Author: jiahe zhen

Posted on

Video analysis for “party” mv by Girls’ Generation

In this video analysis, the main characteristics of “party” will be introduced and analyzed involving self-breakthrough, sexual exposures, social media influences and cultural interactions.

 

“Party” is a music video recorded by Girls’ Generation as the lead single for their fifth albumLion Heart on July 7,2015. This mv was shoot in Ko Samui, Tailand and shows beach scenes in which members have happy party time. And soon after the release, “party” gained almost all first prize in major music broadcasting including KBS‘s Music Bank, MBC‘s Show! Music Core, and SBS‘ Inkigayo.

 

The breakthrough is undoubtedly one of the crucial reasons for success. The “party” used a lot of elements of styling and scene setting that is seldom employed in traditional K-pop music videos. The genre of this song is oriented to Bubblegum pop or electropop. Lyrically, it showsgirls are calling for an exciting and long-lasting seaside party. Group members are wearing Bohemian tops, denim shorts and hair accessories that match with the holiday beach style. These elements contribute to depict a warm and active party atmosphere that is very fresh and attractive for audiences. In the highly competitive k-pop industry, it is not an easy job to always come up with creative and novel production to grab audiences’ attention.

 

Girls’ Generation have already established great market impact and fanbase at the time this mv is launched, which means that body exposure is no longer an essential strategy for them to attract audiences and increase popularity. however, from this music movie we can still see some trails of K-pop obsession with long legs. Although it is reasonable to wear swimsuit and clothes with some body exposure in beach scene setting, we should be aware that bare female legs are being used as marketing tool and branding technique to build enticing female body images and “impeccably executed” Korea female idols in K-pop (Epstein and Joo 2012, 14).The physical perfection increase the anxiety and dissatisfaction about body image among audiences and build a transnational imagination for Korean ‘beauty’ and ‘femininity’ for international audiences (Epstein and Joo 2012, 2).

 

It’s worth noting that this is the first time that Girls’ Generation appears in swimsuit in official mv shooting since their debuting. This first try is proved to be successful. Immediately after the preview is published, “Girls’ Generation Swimsuit” hit the real-time search list. This suggests that the strong presence of K-pop idols on social media like Twitter and Facebook has accelerated the promotion of Hallyu transnationally. Also with the deployment of K-pop fans, messages from famous idols including photos and videos become even more visible in international social media spaces and become a dynamic how K-pop stars enlarge their popularity and influence (Jung 2015,74).

 

Apart from domestic success, “party” also acquires mass views on YouTube as well as substantial digital downloads in overseas market. This attributes to the internationalized elements of styling, music production and choreography. “Party” use Korean and English mixing lyrics and this strategy can be used in cultural hybridization to improve the globalization of K-pop culture (Jin and Ryoo 2014, 128). Besides, as suggested by Otmazgin, people shared the same living experience or cultural immersions are more likely to resonate even with transnational identity (2016,2). The “party” mv depicts scenes where young girls dressed up, party and drinking lemon soju, mojito and tequila. Although some mv scenarios are well-rehearsed and never happens naturally in daily life, audiences feel familiar and cordial

when they see these similarities. This is very beneficial in closing the gap between K-pop idols and transnational fans and therefore, enhance the power of hallyu.

 

Bibliogapghy:

Epstein, Stephen, and Rachael M. Joo. “Multiple Exposures: Korean Bodies and the Transnational Imagination.” The Asia-Pacific Journal10, no. 33 (2012): 1-24.

Jin, Dal Yong, and Woongjae Ryoo. “Critical Interpretation of Hybrid K-Pop: The Global-Local Paradigm of English Mixing in Lyrics.” Popular Music and Society37, no. 2 (2012): 113-31.

Jung, Eun-Young. “New Wave Formations: K-Pop Idols, Social Media, and the Remaking of the Korean Wave.” In Haley 2.0: The Korean Wave in the Age of Social Media, edited by Sangjoon Lee and Abé Mark Nornes. 73-89. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2015.

Otmazgin, Nissim Kadosh. “A New Cultural Geography of East Asia: Imagining a ‘region’ through Popular Culture.” The Asia-Pacific Journal14, no. 7 (2016): 1-12.

Posted on

Literature application essay for required reading by Turnbull

This article pointedout the phenomenon that Korean commercials are highly dominated by celebrity endorsementsand presents less creativitycompared to western advertising cultures. (Turnbull 2017,128) However, in my perspective, this is an inevitable advertising trend developed under Korean instinctive television celebrity culture and idol system.

As the author suggested, in Korean television celebrity culture, idols or other artists are usually the main characters on infotainments(Turnbull 2017,130). Similarly, for commercials, celebrity endorsements are good strategies to attract audiences with celebrity’s popularity. For fans, advertisement is another opportunity to ‘reach’ their idols andsee their idols’ human side(Turnbull 2017,130). The author also indicates that the K-pop idol system has high investment for trainees before debuting but low payback from musical productions, this encourage entertainment companies to chase for profits from commercials endorsements and sexualized performances(Turnbull 2017,132). Therefore, as long as the 15-second advertising slots can successfully catch consumer’s eye and achieve the same or better advertising effect, the merchant will be happy to save the budget for a creative commercial.

However, accompanied by the fast development of media and commercial mode, celebrity endorsement can be no longer at the expense of creativity. For example, Girls’ Generation, as one of the most influential Korean girl groups, has played an important role in leading K-pop and Hallyu through recordings, concerts, and TV shows in the past decade. In 2014, Innisfree, invited one of the group member, Lim YoonA, to be their global brand ambassador. YoonA’s fresh and pure image is highly in line with the brand concept about beauty and has made great contributions to the promotion of the Innisfree brand. Although a large proportion of the endorsement commercials are still in the model of “Just beautiful people holding a bottle”, long and creative advertising videos telling stories between ambassador and brand are also produced to fulfill the interest of customers who are expecting another chance to see their idols in longer vedios.

Bibliography:

Turnbull, James. “Just Beautiful People Holding a Bottle: The Driving Forces behind South Korea’s Love of Celebrity Endorsement.” Celebrity Studies8, no. 1 (2017): 128-35.

Posted on

Cover vedio short essay by Jiahe Zhen

In the experience of making this cover video, I get a chance to understand K-pop music videos from the perspectives of idols and producers.

  Lil touch, the music video we imitated, is a song from girls’ generation’s latest album. The content of the mv is quite attractive, with skilled singing and dancing, delicate styling and affluent scene changes. It is not an easy job to take so many things into consideration as non-professionals. I learned how fast the movements in the dance are and how exhausting it is to rehearsal again and again. This also suggests that idols must have spent lots of time practicing singing and dancing before finally they are able to give perfect performance to audiences. When we start to brainstorm everything, I realized that how difficult it can be for producers to come up with creative and remarkable scenarios to compete in such a flourishing industry. I can also imagine that for real producers, they have even more aspects to preconceive before actions, such as artists’ availability, property, recording facilities, assistants and even budget. This is a complex but usually overlooked process. Thanks to the significant contributions made by these behind-the-scene staff, K-pop can develop at tremendous speed and acquire so many fandoms worldwide.

Although limited by resources, we try our best to use a lot of scenes in campus to match the ones appears in the original mv. And I can see the strong willingness and great efforts by group members to do a good job saluting to this iconic girls’ group. Making this cover video is an interesting and impressive experience as we managed to complete our music video with so limited equipments and understood K-pop practitioners’ work better.

Posted on

4B: How is the K-pop industry’s concept of liveness, as shaped by live broadcasting models and live voting practices (discussed by Kim Suk-young in chapter 2) a commentary on its expectations for both domestic and global fan behavior?

‘Liveness’, as one of the most symbolic characteristic of K-pop, has derived a lot of successful broadcasting programs like SBS’ Music Bank and MBC’s Music Core. Accompanied by the rising of multiple new media platforms, K-pop fans no longer stick to traditional music chart shows and voting operations. Varieties of novel programs and interactions are launched by entertainment program producers to enlarge the influence of K-pop domestically and globally. Also, fans are also expected to be more supportive to contribute towards idols’ successful careers.

The aspect of ‘liveness’ portrayed by the live performances is what excites the fans. However, although announced to be ‘live’, many K-pop programs achieves neither ‘live broadcasting’ nor ‘live voting’ (Kim 2018,70). In the production process, the performance or interactions between idols and fans are supposed to be happened spontaneously. However, the truth is that all the scenes are coordinated and rehearsed well before recording. In order to make sure songs and songs are linked closely and avoid any possible accidents, only performances from famous groups with sufficient stage experience are live while the others are pre-recorded. Fans who are able to show off great love and enthusiasm are invited and instructed before interacting with idols to realize maximization of program effect. To achieve spectacular visual performance for non-live audiences, K-pop artists usually rehearse repeatedly before final recoding and sometimes lip-sync singing is used when they need to dance at the same time. Similarly, in the voting session, it is also not surprised to see pre-existing scores weigh heavier than live voting scores. The former usually depends on music sales, click volume and viewers’ committee voting score. For example, in Music Core, voting from live audiences only counts for 15 percent of total (Kim 2018,71).  In this circumstance, fans are expected to support financially by purchasing album, instantly clicking on mv on video websites like YouTube as well as posting more topics or tags on social media to call upon popularity and supports for their idols.

As Korean government started taking a keen interest at the rate at which live performances were registering a rise in the global dimensions. They stood to gain from the possible increase in sales of the music from their k-pop stars. This gives global fans who are far from live shows great chances to get in touch with their idols and acquire the feeling of liveness. The ASC from Arirang Tv is a good example how K-pop broadcasting attract global fans with multi-language content, proper broadcast time and varieties of interactions via international social media (Kim 2018,76) .

As one of the most attractive aspect in K-pop performance, liveness has been significantly enhanced by new broadcasting forms and advanced media technologies. However, these also requires fans to keep pace with the developments and support their idols in both traditional and emerging ways.

Bibliography:

  • Kim, Suk-Young. K-pop Live: Fans, Idols, and Multimedia Performance. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2018.

Spam prevention powered by Akismet