it’s exaggerating those stereotypes, both among the female characters (the members and their backup dancers) and the male characters (more backup dancers.) The various members of 4minute are not dressed conservatively, but their outfits are comparatively everyday than the outfits the male and female backup dancers wear. They also act as the dominant characters in every scene they appear, picking on men and being attended to by women. The other characters, regardless of gender, are objects of attraction, dressed homogeneously and obeying the members (or being teased by them.) In short, the video is satire about the ways we objectify both sexes.

As for the various weird images, like school hallways with lockers and bathrooms and parties, these are actually very literal interpretations of the lyrics. Gayoon asks for an Americano and some guy comes out from under a table to present her with one. Sohyun talks about being at school and doing housecleaning, with those lines directly corresponding to her locations. The bathroom isn’t explicitly mentioned but Jiyoon’s corresponding rap verse correlates with the choreography: when she says that people watch boring shows on TV and laugh, all the backup dancers turn towards her. The images of people partying usually correspond with someone announcing a party or saying “have fun!” However, because of the language barrier between Korea and the west, a lot of that is lost when people aren’t motivated to turn on subtitles. What is directly connected to the song seems irrelevant because people can’t actually tell what is or isn’t connected.

This train of thought got me thinking more broadly about what we in America qualify as weird when it comes to K-Pop, and why we’re so ready to write K-Pop off as bizarre without trying to understand it. And why the answer seems to be obvious – culture barriers between the east and west – I’m more interested in understanding the specifics of what we classify as weird. My focus with this blog is filmmaking, so what are the filmmaking techniques specific to K-Pop that people in America actively avoid understanding?

The big feature of K-Pop is that it’s very rare that a K-Pop music video gives you all the information at face value. Even if you have the lyrics to go off of, usually the videos get meta with their symbolism. Often this is done through production design, where details about the world are what communicate things to the audience. Even narrative-based videos will often have some sort of a reversal at the end that changes how you view the whole MV.

For the sake of this analysis, we’re not going to talk about videos that are intentionally dark or serious. We’re going to keep it on the happier end of the spectrum, because lighthearted music videos tend to have the most “weirdness” potential. Furthermore, serious videos tend to be more overt about when they’re making a statement (regardless of what culture or genre the video is from) whereas things that are meant to be consumer-friendly have room to be discreet.

Within K-Pop there are four general categories for videos that sit on the lighthearted end of the spectrum. These are Coolness-Driven, Narrative-Driven, Performance-Driven, and Statement-Driven. These categories are not mutually exclusive, as something narrative-driven can also put a strong emphasis on making a point, coolness-driven videos can have a strong emphasis on the dance. With that in mind, let’s get into the various categories:

Coolness-Driven K-Pop Videos

Screenshot from Orange Caramel’s “My Copycat”

The number one category that drives western scrutiny of how “weird” K-Pop can be is the Coolness-Driven (CD) category. CD videos basically center around how cool the artists in question are. G-Dragon’s videos circa 2012, “Crayon” especially, are usually in this category. It’s largely about spectacle, but generally there to drive the point that this singer is just so cool. Looking back at “Crayon”, G-Dragon is literally wearing a hat that says GIYONGCHY, which is a pun on his name (Kwon Jiyong) his stage name (G-Dragon) and the fashion brand Givenchy. That is some SERIOUS pun game with the only purpose of making G-Dragon seem like the coolest person around – not only can he afford Givenchy, he’s so rich he can probably own his own fashion house. This of course assumes that you associate wealth with coolness; the two are not mutually inclusive in my opinion, but it works in “Crayon.”

What drives the CD category is a lot of aesthetic shots that are seemingly unrelated to anything happening in the story, assuming there even is a story. In girl group videos, this is largely centered around sexy, expensive outfits. In men, it’s…well, it’s about the same. But CD videos heavily emphasize the members themselves, so that you can both see yourselves in them and and see the members as especially cool. The dance, which is always a primary feature of K-Pop as a genre, is more secondary in this category. It’s more about holding up the singers as a desirable ideal, wherein the dance functions primarily to achieve that.

Western audiences tend to conflate this attempt at establishing coolness as showy or tactless. In some cases they’re right, the flashy visuals can be dialed up to an extreme that doesn’t sit well. But that’s not K-Pop’s fault, that’s the artist’s fault. G-Dragon went too far with “MichiGo” (don’t look it up, trust me) being extremely flashy and provocative to the point of being creepy. But that’s not a reason to write off K-Pop as a whole. It’s an extreme example. There are plenty of instances where western media artists do the same thing. So why is K-Pop exposed to more scrutiny?

Examples of CD videos include: AOA’s “Miniskirt”, NU’EST’s “Action”, Blackpink’s “Boombayah”, miss A’s “Hush”

Narrative-Driven K-Pop Videos

Screenshot from Girls’ Generation’s “I Got A Boy”

Narrative-Driven (ND) videos are videos where a story features primarily, acting as a vehicle for us to get to know the members of a band. The story can be extremely simple, like a bunch of nerdy girls learning how to be sexy to win a contest (T-ARA’s “So Crazy”) or falling in love with a girl but being so shy that you panic every time she approaches you. (Seventeen’s “Nice”) Sometimes the story is vague, but the setting is prominent, so you get a sense of a story while the plot is reduced to only a few moments of action. (TWICE’s “Like OOH-AHH”, EXID’s “L.I.E”) But even when the story is simple or implicit, the video is incomplete without it.

On the other hand, there are videos where the story is a major part of the experience. The best example I can think of is C-Clown’s “Far Away… Young Love”. The video is at first glance very serious, but quickly becomes anything but, which is why I count it as a lighthearted example. There are two versions of the video, one with the other members of C-Clown and one with just Kangjun. The solo version, however, is the one we’re talking about, but the other one (the “Member Version”) is totally worth watching anyway. I honestly don’t want to spoil it for people, please watch it. I beg of you.

Screenshot from C-Clown’s “Far Away… Young Love”

The point is everything in the video is played up for comedy, but because we spend so much time with Kangjun and get to know his character in this video, we get the sense that we know him. (Even though we don’t really. Please beware the dangers of parasocial relationships.) ND K-Pop videos are meant for us to have a very direct relationship with the singers in them. We see how the members react to the various changes in their environment, what relationships form, and most importantly, what actions they take, if any, to change their situation.

Sometimes this actually trickles into expanded universe territory, as narratives will form across videos and you learn about the members as if they were characters in a TV show. BTS is the example everyone thinks of, and they did establish the connected universe as a viable option for K-Pop bands. But I want to bring up VIXX’s “Conception” series, which had an implicit narrative explored through different aesthetics. LOONA, which has the LOONAVERSE, is also worth mentioning. I honestly don’t know much about the LOONAVERSE, but the wiki has a very good breakdown of all the different theories surrounding it.

Last but not least, Dreamcatcher has at least one connected universe in its music videos. Which I promised I’d cover a year ago. I am sorry. It will happen soon, I promise!

The story delivery is what confuses people in America. This may be because a K-Pop video is drawing specifically on Korean cultural norms that are virtually unknown to western audiences, but I honestly can’t think of too many examples of that. It may come down to a difference in storytelling technique – again, K-Pop largely relies on “meta” details to communicate something to the audience. There are also issues that plague music videos in general: people mistaken melodrama for a lack of quality, or see the implied story as incomplete rather than implied. However, it’s worth noting that many western artists of VERY high acclaim make story-based videos that are over-the-top, melodramatic, and lack background detail to balance it, but get millions if not billions of views. Food for thought.

Examples of ND videos include: EXID’s “I Love You”, MAMAMOO’s “gogobebe”, SHINee’s “Married to the Music”, Super Junior’s “Black Suit”

Performance-Driven K-Pop Videos

Performance-Driven (PD) K-Pop is when the dance is more at the forefront than the members themselves. This isn’t as big a thing now, but it was really big in the early 2010s. SM Entertainment nailed these videos with bands like f(x) and EXO, with “Electric Shock” and “Overdose” respectively. miss A and T-ARA, while not from SM Entertainment, also nailed dances with such titles as miss A’s “Bad Girl Good Girl” and T-ARA’s “Sexy Love”. It has made a bit of a resurgence with bands like Momoland and Stray Kids, where the dance is the most primary part of their videos in many cases.

This can actually be a very positive thing for a band, because PD videos focus almost entirely on the members’ talents. It also makes departures from this format that much more noteworthy, such as f(x)’s “Red Light” and “4 Walls”. This format can also be picked up by any band with ease, since most K-Pop bands put a strong emphasis on dance. That said, I wouldn’t say this is picked up by all groups. BIGBANG’s videos generally lack choreography, focusing almost entirely on the vocal performances. (Arguably, these could indeed count as PD videos because the vocal performances feature so prominently.) That said, I’d argue that this is the most uniquely K-Pop category, as dance and other modes of onstage performance are so important to the genre as a whole.

The “weirdness” factor comes in when you consider that western videos don’t really emphasize performance in the same way. Whereas most K-Pop idols are strong all-around talents, western artists tend to focus on one category or another. Just because you’re a specialized singer does not mean you have to be a specialized dancer, and vice versa. It’s also my impression that westerners think idols who don’t perform on instruments are somehow not artists, just performers…as if not playing a guitar or the drums devalues the agonizing amount of time and training required to get the dance right. Art comes in many forms. K-Pop deserves to be recognized as such.

Examples of PD videos include: Red Velvet’s “Red Flavor”, GFRIEND’s “Glass Bead”, Pentagon’s “Shine”, 2NE1’s “Fire”

Statement-Driven K-Pop Videos

This last category is the hardest to pin down, but it’s the most effective. Sometimes, K-Pop videos try to make statements about other forms of media. A lot of these tend to be serious, but as stated earlier, we’re explicitly talking about lighthearted videos that align more closely with “Fantastic Baby” and “Whatcha Doin’ Today”.

The driving aspect of Statement-Driven (SD) K-Pop videos is that there is an underlying theme or message that transcends the video, and it is communicated through the various filmmaking choices. This is intentionally vague on my part, precisely because there are so many ways this can be implemented. The thing that separates this from other categories despite the overlap, is that the other categories can exist without an SD component. SD, meanwhile, has to rely heavily on the other categories in order to subvert them. You can’t get on a soap box and scream your thoughts at people unless you’re in Washington Square Park, and no one will listen to you there. In spite of potential coolness-factor, narrative, or performance, the statement aspect will supersede the other categories.

Let’s look at EXID’s “Ah Yeah”. There is a narrative aspect and a performance aspect, in that there is a pretty clear concept and implicit story, along with dance breaks and recognizable dance moves. But rather than being connected by a setting or an explicit group dynamic, they’re connected by the central theme. The theme in this case is sexualization and censorship, as you think the girls are being censored for heavily implied lewd content but it turns out they’re doing fairly innocent things. Even so, through most of the video, the girls’ hips are censored when they’re dancing, and the only guy we ever see in the video is plagued by two EXID members – Hani, who’s playfully seductive, and LE, who’s angry and violent. The video is making a statement about the autonomy of women, particularly from a consumerist standpoint.

Screenshots from Orange Caramel’s “Catallena”

Orange Caramel’s “Catallena” has a similar theme. The three members of Orange Caramel represent themselves as cuts of fish for sushi, ones that were once free in the ocean, then get put in a grocery store to get sold, then are repeatedly discounted because no one wants them. They get made into simple nigiri sushi for easy consumption and basically go neglected until some human girls (also played by the members) eat them and have what effectively amounts to a religious experience. This video is completely over the top, with repeated cutaways to mermaids, a mean octopus lady, and CGI tears.

It’s worth noting that KBS thought the “Catallena” music video “disregarded human life” by having the girls wrapped in plastic and styrofoam to be bought. But…did it? Consider “Catallena” as a metaphor for the commodification of women – of people – in entertainment. Being taken out of their natural habitat, put on display for people to buy into, eventually cheapened and cut down into something easily consumable – it’s pretty clear what the intent is. I’d argue that it’s notably effective because the images sit with you for a long time, and when you consider what it might mean, it clicks internally.

Let’s look at an example of a male group, specifically SHINee. Their music video “View” takes at least two viewings to really understand because, like most K-Pop, it really hides it’s story in the details. Most of the video surrounds the members hanging out with a group of girls who seduce them in some cases and just generally play around with them in all cases. They sneak into people’s pools, rob a bodega (I guess?) and go clubbing. However, if you watch the video closely at the beginning, there’s one detail that’s not given as much screen time or emphasis as is due.

The girls kidnapped them.

With that in mind the video takes on a very weird message. It’s clear that the members are more or less okay with their kidnapping, which is really weird. (DON’T KIDNAP YOUR IDOLS. PLEASE.) They never make any attempt to escape, in fact they avoid being recognized. It’s fairly clear from the opening scene that they’re idols in this universe as well. There are a lot of weird details like pictures of the members on the walls of an abandoned building and various moments where people try to record them on their phones.

So what gives?

Well it’s simple.

The members don’t want to be found.

The girls function symbolically in this story, hence why we barely see their faces. They represent a reality the idols are no longer a part of, and the desire the members have to go back to that reality. So as they’re up to fun shenanigans and avoiding responsibility, it basically shows what a world devoid of idol pressure would be like for them, and how liberating that would be. And since the death of Jonghyun came two and a half years later, posthumous context makes this reading that much more sad.

And yet, in this video, the song is lighthearted. The activities are fun. The members are happy. The cuts are so quick you can easily miss the sad moments if you just turn your head to ask your mom for a sandwich. But the video and song are lighthearted and serene, and more than anything, it’s memorable. Even if you don’t get the story, it will sit with you just because you remember it well.

The reason these kinds of K-Pop videos get written off so frequently is because a statement or symbol runs the risk of flying way over your head if you’re not looking actively for the subtleties. And that’s not a bad thing, because if you keep going back to a video, you have a better chance of finding the subtleties on your own. Yet many western audiences watch the videos and laugh or aww for one reason or another, because they don’t want to find subtleties. It doesn’t matter if “Ah Yeah” is about censorship, “Catallena” is about commodification, and “View” is about escapism.

Some people just don’t care.

Examples of SD videos include: BTS’s “Dope”, ITZY’s “ICY”, Stray Kids’ “MIROH”, MAMAMOO’s “Hip”

In film school, a teacher told us to watch a video for the first time to enjoy it but the second time to understand it and analyze it. There’s nothing wrong with watching a K-Pop video purely for the enjoyment of it. But enjoying something consumer-friendly doesn’t make it bad. Marvel movies are mainstream but those can be amazing. TV shows that are high in melodrama are beloved by many. We watch America’s Got Talent and revel in seeing talented singers and dancers, so why is it bad when someone listens to a band where all members are more than competent at both?

K-Pop is an art form. It’s a medium. It provides unique challenges but unique opportunities. But it’s not just consumer-friendly, it’s consumer-challenging. The best videos are the ones where they sit with you. Maybe it’s because they’re flashy like “Catallena” or you want to learn the dance to “Shine” by Pentagon or maybe you just think G-Dragon looks really good in hats. But the more they sit with you, the more they challenge you to think about them. However “weird” they may be, don’t write them off because they were funny that one time you watched at a friend’s house.

Music videos are art.

K-Pop is art.

And art is beautiful.

The Neverland Project – Episode 5 “Delirium” Breakdown

on April 7, 2020April 7, 2020 By francesca_ohop

Trigger warning: this episode talks about heavy themes, including suicide and abuse. If you are in need of immediate help, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

The fifth episode of my fan series Neverland is finally done. I wanted to get into some of the side plots at this stage, plots I’d hinted about for a while but hadn’t actually covered in detail. In this case, it was Jungkook and Suga’s story – it’s one of the few stories that we actually get detailed scenes of, and can form a narrative around.

It’s pretty straightforward what happens between the two of them as far as the videos are concerned; however, there are so many scenes that are scattered around that refer to the plot, it was hard to make decisions about them. I ended up having to cut a shot I desperately wanted to keep, one that was at the end of the Run MV. But that’s what editing is about, trying to decide what best suits your story.

The title of the episode, “Delirium”, comes from a dystopian book series of the same name. The series, written by Lauren Oliver, was about a world in the not too distant future where love is deemed dangerous and illegal. To prevent people from falling in love, or even experience parental or friendly love, a procedure is done to get rid of the capacity for those emotions. It’s all about the beauty and danger of love, and it’s an excellent read if you have a chance. Back to Neverland, love is the primary theme of the episode – specifically, the risk of pushing people away.

The episode starts with one of the hyper-saturated sequences (so presumably a dream or other version of reality) where Jungkook is on a train. He flashes back to a memory of himself sitting on the floor, seeing the other members partying around him, but when the camera pulls back, no one is there, and the colors are sapped from the world. You may notice, as per usual, Jin is glitching black-and-white, but someone else also seems to be suffering the same affliction…

We then get flashback glimpses of a scene between Jungkook and Suga (indicated by subtle changes in the color grading, as well as Jungkook’s hair because I am unfortunately limited in my editing prowess) where we see just what kind of a relationship they have.

It’s not 100% clear what kind of love Jungkook and Suga have, be it agape or philia or pragma or what have you. Nevertheless, it’s clear that there is love between the two in this story, so when editing I tried to capture that as much as possible. The scene in question is when Suga has been drinking and starts destroying everything in the little apartment they’re in. Jungkook physically tries to hold him back, but Suga pushes him away and into the ground.

Interspersed between these clips is Jungkook walking alone outside, when he accidentally runs into someone. The guy picks a fight wit him, pushing Jungkook around in a very similar fashion to Suga. I want to compliment Jungkook for his acting in the original music video because wow the pain in his face feels so genuine! I was genuinely impressed seeing this in the original “I Need U” music video and I’m impressed to this day.

Anyway, Jungkook eventually collapses on the ground. In the saturated dream sequences, we see him running through a darkened train, which opens out in front of a motel with the name Omelas. (Please see my article on Episode 1 for an explanation of the reference; the short version is that Omelas is a sort of paradise.) As soon as Jungkook runs towards it, we catch a glimpse at reality, where he finds himself looking straight into an oncoming car.

Suga’s story, meanwhile, is very solitary and lonely. He breaks into a music store and plays on a piano, but falters partway. Then he hears a whistle – the same whistle repeatedly associated with Jungkook. He goes to follow it, and sees a coming, so he jumps out of the way. Based on the context clues, this is the same car that Jungkook saw. He runs towards the crash, blood staining the ground, and the music store has been destroyed. He still hears the whistle, but it’s far away and hollow. The flames that engulf the piano turn black and white, while the rest of the world is still in color.

In the final scene, Suga is in bed, playing with his lighter. Eventually he pours gasoline around himself and lights the room on fire, bearing one last pained expression. Meanwhile, Jungkook, in his black-and-white world, puts together a letter and looks ahead, wings spreading in his shadows, and his world starts to turn color again.

In this story, Jungkook and Suga are meant to symbolize innocence and experience, or rather innocence and self-destruction. Jungkook tries to be there for Suga while he becomes violent and self-destructive, and stays that way until the end. He takes beatings, he barely fights back, because he wants to see good in Suga. Suga is on the opposite end – he symbolizes self destruction. Even with Jungkook around, he’s a tornado of conflict, causing havoc wherever he can. The moment Jungkook is gone, he spirals out of control, and can’t handle it. He makes active choices, but they end up causing pain for others and himself.

The relationship between these two characters, from the glimpses we get in the music videos, is like a Shakespearean tragedy. They love each other, but it ends up being painful. One constantly shows his love, but he never gets through to the other, who shows his love too late. The essence of Neverland is meant to be bittersweet, and in this episode, we get the bitter.

Taemin’s “Move” – How to Build a Music Video Around an Artist

on February 15, 2020March 22, 2020 By francesca_ohop

Taemin. The man. The myth. The legend.

Taemin’s one of those idols that’s just mesmerizing. His voice is very smooth, his dancing is very elegant. He constantly is pushing the envelope, trying new things and making his mark on the K-Pop industry forever. He is objectively an excellent performer in pretty much every way.

I love Taemin’s videos because they always go all out. The visuals are always very precise, very meticulous. Whoever directs his videos puts a lot of thought in to them, and it shows. However, there is a consistent overuse fo VFX in the videos, as opposed to practical effects. And while in many cases the videos are excellent with the extra animations, I find them overwhelming on occasion. There’s nothing wrong with a video using special effects to that degree, but it can distract from the performance. Today, I want to talk about one of Taemin’s music videos which has comparatively few special effects – most of the editing being in color grading, filters, and cuts.

I am talking about “Move”, one of Taemin’s releases way back in 2017. The video has no real story, it’s pure aesthetics. The lyrics don’t help shed light on any story either, they’re mostly about a girl who dances seductively. But that’s okay – it’s meant to showcase who Taemin is as a performer. The result is what’s mostly a performance video filmed in Hong Kong, with symbolic elements and a gentle dance beat.

There are three primary sets throughout the video – a street, a bridge at night, and a studio, which has three setups but none so elaborate that I could call them “sets”. The personality of the video comes primarily from the gritty street scenes, where there is trash, posters, and neon lights. The coloration of the street scenes is largely blue tinted, with Taemin’s lips tinted red and his skin tinted gold. Your eyes automatically gravitate towards him in any shot because of this. The bridge scene is largely tinted gold, while the studio scenes use lights to tint the environment the three primary colors to distinguish them from everything else.

This grittiness comes in direct contrast to the clothing Taemin and his backup dancers are wearing. It’s clearly designer clothes, too expensive to be “street”, but it’s trying to emulate a particular casual style. It actually reminds me of G-Dragon’s “Crooked” video, where G-Dragon sports similar sleeveless tops. However, I’d argue that Taemin’s style is more refined – not in terms of quality of clothing, but in how it’s put together.

Nevertheless, Taemin’s clothes separate him from the background. If the environment is dominated by light colors, he’s wearing black, and vice versa. His backup dancers usually wear solid black, with occasional designs. However, if they are wearing designs on their clothes, he is not. They also are all wearing jewelry, and lots of it, while Taemin usually only has a bracelet on. There is of course the scene where they’re in the studio and Taemin has a glittery mask on…I still don’t really know why he has it but I think it’s meant to just showcase his coolness.

In terms of practical effects – which I would argue are the best kind of effects – there is only one major effect. That would be rain. Rain is used throughout the video, and with good reason, too – it makes everything seem more spontaneous. Adding the extra layer of movement adds depth to the world. Suddenly, you can feel the rain on your own skin and hair. Filming in rain is really challenging so I imagine they used a rain machine, but I could be wrong. My classmates have filmed in the rain, and I’ve been on sets in the sleet. (Word of advice: don’t shoot in sleet. Everyone’s miserable.)

Shooting in the rain is not something everyone does because it’s cumbersome. It requires a lot of patience and dedication, as well as a lack of self preservation because shooting in rain can get cold and uncomfortable. The point is it’s very impressive that they shot a good chunk of the video in this setting. The video would not be complete without this touch.

Now for the fun part. The use of VFX is much lighter in Move than it is in other videos, but that’s not to say it’s completely absent. For one thing, the colors are much more intense than they would be naturally – even the outdoor shots come across as theatrical. Then much of the video has a soft, vaporwave style filter over it, while another good chunk of it has full-on TV style glitches. In those situations it feels intense.

The thing is, the video is not reliant on these effects. These are purely done for aesthetic purposes, to give a feeling of a world. They’re not necessary. One only needs to look at the solo version of the video, which features Taemin dancing with his backup dancers but cuts out all the ancillary inserts. In fact, the most important editing in the video is done through strategic cuts or transitions. On occasion, the frame will move slightly within the shot, but always on the beat. The cuts, in turn, are built around the beats and Taemin’s dance. Taemin is always the centerpiece.

There are three moments where there are lots of VFX – however, these three moments are isolated. You have the rain moving backwards, which is just an act of rewinding the video. You have the faces being blotted out, which is mostly just masking the video and putting some cool stuff underneath, and making the mask glitch out. Lastly, there’s the sequence at the end where Taemin’s body seems to fade in and out. I don’t entirely know how they did this but my guess is they keyed out one color, or a range of colors, slowed down the footage below, and added some effects to it. It seems pretty simple, but it’s a hard balance to strike.

As filmmakers, it’s our job to find the emotional core of something, and for “Move”, the core is Taemin himself. Any visual effects are just accessories so that the true gem can shine. This whole video is designed to showcase Taemin as a performer. It’s kept very simple, the camera rarely leaves him. There’s no story, because the video relies on Taemin himself to carry the mood. And that’s a good thing. When you have raw talent like that, you just have to let them do what they do best. Sometime the best directing is no directing at all. Just let the person exist, in their space, as they are.

Super Junior’s “Sorry Sorry” – Defining a Genre

on March 24, 2019April 5, 2019 By francesca_ohop 5 Comments

I was a young K-Pop fan when I first encountered Super Junior. I was still going through my angsty emo phase (i.e. a whole lotta euro-EDM and alternative rock) so K-Pop was still new to me and relatively unexplored territory. I was mostly a BIGBANG fan, with a healthy side of Brown Eyed Girls, and I didn’t really care about pushing myself to learning new groups. But eventually I managed to branch out into other boy groups and girl groups – SHINee, VIXX, f(x), and various soloists.

A friend of mine, who I consider a sister to this day, recommended Super Junior to me, and I ended up getting hooked on “Mr. Simple”. “Mr. Simple” was relatively new at the time. It was electronic, and incredibly catchy. The video wasn’t great but I wasn’t expecting it to be – it was typical music video fodder of the time. Plain sets, bright lights, mostly dancing. But I didn’t care. There was something fascinating about those idols…they had something that other bands didn’t. Presence. Now I don’t use that phrase lightly. Presence to me is the ability to command your attention by doing both something serious and something ridiculous. That comes both with personality and talent – commanding your audience without doing much at all.

But Super Junior has something else – authenticity. Many companies manufacture the personalities of their idols, and Super Junior’s main label, SM Entertainment, is no stranger to that. EXO, one of the biggest groups in K-Pop, comes under fire once in a blue moon for manufacturing a happy-go-lucky band when the members don’t really like each other, creating a sexy personality for Kai when according to family he was always quiet and shy. And this isn’t just SM – groups go through copious training processes to come up with a persona and train in dancing and singing. It becomes difficult to distinguish what is real and what is not. It’s one of the reasons many veteran fans find it hard to get into younger groups – there is an overabundance of them and at varying degrees of legitimacy. This begs the question: why should you believe Super Junior is real?

Understanding Super Junior

The Super Junior we know now almost didn’t exist. Super Junior was a project group made out of trainees that SM had that all had other talents that had nothing to do with being idols, and were generally not “good enough” to be in TVXQ. The intent was to rotate them out when they hit a certain age, like After School would ultimately do. The Super Junior we know was originally Super Junior ’05, because there was no intention of keeping the group together forever.

But these 12 boys would stay together. They had a chemistry that would put any science project K-Pop group to shame. People weren’t tuning in just because they were cute or talented. They laughed at each other, screamed at each other, fought together, cried together. They were hilarious. And they were real.

I obviously am not an expert in idol psychology. But I have been lucky enough to see idols live, and I can tell you – you can pretty much tell when an idol is faking it and when they’re not. The second time I went to KCON NY, I saw Stray Kids, Heize, Pentagon, Red Velvet, and Super Junior. But what struck me seeing all of these acts was how Super Junior dominated that night. Sure there were other groups who get more views on YouTube more consistently, but Super Junior got the best reaction from the audience. They were on fire, above the hundreds of fans, getting higher and louder screams than anything I’d ever heard in my life.

Again, you can tell, when a band is onstage, if they’re faking it and if they’re not. Super Junior was definitely poised and seasoned, but to say that they were fake would do a huge disservice to what the band has. They made jokes and didn’t overdo it. They didn’t try to be bad boys. They didn’t try to be anything but themselves.

The argument can be made that this in of itself is an act. But I don’t think it is, for a very simple reason – no one has been able to replicate this. Many groups have tried to throw together more than ten members just to see if something sticks, male and female. Even SNSD/Girls Generation was made as a counterpart to Super Junior. But Super Junior seems to be tied together by this red string of fate that wants them to keep going. Members have left, but they stay friends with the band. One member got married, but he still has a home with them (at least in the eyes of the band, many fans are still angry with Sungmin for no reason). One member, Kangin, developed alcohol abuse problems, but the band didn’t throw him under the bus – instead there was quiet anger, one I can only associate with brothers watching a brother screw himself over, and not being able to do anything about it. Through all of the playful and casually adversarial dynamics members may have, it’s clear to me that they love each other. I can think of very few groups that have this love. There are some who do, but it’s hard to spot them in a world where everyone’s just looking for the next big thing.

Most of this probably seems irrelevant. This is a film analysis blog and here I am talking about how much a group loves each other. But there’s a reason. Super Junior is the band I would consider to be the first modern K-Pop group. There had been other Korean bands and even Korean boy and girl bands before them. But Super Junior popularized the obscenely large group, had natural chemistry, weren’t overtly sexy, had catchy hits, and even came up with the term K-Pop to describe their own style. They were a perfect storm and that storm was a hurricane.

So the argument can be made that “Sorry Sorry” is therefore, the first real K-Pop song, and thus the first real K-Pop music video. Trying to isolate members in meaningful ways so that they can be differentiated, yet showing the unity of a complete group. They also had English hooks, easy dance moves, and distinctive parts in different ranges. Anyone can do at least part of “Sorry Sorry”, and everyone knows part of the chorus. And while TVXQ’s “Mirotic” and BIGBANG’s “Lies” came out before “Sorry Sorry” did, the songs were not nearly as accessible on a large scale – “Mirotic” is really angling to be sexy, which alienates fans who can’t see themselves that way (or that don’t find Yunho attractive) and “Lies” tries really hard to be American while also being too much of a ballad. “Sorry Sorry”, unlike either of those two, is a song for everyone.

What “Sorry Sorry” Does Right

Coming at it from that angle, “Sorry Sorry” is indicative of the shift in focus at the time from solely music to group dynamics. The dance routine by itself is moderately simple until we get to Eunhyuk’s popping and locking during the bridge. The focus is not on how well the members can dance – we know that some members of Super Junior don’t really have the best dancing ability, and Heechul in particular has a number of medical conditions that prevent him from dropping onto the floor in a breakdance. So having a moderate dance routine keeps everyone on even footing. Then having a dance break were the members that can dance well can show off…well that highlights the individual responsibilities of everyone in the group.

The video is also black and white, which is another equalizer. K-Pop is known as the genre where no one can keep a hair color for more than ten minutes. When you eliminate color, the focus is immediately on the members’ faces. To an extent also on their outfits, but you’re going to want to look where the movement is, and the movement is often constrained to the faces or dance moves. There are very few aesthetic shots in this MV. The set is not much to speak of. There are no flashing lights. So where are you going to look but their faces?

The opening shots are, in fact, aesthetic shots, but they’re also such non sequiturs that they don’t have much bearing on the music video itself. In terms of these shots right at the beginning though I think it’s important to note that Kibum is the only member whose face is visible, as he is an actor first and foremost. This opening does set the tone for something sexy but also classy, as all the objects depicted – stocking and garter, string of pearls, envelope with a wax seal – are indicative of wealth. Yet despite the connotations of the girl lifting her dress to reveal the stocking and garter, none of the members in the group are exposed. Romance is not meant to be the point of the video otherwise we’d probably get more overtly sexy shots – SM hasn’t shied away from this stuff before. We don’t get a face to this woman either, she is only the object of desire insofar as the subject of the song.

Interestingly, the only spot of color in the entire MV is the fire on the envelope.

The woman is important though, because she operates as a viewer insert character. We do see her eye at one point, looking through a keyhole. This becomes a recurring motif, not because of the keyhole itself, but because of the fisheye look that many of the shots have. It’s meant to look like members are standing outside your room and looking in, trying to win you over. It’s actually pretty effective, because you feel closer to the members by being all up in their business, or them being all up in yours.

The final shot of the opening is the pearls falling, with the title of the video and all the members’ names. I think this does a good job of directing the focus of the viewer to the individuals – even if you can’t tell the difference between Donghae and Siwon (though you absolutely should) you at least know their names and that each member has an individual identity. This is further emphasized by the fact that there are both small differences in the members’ outfits when they’re intended to match somewhat – different shades of shirts, different ties, different jewelry, different styles of suit – and large differences when they’re not. Each member looks like they have their own personality. Yet I wouldn’t say that the personalities are shoved in your face, with the exception of the sunglasses on Eunhyuk and Han Geng which is just a try hard move when anyone does it. Sorry.

PSA: Don’t wear sunglasses indoors.

The biggest problem I have with the MV is probably Heechul being so underused. Heechul is a personal favorite idol of mine. He’s a great talent with a great personality. He’s irreverent and he’s smooth. However he was distinctly shafted in this video. It might be because of his health problems, or it might be because they were trying to put a focus on younger members, but in any event, he has two lines in the ENTIRE song, and one of them is just him laughing. This is remedied by the time “Mr. Simple” rolls around, but it does bother me as someone who values groups that keep even line distribution.

Back to Basics

In my scriptwriting course at school we were taught that ultimately, every movie or play is a pantomime, and that dialogue is just kind of a nice treat, an addition to that. Therefore, the silent movie would be an ultimate form of storytelling, and if you can nail that you’re golden. Obviously it’s more complicated than saying mastering the silent movie makes you be able to master all stories ever, but you see my point. “Sorry Sorry”, in this context, is a silent movie, stripped down to the absolute basics of what makes K-Pop…well, K-Pop.

This video serves as a road map for all K-Pop to come after. Most group MVs are variations of the format that Super Junior provided. Not to say that each group is intentionally trying to rip off SuJu. Rather, K-Pop as a medium and a mode for creativity is defined by what Super Junior successfully did. I think a comprehensive study of K-Pop should separate it into two distinct zones, before and after Super Junior. Before Super Junior the genre was kind of going through an adolescent period of taking American styles, mixing it with Korean styles, and not really knowing what was going to stick. “Sorry Sorry”, however, cuts everything out and makes something both catchy and accessible, while highlighting the members as parts of a whole and not reducing them to mere archetypes. The success of “Sorry Sorry” showed the industry what fans actually wanted. And I think that’s where Super Junior can teach us where the soul of K-Pop actually is.

Ravi’s “NIRVANA + ALCOHOL REMIX” – Beauty in Motion

on March 10, 2019April 5, 2019 By francesca_ohop 1 Comment

Warning: this song contains a fair amount of swearing. Swears are censored in the article, but I can’t say the same for the music.

This may be a K-Pop blog, which in other words means we’re talking about Korean, but today, let’s start with a different language. In Sanskrit, nirvana means “becoming extinguished.” In Buddhism, this means to “blow out” your desires and hatred in order to achieve a complete absence of suffering. It has been westernized to just mean heavenly, blissful, without care. Achieving Nirvana means that you’ve become enlightened. You’re blessed. You’re free.

Now let’s do another vocabulary lesson. Alcohol. A controlled substance, recreationally used in some cases, medically used in others. It is known for lowering inhibitions, relaxing the mind, inducing depression, and in many cases, causing fatal accidents. Ancient cultures worshipped it, and many people still do. It’s one of the oldest drugs on earth, and it’s definitely one of the most addictive. And yet, despite its destructiveness, no one can seem to pull away from it.

Kim Wonsik, known more colloquially by his stage name “Ravi”, released his mixtape NIRVANA in early 2018. Ravi has been doing mixtures for several years now in conjunction with his promotions alongside boyband VIXX. VIXX is known for two things primarily – their horror music video “Voodoo Doll”, which I’ve mentioned multiple times in my articles on Dreamcatcher, and for being invited to a private concert for the International Olympic Committee by the President of South Korea to perform their traditional Korean-style dance “Shangri-La”. Even so, each of the members has a career in their own right. Until recently, all six of them still lived together in a dorm by choice – I say until recently just because the leader decided to move into his own place right before military service – and yet, they continue doing music together as a whole. To me, that’s the mark of artists who enjoy working together.

But Ravi is an interesting case. He’s been writing for the band for years, mainly his own raps so he can keep his own tempo and intonation. You’ll see this a lot with artists, particularly in K-Pop. One of his favorite artists is G-Dragon, so we can consider him a spiritual successor thereof. But his style is unique, as his voice. Intelligent and fundamentally educational concepts are interspersed with “f***in” and other swear words. A bad*ss rap riff will be cut short by him jumping at the sight of a fly. He’ll wear rugged clothing in one shot and a full three piece suit in another. He’ll be surrounded by half-naked women in one music video and then in the next mixtape say that men who disrespect women should “eat their d***s like candy”. That is an actual lyric of his. One thing’s for sure, in an industry where there are tons of rappers, all of different walks of life and different perspectives, Ravi is enigmatic.

The music video for “NIRVANA”, however, isn’t solely for the one song. Towards the end, the entire video makes a sharp turn to something tonally different. It ends with his song “Alcohol”. The transition is so seamless, I didn’t realize they were two different songs. Nevertheless, the content of those songs is very different. “NIRVANA” is about someone who is content with himself. Alcohol is about someone who drinks to distract from his problems. It’s strange, but it’s revealing about the kind of person Ravi is. He’s someone who doesn’t see contentedness and depression as mutually exclusive subjects for an artist. It’s oddly refreshing.

The video, filmed by Brainshock Pictures, is oddly surrealist – doesn’t surprise me from the perspective of a fan of Ravi, but it’s still unlike other K-Pop videos. It does something most K-Pop videos don’t try to do. It doesn’t try to distract you. Instead it makes you calm. It makes you relaxed. You can sit back and actually enjoy his voice – and the video mimics his voice. Not the other way around. You’re not just experiencing a performance artist – you’re experiencing a musical artist.

Ravi’s voice is perfect for this kind of filmmaking because he’s very percussive in his speech and he has a good range. His songwriting is almost like painting a picture. Even I, someone who doesn’t understand Korean fluently, can feel his intention just from the way he raps. He paints pictures with his voice. Combine that with superb sound mixing on the part of Ravi, PUFF, and Park Jimin, the guest singer on the album and you have something masterful. Whether or not you like rap, you can tell it’s handled with care – therefore the video must be handled the same way.

NIRVANA

“NIRVANA” as a song is an experience in of itself. It starts out with static that faintly sounds like the outdoors, then moves into chimes with a very soft melody behind them, and a woman speaking in what I believe is French. What’s interesting is what the video does in these opening notes: the first shot, during the static, is of Ravi standing in what appears to be a desert of some kind, flipped upside down. The next shots are of Ravi sitting on top of a rock, Ravi blindfolded standing with the phases of the moon, two Ravis mirrored across the sky, and Ravi standing with the blindfold, Ravi standing in the desert again, and a sunset.

What’s incredible is how these shots are colored and edited to match the music. The music has hardly begun, and yet we have something that works with it perfectly visually. The entire music video goes along these lines, making something with very little story and instead, aesthetics. It’s made to make you feel good, and that’s what it does.

Let’s talk about the editing for a hot minute. When editing music videos, you have to keep one eye on the sound waves and another on the viewport. You also have to be mindful of how the visuals themselves capture the sound – you don’t need to edit a clip if you have visual components already that indicate rhythm. The screen is going to be your friend and your enemy.

The movement that already exists on screen is mostly Ravi’s movements. He’s by himself for most of these shots, and when he’s with someone, he’s with himself. So how do you make more movement, more beats, out of his movements? Well you follow his hands. With almost every sweep, every gesture, some effect makes the video pulse, or glitch. If there isn’t, there will likely be a cut in the video, or a beat drop in the song to capture that movement.

The filmmakers aren’t content to just let him be by himself and let that be a continuous uninterrupted shot. There might be a prism glitch, or it might be colored such that it’s clearly edited. The thing is, it feels like he’s running through a parallel dimension more than it feels like there are effects layered on top. There are moments where it feels unreal – but it’s also not really meant to feel real. It’s meant more to capture the mood.

Some of the effects are a sort of scrubbing, as if you’re messing with a record player. Others are retiming, giving the same effect. Pictures will be played on reverse and then played again forward. Sometimes you see Ravi and you’ll see other versions of him superimposed over him. Sometimes the screen moves almost like a liquid, as if the visuals themselves are rolling off Ravi’s tongue. Even if you see the same effect twice, it never feels like the same effect.

The colors are very bold and deeply saturated, and yet it’s constantly changing. Ravi runs through pink fields, dances in purple ones, hovers under turquoise skies and runs alongside an orange ocean. It feels like they went to Home Depot and plucked the prettiest, boldest colors off a wall, regardless of what they were. And yet the colors are picked for specific reasons – blue is associated with peace, purple invokes romanticism, pink invokes playfulness, sunset orange catches the eye, and the spots of red create a sense of boldness. Combine that with he prevailing black in the clothing and shadows and you have this ambiguous calm. It’s a miniature Nirvana.

Symbolically I’m not 100% sure what the video is meant to convey other than an emotion, but I have a guess. I think part of it is meant to inherently be about wonderment. We see numerous times a moon that’s almost pulled to Earth. It’s like a lite Majora’s Mask.

However there also appears to be a theme of solitude, as well as mirroring. Mirroring in particular seems to be a theme as we see Ravi interact with himself. If we combine all the motifs (wonderment, solitude, and mirroring) we can assume that it’s meant to be about someone accepting themselves and seeing themselves in the same cosmic way we see the moon.

ALCOHOL

Let’s juxtapose this with “ALCOHOL” – the song “ALCOHOL” is about someone actively trying to avoid their problems. The video features a lot of typical hip-hop imagery (dancing and cars mostly) but it has a different feeling to it. The dancing seems less like happy dancing and more like people trying to bury their problems.

Ravi barely smiles in this video but his expression isn’t calm, it’s aggressive. It’s like he’s pushing you back with his face. He wants you to not feel bad for him.

Red is a prevailing theme in this one – red, the color of boldness and passion. But there is an inherent darkness to it. It’s the color of blood, and it’s the color of a siren. It is a color that can be both cold and harsh as well as warm and inviting. This entire part of the music video is a lit fire, of neon lights and underground dance clubs – a welcoming and yet toxic environment. Dance clubs thrive on physical human connection and yet omit verbal connection. And verbal connection is the entirety of Ravi’s medium.

We see Ravi in the video under lights, drinking and rapping, moving between people, looking around as if trying to look for people he could know. There’s an inherent nihilism to it. It’s like he’s not searching for a person, but for a purpose.

We sometimes see people look at the camera and make eye contact with it, as if they’re looking at him, or perhaps through him.

I’m going to go out on limb that Ravi isn’t literally an alcoholic but instead is trying to draw on the cultural understanding of alcohol in Korea. Drinking is not only a pastime in Korea – it’s a staple of how people interact. It’s prevalent in dramas regardless of the kind. Being drunk is not okay and yet you’re expected to keep drinking. Combine that with the high suicide rate in Korea and you have a recipe for a number of problems. Further mixing in the pressures of idol culture, and Ravi seems not to be talking about alcohol itself – he’s talking about pain.

Why did he choose to put “NIRVANA” and “ALCOHOL” together? I mean you could argue that it’s done for solely the music, but there’s something special about pairing up a song about loving yourself with a song about your sorrows. It sounds like someone who loves himself but is still trying to search for something in his life that he can’t really tell is missing. It could also be someone who only learns to move past their heartache by loving themselves. That would mean that from a story perspective, “Alcohol” is before “NIRVANA” but that said – I don’t think that there is meant to be a story here. If anything, the complete music video is a character study. We see someone navigating a world and learning to love himself while still finding himself trapped in this endless cycle of harm.

And yet, in spite of all this, the video is peaceful. It wants you to get pulled into a catharsis that the visuals create, and feel what it’s trying to get you to feel. You want to reach out, you want to know, and you want to understand. But you also want to be relaxed. You don’t want to want anything. In a way, there’s no video more perfect for a song called “NIRVANA”. It lulls you into a state of bliss and yet is aware of all of the agony it tries to communicate.

Ravi is an incredible artist. There is no question about it. He puts his thoughts there for you. More than that – he puts his heart in front of you. He wants you to feel something. And you feel it from he vibration of his voice to the stares off camera. “NIRVANA + ALCOHOL” is composed of both visual and auditory craftsmanship. And in a time where we’re oversaturated by boy groups under technicolor lights, it’s nice to see an artist who has a mind beyond the stage.

Dreamcatcher’s “PIRI” – A Complete Deconstruction

on March 4, 2019April 5, 2019 By francesca_ohop 3 Comments

Blending styles. Splitting personalities. Looking into a mirror. Welcome to the magnificent world of Dreamcatcher’s music video, “PIRI”.

Since I’ve spent the last five weeks talking about Dreamcatcher, I want to touch on their newest release, “PIRI”, before moving onto other bands. “PIRI” blew me away the first time I saw it for a number of reasons. Everything about it kept me on the edge of my seat. The Korean word piri (Hangul: 비리) means “pipe”, thus the chorus means “play the pipe”. This invokes a pied piper image – the story of a pied piper being that of a super that led children into a cave with his music, never to be seen again. Thus “play the pipe” is probably a lyric indicating a summoning of some kind, as in “summon me to you, even if it means I lose myself in you.”

Why is “PIRI” important? Well the song and video are blends. Everything is a blend of styles, aesthetics, and it doesn’t hover over a particular aesthetic for you to get bored of it or find it overly predictable. Even within the genre of horror/thriller that the video has, it has a variety of aesthetic elements and subgenres represented. Even within the costuming, a number of different styles are at play. Even still, there are these divergences of aesthetics – pink juxtaposed with deep red, white juxtaposed with black, harshness juxtaposed with softness. Even on top of all of this, there is this consistent motif of mirroring, of doubling. Even within the chorus, “피리를 불어라,” or “pirireul bureora” (the aforementioned “play the pipe”) there is this beautiful repetition to the letters and sounds. So we have this blending, breaking, and reflecting. It’s like looking at a prism that refracts light into beautiful colors.

Let’s start with blending. K-Pop is a genre known for blending aesthetics together. Whether it’s in the music, or it’s in the music videos, it’s constantly mixing ideas. Even the languages are constantly being mixed – English hooks, Korean verses, Chinese and Japanese versions, sometimes even pieces of other languages like French or Spanish. Some would argue that this muddles the work, others would argue that taking pieces from other genres or cultures is stealing, but as someone who was born into a mix of cultures – my mother is Chilean and my father is Polish-American – I find this to be an admirable quality of the genre. It indicates that it’s constantly changing and bettering itself. It’s something I want to cover in greater detail in more articles, particularly with Super Junior’s push for more Spanish-language songs and the genre’s push as a whole to Tropical House and Latin beats in its music.

In my earlier articles, I grouped everything I analyzed into different components – music, color and costuming, story, and actual technical aspects of the film. For this article, though, we need to get a little more detailed. I will analyze the music and general technical aspects of the music video first, the color schemes, then move into each member’s individual costumes and inserts.

MUSIC

The song consists of three styles: pop, rock, and trap. “PIRI” starts with an electronic siren-like sound and has some loops of claps, clicks, and beats that are used in a lot of pop songs as of recently. However, there are also these electric guitar and drum pieces, particularly in the lead up to the chorus and the chorus. Thus it still fits squarely in the rock aesthetic that Dreamcatcher has. As for the trap part of the genre, the rap breaks in the song with Gahyeon and Dami are trap. It’s highly punctuated and aspirated – Korean is a language that lends itself well to rap in general because it is very percussive but also has no auditory spaces in running speech. But Gahyeon and Dami also have the right vocal quality for it – Dami has a lower register and a very fast voice, whereas Gahyeon also has the power and punch necessary to make this work while still having a moderately high voice.

Vocally speaking, most of the vocals are pop style. Unlike many K-Pop songs, there isn’t an attempt at making the singers sound more mature with vocal fry. For those of you who don’t know, vocal fry is the popping sound you’ll often hear at the end of sentences. In some dialects of English it’s considered standard, and in some languages it’s considered a tonal change that’s meant to differentiate words and vowel sounds. But if you speak American English or Korean, this is not a standard vocalic feature – older generations associate it with an attempt to be cool and thus failing, younger generations associate it with maturity or sultriness. Even though both sexes use this at equal levels of frequency, it’s most often associated with (and owned by) women. In K-Pop, I’ve noticed that this is frequently used to sound sexy (Hani from EXID, I’m looking at you; you used this A LOT in “I Love You”.) Dreamcatcher, on the other hand, doesn’t add this quality to their voices, which means to me that they’re working hard on keeping their pitch together as opposed to going for a specific aesthetic in their voices.

TECHNICAL ASPECTS

Following up on “What”, this music video is shot on a sound stage, most of the rooms made to look like stone tunnels and rooms. There is an exception, of course – the heavenly white room with the large windows that’s meant to look like the inside of a large atrium or ballroom. The white room is two stories tall, approximately, while the stone rooms are one story with an occasional space that’s taller for aesthetic purposes. There is also one stone room with a red curtain in the background to give some color and maintain continuity.

Camerawork in this is done well, but it’s not extravagant. It usually maintains motion, with some shots that are static so that the motion of members or other objects isn’t distracted from. The biggest place you notice this in “PIRI” is the dance parts, particularly at the beginning. When the members all move away from JiU in the first moments of the film, the camera is stationary to get a sense of motion. Then when the camera is pulled out to see the elaborate opening dance moves, it barely moves until the members do this move here.

This is done to underscore the motion of the dance as opposed to taking away from it. Then as the beat ramps up, so does the camera in most cases. It’s also important to note that most K-Pop MVs have a distinct lack of close-ups, but this MV has plenty.

In story scenes, stationary camera is more common, but there’s a reason for that. Stationary cam and one point perspective are considered horror staples. Dreamcatcher’s only non-horror MV so far has been “What”, so it makes sense that “PIRI” would follow horror since that has been what’s given Dreamcatcher the most success. Even in areas where you’d expect a lack of motion, however, the shots do maintain consistent zooms or slight shakiness.

Transitions and effects appear at multiple times in this video, but in subtle instances. It’s not usually done to distract but instead to enhance what’s happening on film. I did notice a lot of slow motion and doubling to give a sense of otherworldliness. Sometimes clips are even sped up for rhythm. The most off-putting effects for me were the TV effects and the “luma keying”. Keying is the process by which you remove a color from a film – effectively, the technical term for green screen effects. Luma keying is an effect used to cut out either black or white in a film – luma is the color correction term for shades of black and white. Think of luma as referring to luminescence. Anyway, those two effects were the worst for me (I’m a notorious user of the luma keyer myself but I use it either consistently or sparingly, it’s not really something you can “kind of” do without going all in.)

I actually found the most evident use of effects, the mirroring, to be the least intrusive. The best effects are the ones where you don’t notice they’re being used.

Lighting in general consists of pseudo-natural lighting, spot lighting, and strobes. I say pseudo because lighting is never natural on a sound stage, but it’s possible to make it appear natural. In the heavenly room, this is done likely with diffused pancake lights behind the window, then some more diffused lights inside the room to make sure the shadows are not overtly dramatic. At this point in my school career I have worked with those lights on a sound stage, and that’s the best way I can approximate that look. I would imagine the exposure on the camera is also brought up so as to make the room seem brighter. The darker bolder colors would be, as you say in the industry, “fixed in post.”

In the other dance sequences, the lighting is fairly dramatic and from the front, with consistent strobing and no backlights. The rest of the film is done with cinematic lighting, often golds and blues, and often simultaneously. It is meant to look like it’s underground, at least partially. Beams of light are shot from above, angled to imitate sunset.

COLOR

As stated before, the white room is colored white with very few pops of color, but bold ones. When we see Yoohyeon in it, the entire room has a warm sheen, and her hair and skin are pink and gold hued, respectively. However, in the dance sequences, the room has a much cooler look to it. This is likely done to differentiate the two scenes and also bring out the red and black. Some of the members maintain a gold hues in their skin while others have cooler hues – I would imagine that this is representative of their actual skin tone. Even when there are attempts at whitewashing idols (N from VIXX and Yuri from SNSD/Girls’ Generation being among the victims of it) you can still see hues of their actual skin tone below all the “corrections”.

The second dance scene, the underground one, has very cool tones. The biggest pop of color is the mauve/pink of their dresses. The background is a greenish blue, and the strobe lights are a blue light. The floor seems to be brown, either wood or a wood-like flooring, but since it’s a stage floor it’s whitened by use and dust. This isn’t a bad thing, actually – it makes the film seem more theatrical and, when done right, that can be beneficial. It reminds me personally of my days doing theater videos. (Completely unrelated: if you’re ever in the Washington, DC area, check Georgetown Day School’s high school theater program and see if they have any shows – you will not be disappointed. My first real music videos were for that program and there will always be a soft spot in my heart for that time they did the Odyssey when I was a kid and had a stage that was an actual swimming pool covered in plexiglass.)

The cinematic shots are either very warm toned or cool toned. However, those are not mutually exclusive. Shots like Siyeon’s are mostly dark blue and with blue undertones. Gahyeon’s, on the other hand, is very warm. It’s still eerie and gives the underground feel, but it is definitely differentiating. Then you have parts like Handong’s, where it’s mostly cold but the foreground has some warm reds and yellows, or JiU’s, where there’s a warm room but the fill lighting is cool. In juxtaposition to JiU’s main scene, the TV sequence where she sees herself on the television mirrored is done in very cool tones with some off-white – this is the only time in the entire video where the color grading just did not work for me.

INDIVIDUALS

From here, we will move into individual shots, and what the costumes and plot says about each member. The members are evenly spaced: I would argue that Siyeon and Yoohyeon are the only ones with slightly more content than the others visually. Unlike my article on “Fly High”, where I uncovered every member in order of who has more, I will cover each member in order of appearance in the MV.

Yoohyeon

Yoohyeon’s inserts have her in two similar outfits, but both giving off very different vibes due to the colors. She mainly sports a short double-breasted coat with long translucent fabric around the waist and the buttons and opening in the front. Her shoes are combat boots. She has dangling earrings and short nails alternating in white and black. When her outfit is colored red and black in the white room, the body of the coat is black, the fabric around the waist is red, the combat boots are black, and her hair is in a ponytail. In the darker dance scene, the body of the coat is pink, boots are white, her hair again down, and she also sports a black tie. In the cinematic sequences, she wears a white gown, and her hair is in a half-pony.

The costumes, as well as context from earlier mvs, can give us insight into the kind of character that Yoohyeon is getting us to see. Pink is a softer color generally associated with innocence, but the tie indicates to me masculinity or maturity. So her pink outfit gives the impression of someone of a softer disposition. The half pony reminds me of the hairstyle she had in “Fly High”. However, she looks like a queen practically in the red and black outfit. It’s a commanding appearance. I might be reading too much into the subtler details, but the alternating nails might indicate duality.

Yoohyeon starts us off in the MV walking into the white room, where there is a single brown chair. She seems confused as to her surroundings, and finds what appears to be a horn on top of the chair. She examines it before seeing something that shocks her, then runs towards it. When the horn falls on the ground it starts leaking black fluid – black liquid is considered a typical horror image, usually leaking out of the eyes or something else that shouldn’t be.

Yoohyeon’s final shot is of her looking up towards the ceiling to see a mirror image of herself looking down.

Siyeon

Siyeon’s costuming is very mature, and I don’t mean in the sexy way (although yes, also in the sexy way). She mostly wears a suit for her inserts, one that shows her midriff. Her eyeliner is smokey and her lips are very light pink, and her hair is often pulled back in a ponytail. She does have a black scarf tucked into her side as well. With the pink she looks more effeminate while still being mature-looking, but the red and black makes her look much more adult and fierce.

Her inserts mainly take place in the underground rooms, where she’s wearing a nightgown similar to Yoohyeon’s, if not identical. It does fit her differently though; she looks less like a young girl and more like a woman in a retro time period. Her hair is in a side braid, which furthers a timeless look.

During her inserts, she keeps running through doorways, only coming back through a different doorway into the same room. She does this multiple times, before leaning against a wall and clutching her head.

This scene reminds me of Reimi’s alleyway in Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable. In Jojo, the alleyway is haunted by a ghost, and you could get caught running through it and looping around no matter how many times you try to get out. Only Reimi, the ghost of a murdered 15 year old who haunts the alley, knows the way out, but she warns you that if you turn around to look over your shoulder, your soul will get ripped from your body and you’ll be dragged into hell. I don’t necessarily think this is a reference, especially since Jojo is Japanese and Dreamcatcher is Korean. But since Dreamcatcher’s motifs surround ghosts and magic, I wanted to note this comparison.

Siyeon is leaning against the wall when suddenly a hand reaches out from a doorway across from her. She stares in horror, covering her mouth and seemingly about to cry. She runs out of the room before it cuts away to Handong.

Siyeon gets one more series of inserts towards the end, where she is in the white room and sees a series of white ladders. She climbs them and sits on the top few rungs, waiting for something, before clasping her hands together. We’ll come back to this.

Her nails are long and a blue-gray, coming into points, which makes me think she’s even fiercer.

Handong

Handong wears a thinner dress with a tulle-style skirt. The front is ruffled, almost like it was clasped together, and she has a scarf tied around one of her arms. The red gives a more artistic vibe when she is seen in it, something a bit more edgy and contemporary, but the pink gives off a whimsical vibe even with the combat boots.

Yes, I spend a lot of time on the colors each girl is wearing, but there’s good reason for that – the way each is used emphasizes something different about their personality. Her nails are also clear or white, it’s hard to tell, but it gives the impression of someone who isn’t pretentious. It does bother me that visually speaking she gets less attention than any of the other members, but as we’ve seen from “Fly High” and “What”, this is fairly normal for Dreamcatcher’s company.

She enters a room with a bunch of clocks on the wall, and two sets of candles in the foreground. Like the other girls, she’s wearing a nightgown. The clocks are all from different time periods, and all set to different times. She seems confused but not to the extent that Yoohyeon was.

Suddenly all the clocks start ringing, causing her to clutch her head like it’s pounding. She rips one off the wall and throws it, before running off.

We get one last insert of her at the end. In this, she sees a series of broken mirror pieces refracting light, before looking at the camera.

Gahyeon

Gahyeon is the maknae but they manage to nail something more mature for her while still making her accessible for the younger audience. She has a coat on, along with a sash over her chest and a cap in the heavenly area. In the underground area her hair is tied back. Her makeup is noticeably sparkly, with sparkly eyeliner under the eyes and lips that are mostly pink, but red on the interior.

Unlike the other girls, her outfit in the heavenly area is predominantly black, with a red sash – probably done to differentiate her from the other girls, but it shows that she’s moving in a more mature direction after earlier videos pigeonholed her into schoolgirl outfits. Her nails are also long and sparkly red. Her nightgown outfit has her hair down, which, combined with the nails and makeup, is a more eye-catching look than Handong had.

Gahyeon has a room similar to Handong’s, where there are a number of phones on the wall. One of them rings – we can know this from a similar effect used to indicate noise for Handong’s clocks – and Gahyeon picks up, clearly afraid of what’s going to be on the line. Her eyes go wide and someone covers her mouth, stifling what I assume is a scream, before she drops the phone. I actually thought this was her own hand at first, until I realized that the hand had no manicure and Gahyeon’s nails are bright red.

Her final shot is her in one of the dark underground rooms, with a light coming from outside, as if she found her way out.

JiU

JiU has my favorite outfit out of anyone in the music video. She has a dress with a tulle skirt and a train behind it, and a corset around the center. It works really well in both the pink and the red, but I’d like to note that the red dress almost looks like her stomach is exposed through the corset (it’s actually white but since she’s relatively pale skin and no one else is wearing white, it creates a sort of optical illusion), which is meant to draw attention to her physical appeal without being overtly sexualizing in any way.

The full picture does make her look like a leader, though I must say I don’t find that the pink hair really matches the boldness of her outfit. I didn’t get a good look at her nails, but from what I could tell they looked clear. Her makeup is very similar to Gahyeon’s. It’s meant to draw attention to her but still make her look sweet. I don’t think I have to reiterate the thing about the nightgowns at this point but yes, she does have one too.

JiU walks through a darkened hallway, filled with lamps and furniture. She finds a TV playing a video of herself sitting next to a woman in a veil. She takes off the veil in the video, and it’s herself duplicated. Both of them look at the camera, and JiU runs away in shock and horror. We notice later that both versions of the girl look at each other when they think the other isn’t looking. It’s surprisingly less than most MVs give JiU, but considering how other members have been shafted in her favor in the past, I’ll take it.

SuA

SuA has an outfit similar to Yoohyeon’s, but only with a train on one side. Her hair is down in both zones. I don’t have a whole lot to say about her costuming, but her hair is up in her nightgown scenes. I actually do like the dark red for her, I don’t think it’s overdone. If I have to differentiate the pink and red outfits in any particular way, I would say that the pink seems almost more wintery on her, whereas the red and black outfit makes her seem more artsy and modern.

SuA runs through the underground rooms before stopping by a cabinet and a few chairs covered with scary horror dolls. She examines one of them, which is wearing a red dress and some lace on the hair, before the other dolls slowly turn to look at her. As someone who was afraid of her Madame Alexander dolls as a kid, I got chills when I first saw this. SuA jumps and drops the doll, caught off guard completely.

Her final shots are of her standing in front of a mirror – when she reaches out to it, it ripples out from her hand like she’s in the Matrix.

Dami

Dami has a full suit as well, but unlike Siyeon, it doesn’t intentionally accentuate any particular features of her body. It seems like they just wanted to go for a bad*ss look for her. This translates very well in both colors, particularly because the top is completed with a cape and her hair looks like Ga-In’s circa Sixth Sense or Paradise Lost. Her nails are short and patterned. It’s cutting edge, it’s aggressive, I love it.

Dami’s inserts consist one again of her running through the hallway similar to the one that we see Siyeon running through, only this time it’s lit very differently. It seems less like Dami is running through the same hallway several times but instead like she’s trapped in a labyrinth. She sees a door on the end of the hallway with a lamp in front of it. She walks up to it and goes to open the door, only to get yanked inside.

Her final shots we see her walking through hallways in what looks like the heavenly room, though lit almost like it’s at dusk. She runs her hands over the walls before clasping them together and looking at the camera, like she’s in the midst of praying.

Analysis

At this point this has been my longest article yet, but with good reason. There’s so much happening and so many small details. It took me two train rides to and from Washington, DC to write this. As a result, I’ll keep my final analysis brief. I discussed at the beginning how mixing aesthetics, sounds, etc. is a feature of K-Pop, but let’s branch out into actual themes of the work itself.

The album that “PIRI” is on is called “End of Nightmare”, which would initially leave you to believe that “PIRI” seems to be the amalgamation of the individual nightmares of each of the girls. But nothing is so simple with Dreamcatcher. Nothing ever is. The recurring themes of fear and running permeate throughout, but so do themes of duality and changing. If we are to take the song’s title, “PIRI”, for what it literally means, the girls are probably answering some sort of call. I don’t necessarily think this is a literal call like playing a pipe would lead you to believe, but luring them somehow. The thing is the pied piper, which I assume is where the song derives its meaning, is both written as a malevolent figure and a benevolent figure. Some say he leads children to their death, others say to their protection. So right away, we have a duality in understanding whether the call is good or bad.

I’m fairly certain most, if not all Dreamcatcher MVs take place in a connected universe of some kind, and if we are to believe that, it seems that there is some sort of mirror world, alternate dimension. I’ve compared this idea to Niel Gaiman’s Coraline in the past – a mirror world where the physics are different and it’s meant to lure you in and keep you there forever. I definitely think there’s something to that analysis, but not completely – I mean, if you saw the entire MV with women with button eyes, it would be ten times more horrifying. I actually think this is meant to be something closer to something like the original Silent Hill franchise, where it doesn’t really matter why something is happening but what it means. In which case, we don’t need an explanation for how they’re trapped in the mirror world. They just are.

I think that the mirror world is meant to be some sort of purgatory state and the girls are all trying to break out of it. They were trapped against their will with their fears and/or sins. However, if SuA’s final insert is any indication, they learn to manipulate it to their will. I have a theory for why they can manipulate it, but that’s an article for another time.

The thing that struck me as most odd was Siyeon climbing the ladder. She’s definitely in the heavenly room for some reason, but she sits on the ladder and waits. The hand clasping is also odd too – and Dami does it as well. So what does it mean? My assumption is that Siyeon found a way to get to heaven, but didn’t want to leave her friends behind. So instead, she waits for them at the ladder.

The video overall is immensely powerful. Everything down to the tiniest detail is constructed. Yes, I do have my criticism. But the video was so beautiful that even those criticisms are dwarfed in comparison to the magnitude of the wonder that one gets from watching this. I kept noticing new things as I watched. And yet, my work with this is not done. I still have much to uncover. I want to move onto other bands, but there’s more I have to say.

In the final scenes of the MV, we see all seven girls and their faces overlayed, before seeing Yoohyeon standing in front of a table with a number of candles on it. This invokes a sort of last-supper imagery, but I don’t think Yoohyeon is Jesus. That would be weird. Anyway, other girls all appear, and clasp hands together. The camera pulls out and the room goes dark, with a film filter over them.

I think this means all the girls choose to stay in this dimension – they’ve come to terms with their situation, could very well leave at any point, but have new power…and unfinished business.

What could this unfinished business be?

Well. I’ll leave you here, with this.

Dreamcatcher’s “What” – Style Versus Substance Part 2

on February 24, 2019April 24, 2019 By francesca_ohop 1 Comment

Check out Part 1: Dreamcatcher’s “You and I” – Style Versus Substance Part 1

In my article on Dreamcatcher’s “You and I”, I talked about the importance of balancing plot and visually pleasing images in a music video. I used “You and I” as an example of a music video that does a good job of balancing those things. In this article, I’m going to continue that discussion, but this time try to show it from a different perspective – where the balance between the two principles is thrown off, and the video feels disjointed. This is of course my critical opinion, but it is not the only opinion, and I welcome constructive arguments against my analysis.

Dreamcatcher’s “What” is one of their best songs yet, but its video feels not nearly as story driven – or at least, not well. There are elements of a story here, and the video is beautiful to look at, but there isn’t enough coherent substance to make it particularly gripping. However, it is a very captivating video visually, I just want to explore how the story takes a backseat to other elements of the video.

“What” is overall a great pop-rock song. It has amazing vocals, and the verses and chorus are clearly defined by electric guitar riffs and solid drums beats that get your heart pumping in the meter. It has good mixes of English and Korean words but doesn’t fall into the trap of using a ton of English words in the chorus and making it some weird half-translated mess. The bridge has some nice rapping by Dami but also JiU’s powerful vocals, keeping the styles balanced. Overall the song is a home run.

The video sports a more pop color scheme than past videos – deep fuchsia and indigo with hints of bright orange and other colors. Costumes take on a variety of styles, mostly modern hip fashion styles. Suits come back, this time in red, for JiU, and we see Gahyeon wearing more adult clothing than past videos where she was confined to the schoolgirl aesthetic, probably because she’s the maknae. There’s also a lot more sparkle – everywhere. Not exclusively on set, not exclusively in the costumes – there are sparkles all over the place. It’s a very flashy video and if you like that style then you’re going to love this video.

The camerawork is fantastic, and I do love the set. It feels far more modern than Dreamcatcher’s other videos, but it works for the song and fits the aesthetic that is put forth. I want to be clear – I don’t hate this music video at all. I actually love it. I just think that technically speaking, it could have been done better, and in the spirit of giving this music video a fair assessment, I think I should be hard on it.

As said before, story is implied in this video, but not in a way that is particularly cohesive, so I’ll do my best to try to unpack what I can. There are only a few actual storylines, the primary one being JiU’s and Yoohyeon’s. I usually try to unpack the details first, since I’m a more detail oriented person, but since the video is fairly lacking in story, I want to try to get to the bottom of theirs first, then get into the details.

JiU wakes up, fully clothed and in heels, in the street, and judging from her expression, it seems to be an unfamiliar one to her. She looks around in fear and confusion. Simultaneously, we see Yoohyeon in her bedroom, trying to sleep. There’s a snowglobe next to her with crystals inside, and that becomes a recurring image. At one point, Yoohyeon falls back onto her bed, eyes closed, and we see the sky flying past her, as if she’s rocketing through it in her sleep.

Eventually, JiU looks up above her at the rooftop of a building labelled “CACHETTE” (French for “hideout”). Yoohyeon is standing on the rooftop, with the skyline behind her. Yoohyeon suddenly wakes up in a room with paint dripping down the windows, and playing cards floating around her – all of them labelled Joker. We also see JiU wake up in the same location as before.

We’re led to believe there’s something important about the building, or at least a specific reason that the girls all end up there. We see Gahyeon and Siyeon outside it as well, and JiU – as well as a figure we can’t fully make out that goes inside it.

SuA is inside the building, and it appears like there was some sort of party or event happening, because there are balloons and confetti everywhere, not to mention pink caution tape. Gahyeon walks through it and surveys the damage, eventually running into SuA, who appears to be doing the same thing. We also see Gahyeon running out, only to be reversed on the footage and pulled back in.

As far as a coherent story goes, that’s about it. But we can get some stuff from subtext – Handong is hidden away in a closet somewhere, illuminated by red light from outside. Dami is sporting a more masculine and mature appearance – manspreading while surrounded by many chairs. Not sure why there are so many chairs, but I accept. We also see SuA teleporting while she’s singing between doorways, behind pink caution tape.

The rest of the inserts are generally disjointed – hands spray painting things, various shots of Yoohyeon’s room, JiU and Siyeon surrounded by umbrellas, a small clown toy spinning, the book from “Good Night” sitting on a pile of sand with a flower growing out of it…you get the idea.

“What” is good…but not great. Call me spoiled, but I vastly preferred “Fly High” and “You and I” in both technical aspects and story aspects. It was much clearer about what we should be looking for, without expecting the viewer to figure it out. It is by no means a bad music video, in fact I would argue that this video rivals some music videos put forth by more established groups. It’s effectively saved by it’s song, it’s choreography, and the talent of the members.

“What” does, however, push forward more visual things as opposed to substantive things. This isn’t always a bad thing though. The colors and costumes, for one, are much more eye catching. I love the use of pink and the way lighting sets a mood. But it uses special effects in a way that feels inorganic – the nice thing about “Fly High” is that effects were used sparingly, and even in “You and I” where effects were used frequently, they were done more realistically, to build the world instead of just showing off. And yes, the effects are definitely striking in this video – but also not very polished. It’s very clear that Yoohyeon is in front of a green screen when she’s standing in front of the skyline, and when Yoohyeon is rocketing through time and space on her bed, it does not look real.

The disjointedness of the story is probably what bothers me the most. Not because a music video with a disjointed story is bad, but it seems disjointed in the wrong way. Having a bunch of connected pieces out of order – that’s okay. I think that that can be done well and have a very positive effect. However, when doing that, you have to go off of somewhat familiar imagery, even if you incorporate something new.

I mention VIXX a lot in my articles, but that’s because they are a case study in good music videos. I want to take us back to their Conception trilogy, featuring the albums “Zelos”, “Hades”, and “Kratos”. The trilogy came out in 2016 and spanned several months, with the music videos “Dynamite,” “Fantasy,” and “The Closer”. Each of the videos was connected, telling a story rooted in Greek Mythology but not necessarily driven by it. Each video and song was wildly different from the last, but what made this trilogy work is the consistent imagery. N had the green eye tattoo on his hand, Ravi is associated with wine, and characters would often represent specific gods from mythology. I bring this up because the trilogy balances its plot with its visuals, constantly changing the visuals to match the music while keeping the story and its motifs solid.

“What” is clearly trying to establish a new direction for the band – maybe we’ll get less of the retro schoolgirl aesthetic and more modern concepts. However, even in doing so, it is important to maintain the story that has already been established, if you are trying to allude to or rely on it. And the video makes allusions to other Dreamcatcher music videos – the book from Good Night especially, along with the timing changes that were particularly frequent in “Fly High” and “You and I”. There’s also the notable absence of the infamous photograph of all the girls in white, motif that has been used frequently. I have a theory for how “What” could connect to the other videos, assuming it does, but that is still a big assumption on my part.

I think that “What” is a good music video, but it doesn’t feel like a good Dreamcatcher video. It doesn’t play with what it has, instead it tries to make something new but still rely on the old, and does so with not a lot of continuity. There’s still a lot to enjoy here, it just didn’t sit right with me personally. As we see later though, with “PIRI”, we get the best of “What” and also the best of the earlier videos as well…but that’s for next week.

Dreamcatcher’s “You and I” – Substance Versus Style – Part 1

on February 17, 2019April 24, 2019 By francesca_ohop 1 Comment

When taking on a music video, substance and style are two different modes of filmmaking. Substantive films can have subtleties and steer away from overt, crazy imagery, often using the singers as characters in some drama or even getting rid of the singers altogether and focusing solely on a story. Stylish films often negate story, or have the story implicitly shown through subtle cues.

Within style for K-Pop, the biggest component is movement – constantly moving cameras, fast edits, dance shots, everything is very dramatic. You have to keep the viewer engaged not in the stories, but in the visuals. If the visuals have a story that’s even better, but the story is not necessarily what is primarily at play. Balancing style with substance is what makes a good music video.

Dreamcatcher’s “You and I” has a stylish music video, with enough substance so that the visuals still have meaning. But it focuses more on visuals and special effects than story. There is still story present, but it’s meant more to look appealing than communicate a coherent plot. Is this a bad thing? No. But it’s a different approach than Dreamcatcher’s usually story-heavy videos. A primary focus on effects and dance makes for a video that would work as a pleasant surprise for most fans.

Similar to “Fly High”, “You and I” has a more pop sound than rock, but still falls in the genre of rock-pop pretty well. Its chorus is catchy both in Korean and English, with lines in both languages to make it a more easily accessible song to both demographics. The chorus is primarily in Korean, but the hook is in English – “Baby you and I”. It has soft verses with dramatic drum beats, slowly building with time, with a magical quality to it that makes the song feel light and heavy at the same time.

The colors in this video are mostly shades of blue, with some scenes taking on primarily reds and blacks. Other colors are either neutral tones, or harsh blacks and whites. Costumes are more modern, but a few retro pieces that appear. There are also these short corset outfits with long sleeves in white, and leather straps in black – not something I would expect anyone to be wearing in the early 1900s. This starts the direction that this video takes towards style as opposed to substance – but as we can see here the two are not mutually exclusive.

There is not a lot of story in the video as a whole, but there are a number of moments with story that connect so that the video doesn’t feel like you’re watching incoherent nonsense. The film mainly revolves around Yoohyeon, who we see at the beginning of the video running towards some sort of portal. There are also a number of shots of JiU pushed to the forefront, but Yoohyeon is the star of this one. There are a few inserts, so I want to cover the inserts first to give all of the members some attention.

Most of the members don’t get anything related to the plot. Gahyeon has one insert, where she is in a mirror, being held by JiU. The mirror shot is also mirrored, so it’s more duality. Handong has a scene where she’s surrounded by strings, spiderwebs, and candles, next to a set of stairs and some canvases. Dami doesn’t even have a story shot, she just appears in another dimensional space, in a glass snowlgobe-like cage, before breaking it with her staff. This may get called back to in Dreamcatcher’s later music video, “What”, but at the time this didn’t appear consistent thematically. SuA has an insert next to a camera, but we’ll get back to the camera in a minute.

I will say this though about SuA’s scene. If you look closely behind her, at all of the photos, we’ve either seen a lot of them before, or can recognize them for thematic reasons. The picture from “Chase Me” is up there, as are some images that appeared on the wall of the final shots of that music video. We also see a darkened photo of a girl that appears in an earlier scene of this music video (but for sake of keeping this organized, we’ll touch on this later). There is also a picture of two women, seemingly twins, holding hands – and if you’ve seen Dreamcatcher’s “PIRI” music video, which came out this February, this might strike a chord.

There are two distinct zones, one that seems more realistic with rooms of a house and hallways, and one is some sort of alternate dimension, with floating objects, gray space, sand, and spiderwebs. The background of the second dimension is filled with stars and clouds. The biggest floating object that gets the most attention is the portal, a stone circle with space opening in front and light shining through it. Well call this the netherworld, since it appears to be something along those lines.

The one character who gets a lot of inserts is Siyeon, all of them surrounded around the same motif – photographs. She has a lot of old photographs that she studies with a light board and develops in a room with a lot of red lights. Hanging in the back of a room is the infamous photo from “Chase Me”. We also see the picture of the girl in shadow, which is on the wall in SuA’s insert.

One of the photos she develops – with the accompanying Gayeon and Handong – has supernatural qualities and catches on fire spontaneously. I assume that this is a callback to Good Night when the girls burn the photograph, ultimately saving SuA from the clutches of a tree monster. We can’t really see what’s on it, but it appears to be a picture of a girl surrounded by spiderwebs.

Shot from “Good Night” for comparison
Shot from “Good Night” for comparison

JiU’s scenes are reminiscent of the ones in “Fly High”, where she’s running through hallways – in a suit, this time, instead of her school uniform. The suit has creative stitching and patterning all over it, immediately reminding me of the suits in VIXX’s “Voodoo Doll”. This time though, we see what’s chasing her, in the reflection of the mirror – some sort of gray smoke monster hand. As she runs we see her stumbling and stopping right before a top, spinning on the ground. We also see her standing with her head slightly askew and her eyes blank while the lights from outside flicker past.

This brings us to Yoohyeon, who is the focus of the majority of the video. She has a number of shots where she’s sitting in a chair and JiU is standing behind her. The other girls are standing, scattered throughout the room, staring straight ahead and being perfectly still. JiU drops sand and starts whispering some incantation, and we see the gray smoke apparition, taking the form of a person, flying out of Yoohyeon’s body. I would assume that this is Yoohyeon’s soul, but it’s not very clear.

Later in the video, we see Yoohyeon walking an older woman to a couch, then posing behind the camera, the same camera that SuA is seen with earlier. The woman poses for a picture, sitting still – she seems older but more along the lines of middle aged, with brown hair. When Yoohyeon is about to flash the camera, she pauses and looks up in horror. The woman looks at her maliciously, then we see a shot of Yoohyeon with a shot of a spider appearing on the wall. Yoohyeon faints upon seeing it.

As far as I can tell, the woman is not real, but a representation of the spider that Yoohyeon murders in Fly High, which she kills with a magnifying lens. Since a camera with a a flash is another contraption that uses lenses to manipulate light, it’s an appropriate comparison. Later we see Yoohyeon sit on the couch where the woman was sitting, with some determination.

In the last part of Yoohyeon’s story, we see her running towards the portal, trying to presumably get back to the real world. However, she doesn’t make it, and collapses to her knees. However, this is shown in conjunction with the girls standing around her sleeping body in the netherworld, and her waking up. There’s also a shot that appears to be of some significance, where she’s reaching towards the sky and the gray fog surrounds her hand.

These shots are likely not in order – I would presume that a lot of these shots are meant to be at the beginning and we’re uncovering things as Yoohyeon comes to terms with them. So the order of events would be that she wakes up in the netherworld first, the gray mist surrounds her hand, she ends up plagued by nightmares or images in this netherworld, then tries to escape but fails. In conjunction with this, all of the shots of JiU seem to be in the real world, but if we take the hand in the mirror at face value, it seems like the netherworld is some sort of mirror world, akin to Neil Gaiman’s Coraline.

I find that the camerawork in this is on par with videos like “Fly High”, where here is a much clearer idea in the cinematographer’s mind of what to get and how to work with the editor to get the right effects. A lot of the video is either slowed down or sped up, but not to an extent that seems unnatural, and in keeping with the frame rate so that nothing feels off subliminally. There are also a lot of gorgeous wide shots and close-ups, but the camera is almost never stationary. It moves with the music.

It also works beautifully with the dance – something that Dreamcatcher’s earlier videos were lacking. They had beautiful dance routines but rarely could you get to see everything. The dance is more central to this video as opposed to the story, so we really get to see it in all its glory. I think that’s important – the use of scarves works well to help you follow and capture the movements of their dance. It’s similar to VIXX’s “Shangri-La” stage where use fans as an inherent part of the choreography. I also like Dami’s use of canes, though I think that this is definitely underused.

Back to my original point – the difference between style and substance. The entire video is trying to balance story and visually pleasing motifs, and does so very well. In terms of substance, there are always pitfalls at trying to tell a nonlinear story. It’s a lot harder to follow than most story-based music videos. Does “You and I” do a good job of trying to get the story across? Or does it fall victim to what nonlinear stories try to do?

The video is inherently stylish – it’s entirely possible for people to watch the music video and just watch for the dance, and not pay attention to the story at all. The images are entrancing almost to the detriment of the video – you can get caught up in how pretty everything looks and not think about what the story is at all. And it’s clear how much money and production value they put in to make this video stand out, so in that case I would say it doesn’t do a good job of getting its story out there.

However, if you’re a fan like me, you won’t be content to just watch and not try to tie in some story. I do think it’s a valid approach to make music videos that have story only if you’re trying hard enough to look for it (BTS’s “Run” I would say is particularly good at this, as is f(x)’s “4 walls”). There are plenty of people who watch music videos and try to connect story pieces together, and plenty of fans who are invested in the girls’ characters, as well as the girls in real life. So having a story that is implicit, in the background, while making the song more to the forefront and having a few key story moments pushed to the front – that is a good approach to making a music video. It keeps the fans who like mystery-solving happy but also makes it accessible to casual fans.

In the end though, the approach that this video takes is not as much about story, but more about making the girls front and center. And that makes it a much more enjoyable experience – you’re watching a video that makes you not only invested in the world the characters live in, but appreciative of the girls’ individual talents and how they play off each other. Good costume and makeup design help with this, but also making the dance more central – that’s the biggest piece. Everything else takes a backseat and lets you appreciate the artists more, and that is a good move on the part of the directors.

Overall, “You and I” is a compelling must-watch for K-Pop fans. It has enough for the casual viewer and more than plenty for the invested viewer. It keeps you on your toes but also is entrancing and enjoyable in a less involved way. I personally think this is one of Dreamcatcher’s best videos yet. They still have a long way to go as a band that’s really only existed for 2 years – but they have potential, and this video uses their potential to its fullest.

CONTINUE READING: Dreamcatcher’s “What” – Style Versus Substance Part 2

Dreamcatcher’s Good Night – Making Sequels Stand Out

on February 3, 2019April 5, 2019 By francesca_ohop

Sequels are a tricky business in any sort of media. Sometimes they surpass the previous installment to the point where the previous installment loses its luster. Sometimes they fall short of expectations and ruin the original work. Sometimes they just remake their predecessor. Other times they go in a completely new direction.

Dreamcatcher’s “Good Night” is a direct sequel to “Chase Me”, the debut song after their reformation. It’s a continuation of the story-based music videos that have since become a staple of their group, sporting, once again, a timeless haunted feeling and a rock-pop track. In my article on “Chase Me” I stated the importance of a debut song being memorable, but I also said that the group could be forgiven for having some glaring problems with their first music video, on account of it being just that. So, where does “Good Night” fit in the realm of sequels? Is it a good video or a bad video? A worthy successor or a failed attempt?

The music itself is good, but more aggressive and less cutesy than “Chase Me” was, or than “Fly High” and “You and I” would be. It personally is a little too much rock for me, but still holds up. It doesn’t have a great vocal hook, but it still has a nice musical hook in the chorus. However the girls’ voices take on a raspier and more spoken quality. It isn’t my personal favorite of their songs, but it has some good moments – I particularly like the high notes best.

“Good Night” brings back the mid-20th-century style but brings in more elements that are 19th century or even medieval. The video has a different color scheme than “Chase Me” did, sporting more blue and varying degrees of pink and yellow, as opposed to the green, red, and gold. Both of these videos still make use of black, which makes sense as this is a horror style music video. Costuming for the girls is more along the lines of flowing dresses and skirts with varying skirt lengths, mostly long sleeves, and somewhat see through fabric at times. It seems though, from the long sleeves and often neck lengths of the dresses, this is a departure from the mixed sexy/cutesy concept from “Chase Me” – the plot of this video deals with malevolent spirits and it would not be appropriate to sexualize the girls in this context. (Of course, the skirts are extremely short and outfits more form-fitting in the dance segments, but asking girls to dance in full length dresses would probably cause injuries.) The girls appear to be more made-up, but not as pale as they did in “Chase Me” – instead, depending on the set and lighting, we get to see more gold undertones or cool undertones in their skin. All this aside, we can now break into the analysis.

The opening of “Good Night” is the closing scene of “Chase Me”, where Jo Donghyuk, an actor brought in for these music videos, breaks down the door of a hotel room to find a picture of the seven Dreamcatcher members, wearing all white, sitting like typical horror-movie dolls.

Donghyuk smiles ominously, we get a layered effect of film burn that looks almost like blood, before the song comes in with some ominous chimes. From here, the music video breaks into three segments, not including the dance pieces. These segments are the girls’ room, the forest, and Donghyuk’s room.

Donghyuk’s room is the starting point for the video, where he has a desk, two very tall bookshelves, two taxidermy deer heads, pictures all over the walls, and several candles. He also has an hourglass and a mirror, and a clock on the desk in a glass container. He pulls a book off his shelf, which has a leafy, natural texture on the cover, chains around it, and a skull for a lock. This book becomes a recurring motif not just in this video, but in other videos as well by Dreamcatcher. We’ll come back to this in a minute.

The girls’ room is where the most important story elements are, because what the girls JiU, Handong, and Dami do in this room in turn effect the events in other segments of the video. The room is an alternate version of Donghyuk’s room, with most of the same elements, just a few key differences. For one thing we see another cult ritual happening, this time with two skulls, one of which is on fire, an hourglass, several books, and more candles than a Yankee Candle store. Finally, the girls actually make use of the objects in their room as opposed to Donghyuk, who spends most of his time involved in his book.

The forest segments involve Siyeon, Yoohyeon, and SuA. Siyeon and Yoohyeon are pursued by two people in masks and hoods, and SuA is entrapped by wooden arms, almost skeletal. They seem to be coming from the tree, which begs the question why they’re doing that in the first place. Siyeon and Yoohyeon largely spend their time running away and hiding. At one point they make stick people from nearby sticks and hang them from the trees. It’s not clear if this is meant to be some sort of magic thing or just a distraction to let them get away but in any event it works.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t brought up Gahyeon, she’s largely not in this video for some reason, but she has a few moments. For one thing she gets to be in the girls’ room surrounded by bubbles, which is a cool image.

Then of course there’s the elephant in the room – her falling through space. Surrounded by books. And book pages. In a white dress. Yeah, it seems like even though we don’t get to see much of her, she has some crucial part in the story at play.

Anyway, the whole Gahyeon-falling-through-space thing is triggered by Donghyuk flipping to a particular page in the ritual book, as I’ll call it. He seems amused by it. Since this is a sequel, supposedly, to “Chase Me”, it seems like he wants to harness something that the girls have – maybe it’s their power or their souls. He still seems to be the protagonist of the story, but not one we should necessarily feel sympathy for.

JiU, Handong, and Dami, meanwhile, are not having it. They lurk in their world, by the mirror, watching Donghyuk read the book and occasionally messing with things in their world. At one point Donghyuk is flipping the book, when Handong appears on screen for an instant, peering through the mirror. Suddenly her eye is superimposed over everything and he’s forced to stop what he’s doing. He goes towards the mirror, only to see a glimpse of JiU in the mirror.

Not long after, we get to Dami reaching through the mirror to get the ritual book. The girls return to the circle and we see JiU burning the page that triggered the wooden hands on SuA, which then cuts to SuA surrounded by the burning arms, unscathed.

JiU, Handong, and Dami rip books off the shelves, which causes a whirlwind of papers inside Donghyuk’s room. Donghyuk walks towards the mirror, picking up a dreamcatcher, then looks back into the mirror, which is empty.

In between inserts, the video cuts to him, now entrapped in the mirror, with JiU, Handong, and Dami all looking at him, now wearing medieval cloaks. The final few shots of the music video are of the girls walking through the woods, all wearing cloaks and carrying torches. One of them (presumably Dami) drops the book, and we see the book on the floor of the woods as the music fades out.

“Good Night” is much harder to unpack than “Chase Me” because there is more going on, as well as a universe with rules that might be well-defined as far as the script is concerned, but are not well defined by extension to the viewers. When that happens it’s hard to differentiate aesthetics from actual story elements.

The color scheme is not nearly as bold as it was in “Chase Me” and not as memorable as it is in later videos, particularly “Fly High” and “You and I”. It does not differentiate particular segments of the video well, at least in terms of color. The biggest counter argument to this point is the fact that the inserts have a variety of color schemes, including pastel pinks that dominate the screen, and the two rooms are differentiated very slightly in hue. The girls’ room has always felt more blue to me, and Donghyuk’s room has always felt more purple. However, when I went back to watch the video so I could write this review, I realized that the rooms were mostly lit and colored the same, but the outfits of the characters were what I was focusing on – the black allowed the purple-ish hue to come through in Donghyuk’s room, and the light colors allowed the blue to be more visible in the girls’ room. They were also lit slightly differently, but more to keep light on the girls on the floor than to indicate an atmospheric change. So the two spaces have very few differences ultimately, which feels like a wasted opportunity – why not have more differences in the mirrored rooms?

The cuts are also extremely fast and the camerawork is more jittery. The sharp focus problem that “Chase Me” had comes back, only now we have weird blurring effects. So the video feels more artificial than Chase Me did, where it was still fairly consistent. We also have the wide aspect ratio, which makes these things stand out even more.

Of course, not everything about this video is negative. It has very compelling imagery and a clear feeling of a story. The dance routine is definitely powerful and the costumes, while I don’t like them as much as I like them in Dreamcatcher’s other videos, they do give the sense of who these characters are and make you feel intrigued. The sets are good, despite the poorly distinguished color grading. And the girls, of course, come across very well. Their inserts show a lot of personality and make you want to watch the video more. So while the film doesn’t do the best job it could have, it still does well insofar as making you want more.

“Good Night” hammers in the fact that something is going on with the members and that Donghyuk seems to be intrigued by it. He seems to know a lot about who these girls are but not anything about their abilities or how the magic works, and yet he definitely wants to harness their power. The ritual book is ultimately what makes this clear, at least to me. He seems amused and intrigued by the book, as if it holds answers. Furthermore, when he opens it and flips to pages, that’s when we see Gahyeon falling and SuA being attacked by a tree. He doesn’t appear to be causing these events but his ambivalence thereof seems to be a factor in why they’re still ongoing.

However, JiU, Handong, and Dami are consistently working at something, which ultimately appears to be bailing their friends out of their situation. I wouldn’t necessarily say they’re “higher up” or “more powerful” than their fellow members in this video but they seem to have more of an understanding of how their world works and how to manipulate it. That said, all seven of them seem to have some understanding of how to manipulate this world. SuA and Gahyeon seem victims of the world but that might just be because driving plot points of seven different characters is a tough thing to do. But the girls in the room clearly understand the magic at play, and Siyeon and Yoohyeon know how to get away from the people who are chasing them.

Why they’re being chased is ultimately unclear, and it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the fact that their previous song was called “Chase Me”. My money is on the chasers being general demons of the mirrored world. They are definitely trapped in that world against their will, but it is not apparent as to whether or not they ever get out of it. It appears that they do, or at least begin some sort of journey out of that world. If we presume that they’re dead, then maybe the mirrored world is some sort of purgatory or hell, and they have to move on, be it to heaven or to a reincarnated life. We don’t have much to go on to that end but it is a possibility.

“Good Night” tries to be more original than “Chase Me” was but falls short of its predecessor. However, that might have been beneficial to Dreamcatcher. “Fly High” came out not long after “Good Night” and that video has a lot of original elements, traditional horror, and K-Pop staples, making it a beautiful video. “Good Night” put the pieces in place for Dreamcatcher to explore more original ideas into their later videos, while still giving them a lot of room to grow. It is a great sequel in that respect, because it makes the viewer want to see more, and that, ultimately, is what a music video is there to do.

Dreamcatcher’s “Chase Me” – A Study in Debut

on January 27, 2019April 18, 2019 By francesca_ohop 2 Comments

In K-Pop, when a band debuts, it’s one of the defining moments of that band’s career. Whether it establishes a style or is the jumping off point for a variety of concepts that follow, a strong debut will be a factor in that band’s success later on. Of course that is not true for every band – Girls’ Generation’s debut was marked with a black ocean, where all of the audience members at a music show turned off their lightsticks. But it certainly was a defining moment for their careers nonetheless, especially when you consider the success that followed for them.

In 2017, the band Dreamcatcher went for an ambitious goal – a horror music video re-debut. Horror music videos, while not common in K-Pop, are certainly not unfamiliar. The most prominent ones that stick out to me are VIXX’s “Voodoo Doll” and Cross Gene’s “Black or White,” but there have certainly been others since then (though I would argue that the first truly successful and impactful horror MV was “Voodoo Doll”). But Dreamcatcher’s ambition comes from them being a female group, and them doing this as a debut music video. I consider this a debut because, even though Dreamcatcher did exist before this song, they existed under another group name, MINX. Their reformation signifies – at least for purposes of this analysis – a totally new group. Anyway, most K-Pop girl groups will usually go for a sugary sweet cutesy concept. On occasion, one will go for something sexy. There is nothing wrong with a particular approach, but doing something different on the first try could backfire tremendously on you.

That said, Dreamcatcher did not completely abandon the cutesy young girl group aesthetic or the mature sexy aesthetic. Their first video, “Chase Me”, was a curious blend of styles. The song itself was curious – a rock/pop song more akin to an anime theme than anything you would normally see in K-Pop. The vocals were strong, backed by heavy, fast guitar music, but with a playful, melodic edge that still worked with the girls beautifully. It was definitely the right song, for the right band. It certainly wouldn’t be for everybody – I can certainly see where K-Pop fans could get turned off since most music of the genre is more pop than pop rock. But there certainly is an audience for this style and Dreamcatcher makes it sound great.

The video sports an early 20th century vibe with some mid-to-late 20th century contextual items to make it seemingly timeless. The sets are beautifully ornate, in mostly dark colors, both cold and warm. The most common colors are darker shades of teal, green, blue, and gold, with the costumes in mainly black, white, or a maroon-red. The makeup is mostly pale on the girls, with red/dark pink lipstick mostly and black eyeliner, but nothing extravagant. This definitely coincides with most K-Pop makeup styles, but they do a better job in later videos of not whitewashing the girls. With all this in mind, the analysis can begin.S

Storywise, it’s a little hard to follow, but generally still easy enough that you’re not completely lost. The video opens with Jo Donghyuk, an actor brought on for this project, walking through a hallway. This could be an apartment but judging from the suitcase and the predisposition of the horror genre to associate hotels with hauntings, I’m going to just say it’s a hotel room. Donghyuk has a suitcase in one hand and a camera in the other, and films the room number, 808, before he enters. Right as he’s about to open the door, however, he sees JiU standing on the other end of the hall, holding a doll and wearing a white and gold dress.

Judging from the headwear, we can infer that she’s a nurse of some kind, or at least dressed as one. But that does call into question why she’s holding the doll if she’s dressed like an adult. I’m willing to buy that she’s dressed as a nurse for sheer aesthetic purposes – anyone who’s heard of Silent Hill will know that nurses are a staple of that franchise. However, I’d like to give this video a little more credit and say that there is a purpose for the costume choice.

In any event, Donghyuk films JiU, only for her not to appear on the camera, and then decides to ignore her and go inside his room. It’s a pretty standard hotel or apartment room, but it has ornate furniture. It actually, oddly enough, reminds me of Rubin Hall, a retrofitted dorm for New York University that used to be a hotel in the early 1900s. While a college dorm wouldn’t have such ornate furniture, the hardwood floors and decently high ceilings definitely allows the imagination to run wild, easily letting you picture what was there before.

Donghyuk takes out some papers and new clippings that he’s evidently collected over the years and tries to annotate them, but his pencil breaks. I mean, to be fair, he is sharpening his pencil with a knife. I wonder what elementary school he went to that taught children to use knives as pencil sharpeners.

Looking at the papers he’s reviewing, there’s some text, apparently in French and Italian, that reads:

“O.L. DE [covered]

88, Rue Osseghem,

BRUXELLES – 8

Belgique

Stmo. Signor DE RYNCK!”

Bruxelles is French for Brussels, Belgique is French for Belgium, and Signor is Italian for Mr., akin to the Spanish “Señor.” None of this appears to be a reference to anything in particular so I imagine this was written for the story that Dreamcatcher is trying to tell. The author of the letter is apparently writing from a hotel, judging from the stationary. It appears to be typewritten. Due to the weathered quality we can infer that this is probably not a recent letter, but something archival, or an heirloom of sorts. Behind the paper, we seen an envelope from the same hotel, but further behind that, we see something that reads PATIENT twice, and then some unintelligible letters, parts of words that are cut off. So the nurse’s outfit that JiU is wearing starts to make a bit more sense.

Of course, I’m neglecting the elephant in the room, the picture of the 7 dreamcatcher members sitting like they’re the Shining twins in white dresses. This is also weathered, and warrants the significance of being placed on top of this letter. I wouldn’t be surprised if the photograph came from the letter but there isn’t enough to go off of. This, does, however, note what everyone probably inferred at this point – we’re dealing with seven ghosts of young girls. If we want to stretch this a bit we could also make a guess as to where we are – either the Palme Lugano hotel that the letter game from, or Brussels, Belgium. But that’s still stretching it a bit.

Donghyuk proceeds to deal with a number of strange occurrences, precipitated by the ghosts of the girls he’s apparently seeking. SuA swings a pendant back and forth, in typical hypnotic fashion, while Donghyuk sleeps, but when he wakes up, he can’t see her. Siyeon holds the door closed and keeps him from leaving. Gahyeon throws some books off a shelf to startle him. Yoohyeon changes the numbers on all the doors so that they all say 808. JiU floats in the hallway, sensually posed and ominously staring at Donghyuk.

The only two who are seemingly absent from this are Handong and Dami. Handong gets a few inserts where she’s sitting on a table and there’s a lamp swinging around her. She’s also in the reflection of a window that Donghyuk is looking through. Dami is the subject of – and later participant – of a cult ritual involving the other girls, also an insert. The cult imagery is recurring in many of Dreamcatcher’s later videos.

The ritual image appears later in the video, towards the end, inside one of the hotel rooms and in a video format. However when it comes up, it’s not the ominous ritual with the girls in veils as it is in the insert during the rap break with Dami. Instead it’s bright, and cheerful. It seems as though the girls, though their pranks have been seemingly harmless in their afterlife, they were all involved in something a bit less harmless than that, but were still somewhat innocent.

The girls’ pranks end up backfiring on Donghyuk as he finds himself locked out of his hotel room, hallucinating himself without eyes, and being tormented by JiU. He rewatches the film of himself getting scared and crawling away from JiU who, as previously stated, is imperceptible by his camera. It’s not clear if this event is taking place before or after he gets locked out of his hotel room.

In any event, he is later forced to break into what appears to be his hotel room with an axe. However, when he breaks in, it doesn’t appear to be his room – the walls are light colored and the photograph of the girls is in a giant frame. We see some more flashbacks of the girls in that room specifically, having a pillow fight, then we see Donghyuk smile ominously. The screen then cuts to the band’s name, as well as the song’s name. Furthermore, the song playing at the end are the opening notes from their next song + music video, “Good Night”, which I’ll cover next week. Even if you didn’t know that, it seems that there is something more there, a lack of a resolution. I mean…there’s also a To Be Continued there, but the ominous smile makes it more interesting to me.

There are many elements here that make this video memorable. First and foremost the aesthetic of the whole video keeps you on your toes. I always applaud K-Pop videos for having the perfect color scheme and aesthetics. I find that many other music genres, while they may look pretty, don’t have the right colors to associate moods with. Sure, bright colors might indicate happiness, but just because you have the bright colors of a Xerox machine in your video doesn’t mean you actually use them well. Dreamcatcher’s color scheme is mostly on point. I say mostly because it suffers from Harry Potter syndrome – if you’ve seen The Deathly Hallows Part 2 you know that having too much oversaturated green isn’t the right thing to do to give a sense of tension. Dreamcatcher’s video has this issue, though to an infinitely lesser extent. It’s also fixed in “Good Night” so I’m willing to write this off as just first-video problems.

Let’s focus on the positives for a minute. The timeless nature makes it more mysterious. The practical lighting makes it feel more real. The ghosts have a playful aura about them and the protagonist is both bland enough and compelling enough to show be a good viewer-insert character. There’s plenty here to leave you wanting more.

However, no video is without sin and this video certainly has them. For one thing, the dance routine, while beautiful, is not shot well at all. Things move too quickly and there is some awkward slow motion segments that leave you ultimately confused. It makes the entire routine hard to focus on – which is a tragedy, because the dance is gorgeous. There is also the problem of too many flashing/flickering lights, which is something that many K-Pop videos suffer from. It feels like a lazy way of trying to ramp up the tension. That doesn’t mean it can’t be well done. VIXX’s “Voodoo Doll” is an example of it being done well – however, that video is more about horror than it is about playfulness, and the flashes are in different colors, so it’s not just blinking white lights. There is also a lack of soft focus. Everything feels almost too sharp and while that can come across as cinematic, the aspect ratio is wide so the sharpness comes across as artificial.

The video is still strong though, in spite of these problems. Each of the girls seems unique, though there isn’t a whole lot of overt personality showing. The inserts of the girls are cute, sexy, ominous, in whichever way best suits them. I think that JiU and SuA are most compelling here because their inserts are the best constructed and their costumes stick out the most. Furthermore, JiU is clearly relevant to the larger story these videos tell, so I kept my eye on her the whole time.

As stated earlier, “Chase Me” plays with notions of innocence, maturity, and sexuality well. It tries to balance the different themes, presumably for marketing, but also within the context of the story. Women’s sexuality is often characterized in the context of temptation and with JiU that seems particularly evident. It seems that if she is not tempting the male character, she’s mocking him for some reason. However, there is a juxtaposition here with the childish nature of the pillow fight scenes or the pranks that the girls pull. So regardless of the tempting nature of JiU in context, she still seems like a deep and nuanced character, because she has the capacity to be childish.

In terms of maturity there are multiple themes at play here. For one thing, horror always forces an adult growth in a character, or freezes a character in childishness. “Chase Me” does both. Even the playfulness of the characters seems mocking. Then there’s the fact that they manage to successfully do some sort of cult ritual. The cult ritual is shown with Dami as the main victim but also with dolls as victims. Eyes are ripped off of the teddy bear, and that in turn effects Donghyuk. So there is a subversion, or even rejection, of childhood.

Not only that, but there are plenty of references to horror films in this. I’ve mentioned numerous references to The Shining, but there are even more. There’s the rug being hexagonal, and while this isn’t the same pattern as The Shining (or by extension Toy Story since the pattern is used in that as well) it definitely is a callback to that. There is of course the use of cameras, a la The Ring or Paranormal Activity. But what got me most was Donghyuk losing his eyes in the mirror. It appears to be a reference to Poltergeist, where a character hunting a ghost watches himself decay in a mirror and literally tears his flesh off. When I first saw that scene, I was fifteen, and scared out of my mind. The effect had looked cheesy at the time but body horror has always stopped my heart. The films that are supposedly alluded to, or at least came to mind for me, all have something to do with maturity or children, particularly The Shining and Poltergeist. The eye thing could also be a reference to SHINee’s “Married to the Music” where everyone loses a body part – Kibum loses his body, Minho loses his head, Jonghyun loses his mouth, Onew loses his nose, and Taemin loses his eyes. I find this unlikely, but hey, it is K-Pop, so maybe this was something that they thought of.

Screenshot from SHINee’s “Married to the Music” for comparison

There’s something else – disguising tension as fear. There’s a video by YouTuber Dan Root that elaborates on this concept further in the context of video games. The case study that’s used is Metroid, specifically Metroid Fusion. Dan Root states that using techniques to increase tension but masking them behind story elements related to fear in turn causes you to feel fear. A similar principle holds to “Chase Me”. I would not say that “Chase Me” is particularly scary, but it is definitely unsettling, and you get the sense that the protagonist is scared. It can’t be too scary because it’s trying to work with a number of other themes, but it manages to make you feel unsettled on the first viewing.

Overall, the video is well done, despite the flaws that stick out. Again, it’s easy to be forgiving when it’s a debut. Super Junior’s “Twins” has some of the worst hair styles ever and immensely cheesy effects but, since they’ve gone above and beyond that since, no one cares that there were glaring issues with those videos. (It was also 2005 and I would argue that while K-Pop was fully formed musically, the genre was still undergoing its music video puberty.)

It makes it truly admirable, that Dreamcatcher was able to pull off something so memorable on the first round. They kept this up with later videos, making sure to elaborate on the story, and add more cinematic qualities. But “Chase Me” has charm to it, charm that could only come from a new group. It makes their growth that much more meaningful, but at the same time is hard to surpass. Their next song, “Good Night”, would have a video that gave even more insight into the world these characters live in, but still take another direction. And as we’ll see next week, it pays off.