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Music

Diamonds, Afghan Hounds, And K-Pop: Digipedi's New Video For Seo In-Young

The Korean directors describe the concept and production process behind K-pop’s favorite Seo In-Young’s “Let’s Dance.”

The mavericks behind some of K-pop’s more eccentric music videos, 1MORETIME and OROSHI of Digipedi, have been busy expanding into a trio with their third member Wondersiung, and heading the visual direction for K-pop fashion icon Seo In-Young‘s much anticipated comeback. Neon, diamonds, and random street culture references accompany Seo’s transformation in her upbeat ballad “Anymore.”

Most recently, Digipedi created the above video for In-Young’s electro disco number “Let’s Dance,” with art direction from OKEH of Korean street label Buried Alive. The visual aesthetic is an ultra-cheesed out combination of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Mark Ronson’s “Bang Bang Bang.” Infusing the galactic diamond theme from the first release, this video takes In-Young on a voyage exploring the Planet of Diamonds with her dog-headed co-pilot and group of back-up dancers, this time with more neon and lasers, along with cameos from Pink Panther and Miss Piggy. It’s kind of difficult to fully grasp the concept without a little background, so we got Digipedi to share a few behind-the-scenes photos and explain the project to us more in-depth.

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The Creators Project: What sort of concept were you going for in “Let’s Dance?”
Digipedi: It’s a simple story about Seo In-Young finding a diamond and then riding in a diamond spaceship to a diamond planet. The music video takes inspiration from, and carries the tone of, 80s and 90s sci-fi films.

Simple indeed. What about the dog? Can you elaborate a bit more on that?
It’s an Afghan hound. It was very nice and listened very well. Because these dogs are so smart, I’ve heard they can fly scapeships.

Compared to your other works, it seems like you spent some more time with computer graphics and post-production. Any particular software or hardware you used? How did the production process unfold?
The handmade props were already taken care of by the stage team. The cockpit, diamond dance floor, and periscope were made beforehand and used on set. Everything else was polished off with CG. Not all of it is CG though. We borrowed and used as much as we could from the production processes used on set for those 80s and 90s sci-fi films. Aside from that, we used Photoshop for retouching and used After Effects to composite the exterior of the spaceship and space setting with the filmed footage.

Does this video relate in any way to the first collaborative project with Seo In-Young, “Anymore?” That music video emphasizes a lot of transformations for the artist.
In a nutshell, “Anymore” represents “Seo In-Young without the heels.” Looking at a concentrated vacuum of various Seo In-Young characters, it portrays the first steps of a commercial singer becoming an actual musician. The broken diamond makes its first appearance in this music video. “Let’s Dance” explores this position as a musician. Stepping away from Seo In-Young’s image as a singer, we wanted to experiment more boldly. The difference between the two films would be the way of expression. But they also differentiate the difficulties of a solo artist, while at the same time celebrating her as an independent artist and not being in a girl group. Additionally, we couldn’t forget that she’s this generation’s representative fashion icon.

Aside from the fashion, the set design also had a lot of different references. OKEH of Buried Alive handled the art direction. How intimately did you work together?
We had known about OKEH’s artwork for quite some time and had even met a few times. When we went to the first meeting for this project, we were stoked to see him. The music video concept was completely made through us, but OKEH provided a lot of good feedback. Knowing a lot about subculture and today’s trends, OKEH’s personal pieces were used to fill up the “Anymore” set. Whether on a music video or not, it would be awesome to work with him again.

Can we expect more works with Seo? What else have you been up to these days?
As far as we know, we don’t have any futher projects with Seo. However, she is a very talented musician and it would be cool to work together again. Right now, we are working with another Korean artist but can’t really talk about it just yet. We’re also doing another music video with Kero One and in the middle of another one with Canadian group Dirty Radio. And finally, we’re working on a collaboration album with JINBO. Look out for it!

@CreatorsProject