Finding the location and doing the videography for my team’s dance cover of Block B – “Yesterday” were such a new and fascinating experience that I have never had after 10 years being exposed to K-pop.
Discovering a perfect place in Vancouver that has images of the bumblebee – the iconic mascot of Block B and their fandom, made me feel very happy. Some people might think that, when filming a dance cover, it is unnecessary to make so much effort to find the locations. What should be focused are the costumes and precise choreography. As a result, most of the K-pop dance covers were filmed at very basic places like studios, streets, parks, or in front of simply decorated walls. However, I think having a shooting location that can provide the intertextuality with the K-pop group to the viewers would make the dance cover more special and interesting to watch.
Regarding the videography, it was the first time that I have done such professional filming like this. After holding the heavy camera to make multiple recordings, I realized that all these times I might have been consuming K-pop video products like instant food, or in other words, taking them for granted. My attention when watching K-pop music videos is often to the idol looks, choreographies and costumes. I somehow ignore the fact that to make a quality music video, shooting contexts and concepts are also important, and more essentially the efforts of the video production team should be given greater recognition. Despite having watched many K-pop MV’s behind-the-scenes and knowing that the 4-minute music video I was watching had been the hard works of both the idols and many other staffs in 2-3 days in a row, it was not until directly being involved in the production did I practically understand it.
To sum up, making this cover video in ASIA 327 is certainly one of the things that I would never forget during my exchange at UBC. It definitely makes me love and appreciate the precious values that K-pop has been brought to the audiences more than ever before.
Block B 