Last Saturday, BTS appeared on SBS 8 News.
It was the first press interview after setting a record of being number one on the Billboard Singles Chart for 8 consecutive weeks, from 'Butter' to 'Permission to Dance'.
(Today, I heard the news that 'Butter' swapped places with 'Permission to Dance' and took 1st place. It has been 1st for 9 weeks in a row. ) BTS had a conversation with SBS 8 News anchor Kim Yong-tae on the weekend about their feelings about the record. , thank you to the fans, a small meeting that has continued non-face-to-face performances in the era of Corona, and the presidential special envoy, etc.
My name is Kim Soo-hyun, who was in charge of BTS's July 24 SBS 8 News anchor talk project.
I named this project '724 Project', and the reason I took on this project is because I am a reporter who has been writing articles for BTS since the end of 2018.
I have experienced many departments, but I have spent the longest time in the Ministry of Culture, covering a wide range of performances, mainly classical music, dance, theater, musical and Korean traditional music.
In addition to the news, I am in charge of the newsroom podcast 'Curtain Call'.
▶ Go to Curtain Call
How the 724 project was accomplished is my 'trade secret', so I won't go into details.
However, the preparation period was extremely short and it was a project that was carried out like crazy.
There are a lot of people involved in the reporting department, 8 news editorial department, new media, video coverage and video editing, writers, CG team, set team, public relations team, security team, etc.
Personally, the experience of working in the SDF planning department, the social contribution forum of SBS, and the cultural business-related department, as well as writing articles, was very helpful.
The article went out with my name on it, but since it's a project that many people have worked hard on, I'm going to write a review.
Now that the interview news video, full video, and behind-the-scenes video have all been released, there are some things that many people are curious about, so I want to answer your questions.
▶ Interview news video
▶ Interview full video
▶ Behind the scenes video
1. Is there an ARMY in the SBS news production team?
Yes. You saw it right away. Without ARMY's 'collective intelligence', the 724 Project could not have been done properly. As BTS often says, "It's all thanks to ARMY."
As a reporter covering BTS, I am not an ‘army’ but a ‘favorable observer’. If I'm an 'Army', the reason I write articles for BTS (to borrow RM's expression) is because it seems to be 'flat'. I'm not writing BTS articles because I'm an ARMY, I'm writing them because I think they have value as a reporter. As a reporter, you have to be objective. However, it is also true that even if you are not a 'fan' like ARMY, it is difficult to come up with good articles if you do not have interest and affection for the subject of the report. It cannot be said that it is the case in all fields, but in my experience, at least in the field of culture, good articles, whether praise or criticism, all come from interest and affection.
My full-fledged interest in BTS started around 2018. 'Mom, is Debussy famous?' It started with my daughter's question. At that time, I wrote the Internet coverage file 'Classic in BTS World', and after returning to the Ministry of Culture, I went a little further and wrote an article on SBS 8 News, 'Classic humanities code hidden in BTS music and video'.
▶ Classic in BTS World
▶ 'Classic and Humanities Code hidden
in BTS
' music and video'
There are many ARMYs in the cultural world that I mainly cover. There are ARMYs everywhere in the company. When I write articles about BTS, I often seek ARMY's opinions. Because I think that it is difficult for any reporter or critic to know BTS as well as ARMY. So, it means that I have an unofficial 'Army Advisory Group' (?). It sounds grandiose, but it's just a group chat room where people who like BTS share new news or interesting videos, and talk about living in the world. The BTS fans around me, around this gathering, played a very important role in this 724 project.
In 2018, when BTS first appeared on SBS 8 News, there was a report that the chair was unsatisfactory, so this time it should be taken care of. I found out that the anchor desk in the center of the news studio wasn't big enough to seat all seven members, so I decided to put 7 chairs on the side of the studio, but there were no suitable chairs at the time, so they borrowed it in a hurry. So, I asked the department in charge to secure a good chair in advance this time. In purple if possible. I was trying to get a purple chair, but where did I get it?
Purple is the color that has become the symbol of BTS.
BTS and ARMY use the word 'Look at it' a lot.
In this 'Permission to Dance' music video, a purple balloon flying high in the sky represents hope for the end of Corona.
Why is it purple, and the reason is shown in this full interview video.
As ARMYs already know, it was fun to hear V's story again.
I did not talk about anchor Kim Yong-tae, but he came out wearing a purple tie himself.
In addition to the background set in which BTS' album jacket images are cast in purple, the media pole on the first floor of the lobby decorated in yellow of 'butter', as well as the wall in the hallway where BTS will move, photos of BTS' appearance in SBS Inkigayo last year are displayed. I enlarged it and made a sign board and pasted it.
It was to create high-quality and colorful videos, and to create an 'atmosphere' where BTS could comfortably tell their stories.
These things are on the screen, but the broadcast also requires a lot of 'details of the process' that aren't on the screen.
The details that I would never have been able to take care of if I were alone were the result of ARMY's 'collective intelligence'.
2. Questions made by ARMYs
The same was true when writing the news script and composing the video. Not only me, the reporter in charge, and the scriptwriter, but a lot of people put their heads together. In fact, there are many concerns when dealing with BTS in the news. Since ARMY knows so much about BTS, they can't be bothered by news that conveys general information. However, the news should also contain information for many people who are not familiar with BTS.
Broadcast news is often criticized for being focused only on delivering the 'record' of BTS. It is a reasonable point, but it is also true that there is a limit to talking in depth in a news report, which is usually around two minutes at most. It is natural for BTS fans to want to hear the news for a long time, but in general news, it is difficult to devote time to general news as it has to deal with other news as well.
The news airing time of this interview was about 16 minutes, so it was an incredibly long time compared to the usual reports, but the 'interlocutory' format was also difficult. We had to prepare questions that ARMYs are curious about and general questions together, and distribute them to the seven members. And even if they didn't perfectly match their portions, they had to be evenly distributed to some extent. We also prepared some light questions that are not for the news, but will be included in the YouTube video. But when it comes to the actual recording, of course, it didn't go according to the script.
The first recording time we discussed with Hive was about 40 minutes, but it took over an hour, including moving from the waiting room to the studio, and talking in advance.
I had to edit it to 16 minutes and air it.
After the recording was over, there were about 2 hours left before the 8 o'clock news, which was delayed due to the Olympic broadcast.
As those of you who know the broadcast will guess, it is by no means easy to compress and edit an hour's worth of recordings taken with multiple cameras into 16 minutes within this time frame.
It was 'a godsend' to call a stenographer on the advice of a colleague who had experienced this kind of situation.
Three editors shared and edited the shorthand script, and even made subtitles and CGs until the very last minute.
There are some details that I didn't prepare and write in advance because time is so tight.
The news was centered on 'summarizing the main points', so there are parts where it feels a little stiff and the flow is interrupted.
I myself regret that I could have edited it a bit more smoothly if I had enough time, but the risk of not meeting the broadcast time was too great if I was obsessed with the details.
If you watch the full 44-minute interview video, you can meet more rich stories.
Due to time constraints, we were not able to answer all the questions we had prepared, but we hope that this interview, which was conducted for the first time among the media worldwide since the Billboard record was written, was an opportunity to answer your questions with the stories BTS personally told.
3. ARMY is everywhere.
While working on the 724 project, I realized that 'Army is everywhere'.
It is dizzying to think of what would have happened without their dedicated help and participation.
I also felt thrilled while watching the ARMY's comments written in all languages on the live news YouTube broadcast in real time flowed like a wave in real time.
When I went to work on Monday, people I didn't know well said, 'I also like BTS,' and said they enjoyed watching the news.
This is the first time I got to know the ARMYs who were hiding everywhere.
There are ARMYs among the acquaintances outside the company, and they all asked, 'When are you going to add English subtitles to the full video?'
Someone asked me on Twitter too.
I contacted the relevant department to confirm that there is a plan for English subtitles and posted an answer.
After a while, I was surprised to find that my tweets were being retweeted at an insanely fast rate.
As soon as the full interview video came out on Saturday night, there was a YouTube channel that was copied without permission (they hijacked the program name 'Run BTS' and pretended to be a Hive operating channel).
This channel was able to get close to 200,000 views by freely taking the sweaty videos of countless producers, including myself.
I was upset and posted it on Twitter, and many fans were concerned.
It turns out that this is a channel that ARMYs reported several times as well.
SBS reported it and now you can't watch this video.
From now on, SBS's BTS articles must be on the official SBS news channel!
please.
4. Is Kim Yong-tae's anchor an ARMY?
In this interview, many people praised anchor Kim Yong-tae's smooth progress and preparation.
Anchor Kim Yong-tae is in the same department as me, and he sits in front of me, and we see each other often, but this time, I also came to know the 'charm' of anchor Kim Yong-tae anew.
This is the second interview with BTS after 2018, so where is this lucky anchor?
Thanks to this, we even became friends with Jin and older brother.
▶
Although there was a pre-written questionnaire for the
full video of BTS interview in 2018, if
anchor Kim Yong-tae himself hadn't been well prepared, he wouldn't have been able to proceed with the situation so quickly.
It was a bit clumsy, but I sang a few verses of 'Permission to Dance' and also did a sign dance.
There was a comment saying, 'I was friendly because I was like the head of a drunken karaoke room'.
There are people who wonder if Kim Yong-tae is also an ARMY anchor, but I don't know.
However, in the behind-the-scenes video, there was a scene in which J-Hope even referred to the 'family affair' and said 'I recently joined the school'.
5. How do you feel about meeting BTS in person?
Even as a BTS reporter, I have never met BTS. I've seen concerts held at Jamsil Sports Complex, and I've seen online concerts and press conferences many times, but it seems a bit difficult to say 'we met'. Did we meet this time? When we were recording, we could see them coming into the studio up close. Oh, right before the recording in the studio, I greeted RM, who was talking with anchor Kim Yong-tae, that I was the reporter in charge, so RM could literally say 'we met for a while'.
After the broadcast, I cleaned up and left work late on a Saturday night, and my daughter said, 'How about seeing BTS in person?' I asked. I said, 'Yeah, it's just like what's on TV'. Most of the time I saw BTS was through the relief monitor screen next to the studio. It is true that I saw it in front of my eyes, but whether I saw it or not, there was no sense of reality and I could not remember well. I think it was because I was so busy that my soul went out. I asked her what was the answer and explained to her smiling daughter that it meant, 'He is handsome, humble, and well-spoken in real life as if he was on TV'.
Many acquaintances asked why you didn't appear on the show. However, since this project was a conversation between SBS 8 News anchor and BTS, there was no reason for a reporter to appear. As a working person in charge of the 724 project, my task was to successfully complete the preparation, recording, editing, and transmission of the interview in advance. I couldn't say it was perfect, but Still, I was relieved because there was a lot of positive response right after the broadcast.
I replayed the full interview video. I had already seen it on the monitor in the field, but it was interesting to see it again. I was happy because I could feel the positive energy and sincerity of thinking about the fans. As the corners of my lips went up, it felt like the tension, stress, and fatigue that had accumulated over the past few days had gone away. While watching this video, I found myself appearing in the corner of the screen for a brief moment and laughed to myself. For a brief moment, others may not recognize it, but I left a small mark on the results of '742 Project'.