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| ▲ This photo, provided by SM Entertainment, shows aespa. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ This photo, provided by SM Entertainment, shows a scene from a video "Next Level," the second episode of aespa's world view. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ This photo, provided by SM Entertainment, shows a scene from a video "Next Level," the second episode of aespa's world view. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
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| ▲ This photo, provided by SM Entertainment, shows a scene from a video "Next Level," the second episode of aespa's world view. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap) |
SEOUL, July 10 (Yonhap) -- “Even though world view has been set up, there is high chance of getting it wrong because each member has different understanding. To solve this problem, we even educate people by making materials about the world view. Once the content is understood in a wrong direction, it is irreversible.” (Lead Producer Mo Na-ri)
aespa, the hottest K-pop girl group for MZ generation these days, has their secret weapon. It is their detailed storyline based on the concept of avatar, which has been built up since their debut in 2020.
The story includes members of aespa in the reality, four avatar members called “ae,” a villain “Black Mamba” who interrupts the SYNK between members in reality and avatar members, “nævis” who supports aespa, and the story with all these characters takes place in “KWANGYA.”
SM Entertainment succeeded in meticulously weaving such unfamiliar settings into a huge virtual world called SMCU (SM Culture Universe), and sharing it to fans of K-pop through song lyrics, music videos, and video contents about the world view.
This unique virtual world of SM quickly put aespa over the top, by targeting the hearts of K-pop fans all over the world.
Recently, at the office building of SM Entertainment in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, there was an interview with producers of SMCU, including Director Park Jun-young, and Lead producer Mo Na-ri and Kim Hyun-woo.
The Lead producer Mo Na-ri said, “There’s a secret book about the world view somewhere in this building,” witly adding, “If the story is not written, the recording work, which must be done based on it, cannot be started. Therefore, we are playing the role of villains, heavily responsible for completing the storyline.”
As Mo mentioned, unlike other idol groups which mainly focus on singing and dancing and building up world views based on them, aespa put the completion of the storyline as the top priority. While SM Entertainment has built up the unique world view through EXO or NCT, they started establishing the actual storyline of SMCU when planning on the debut of aespa.
Director Park Jun-young said, “It needs to be prepared for a long time for such story to be released,” adding, “We tried to promote SMCU by giving an avatar concept to aespa, who debuted under a prepared planning.”
Park then added, “We not only tried to distinguish each avatar member of aespa, but also offer own character personality to each avatar.”
Ahead of the release of aespa’s second mini album “Girls,” SM released the second episode of their world view, “Next Level,” which got favorable reviews. The 20-minute-long video showed no less than a Hollywood animation.
Park explained, “We pondered on the optimized drawing style in expressing the story of aespa members’ performing ‘hallucination quest’ of Black Mamba.”
Mo mentioned, “Black Mamba, the creature of both ideological and physical character, tries to break the link between humans and avatars,” further explaining, “It is expressed through a hologram in shape of a professor or a black snake. Still, there are stories which haven’t been unraveled yet because we’ve been only focusing on aespa as of now.”
In addition, Mo hinted that “The story of aespa will be continued after ‘Girls’,” adding, “A villain which is indispensable to the world view of aespa will soon appear, which might be similar to Black Mamba, or maybe not.”
In fact, it has been a long time since SM Entertainment has been interested in “the world beyond” such as metaverse (virtual world) or avatar.
In 2000, SM spoke of “my own network world” through a debut song of BoA, “ID; PeaceB,” and two years earlier, an alien virtual world appeared in a music video of “Dreams Come True,” a title song of S.E.S.’s second full length album released in 1998.
It was not a coincidence that the “metaverse girl group” aespa released a remake song of “Dreams Come True” on last December.
Park said, “Since the release of “Dreams Come True” of S.E.S., we have been conveying the concept of avatar and another ego of myself,” emphasizing, “Whether it’s alien or not, we were keep bringing up the subject of another universe besides us.”
Moreover, Park said, “The executive producer Lee Soo-man has been working on this idea for 20 years,” adding, “We are now establishing and organizing the story upon the debut of aespa, and trying to connect the universe of each artist group by introducing diverse contents.”
Lead producer Kim Hyun-woo said, “Lee Soo-man tries to put a message in songs. He always deliberated how culture should accept the future world of science and technology. Pondering on the “culture of future,” Lee thought about how to send a message to the public through music contents.
The key space of SMCU is “KWANGYA.” This is where aespa members join forces with their avatars and defeat Black Mamba.
In terms of “KWANGYA,” Park explained, “It is an amorphous and promiscuous space, which is not fixed for each scene. It is where digital fragments are recombined.”
It is said that Lee Soo-man, the executive producer of SM Entertainment, advised, “I hope ‘KWANGYA’ could be expressed into the world where people can enjoy diverse activities.”
This means that SM has introduced an “open world” without limits to broaden the scope of imagination, because it will not be interesting enough if the “frame” of the world is fixed.
It was a big concern for producers that there is no standard in imagination but there is a limit to technology. Although the imaging technology has advanced remarkably compared to the days of S.E.S., there is still some limits when expressing all of the ideas.
Park mentioned, “To be honest, we are still lacking in technology, and it also costs a lot,” adding, “Without technological constraints, I would like to make stereoscopic videos more realistically, and want to make it feel like I’m in ‘KWANGYA’ by realizing 4D technology which stimulates ‘another sense’ besides vision and hearing.”
As well as songs, music videos, and YouTube videos, SM is also planning to broaden its story of world view into webtoons, games, movies, and dramas through IP (Intellectual Property).
Park said, “Of course, we are looking into the possibility of launching games,” pointing out, “Yet, we will not rush because we are trying to make it ‘firmly,’ rather than clumsy. It is important to think about how we can create the complete content so that the public can empathize with it.”
Park commented, “Why wouldn’t we want to make contents like ‘SMCU drama series?’ We are gradually building up the basement of this story starting with aespa. We have ‘tons of’ stories to unravel, which are already written into text. Of course, I can’t tell you the details here. Haha.”
(This article is translated from Korean to English by Kim Jimin.)
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