Interview with AKMU's melted director,
Melted, the music video you directed for Akdong Musician got a lot of people talking when it was released. Can you explain to us a little bit about what you were trying to express with this music video?
Akdong is not your typical YG, as you know. The boss, YG, picked his favourite song for their album title and then let Akdong pick their favourite song as a double title. I got the song Akdong picked which I guess made sense since I’m also pretty new to the scene like Akdong and my style isn’t typically what you would expect from the label.
So it really felt like YG was putting their trust in us and letting us do our thing. Both I and the kids first thought it shouldn’t feature any grownups because the song’s lyrics are rather abstract and the whole thing should just be abstract. I was going to go to Iceland and just shoot them singing on a boat amongst the icebergs. 
But YG wanted it to be direct. He felt that since the song was too abstract, the video should show what they are talking about
: the grownups. So I needed to find a way to show the grownups empathetically without being judgmental, because that’s not what Akdong is singing about. The kids are asking ‘Why are you cold?’ so I sort of tried to come up with the answer.
The one thing that I want to talk about is the FedEx paradigm. In every video I make I try to put in some experiment of my own which I’m sure people don’t even care about. This one is the FedEx box. If you see a FedEx commercial, there is a box which is being delivered through people’s hands. We follow the box but it’s not the main character. We see those people’s backgrounds and at the end it opens and now it’s about the box.
For this video, we follow the boy but the boy is just the box. I shot every scene as if the supporting character was the main character for that scene. I don’t know if you realised but every scene is shot in such a way that the boy is always just an extra. But it is all connected and we sort of feel for the boy and in the end it becomes his story. If I had made it about the boy it would have been too corny with all the ‘Oh look at all these grownups, they’re so mean’ but I think we did ok with the experiment because you don’t really feel that way. You empathise with character and you kind of feel that the boy is a bit naive but you still know what he’s going through.
What’s it like working with YG? How much creative control and freedom are you given?
Oh yeah, they’re the best client. I started working with them last winter and now I just want to go with them as long as I can. It’s really tough since everything happens so fast all the time. But at the same time, YG gives you complete creative freedom with just a few general guidelines so I can do my little experiments while being assured it’s all going to be okay as long as I follow their guidance. I haven’t worked with other K-pop labels yet but, from what I’ve heard, idols don’t really talk, you know? It’s all the executives and the marketing people who come up with ideas.
But with YG I have meetings with the artists themselves and can get inspiration from how they see their music. I think this kind of set-up is almost non-existent on the scene, it’s just YG. Total respect.
they didn't deserve that downfall in japan
