Session One - What, How and Why

Eden

Eden is a 3-minute music video based on the story of Adam and Eve that I produced in 2016 as my graduation work. The soundtrack of the video is ‘Dawn’ by an Australian DJ Basenji. I tried to convey the mood of the music with various colors which are changed along with beats and fascinating Kaleidoscopic images. I visualized the fantastic eden with bold-designed images and vivid colors.

I was trying to discover a proper song which has a bright mood and a strong beat. Unexpectedly, I heard the song ‘Dawn' and came up with an idea this is the song what I am looking for. I reinterpreted the story of Adam and Eve in my own way and built a structure of a whole video that I edited along with the music. Then, I worked on character designs and overall art concept such as colors, plants, animals, scene compositions and so on. I used After Effects and Cinema 4D to create animations.

I wanted to produce a video which can pleasant viewer's ears and eyes, of course also have a story. I thought making a music video would be good to achieve my goal. I focused on the love between with Adam and Eve. Since their Love is the first of mankind, and it can represent all kinds of love till now. I strongly believed it is more valuable than the sin of mankind which usually people focus on.

[Steve's note Two figures, a man and a woman; a landscape; kissing leaves; the shape of red heat on a black background; an apple bite taken from it; a pink flower blooming these are elements that make a kaleidoscope of images. ]

Starry Night

Starry Night is a 4-minute 3d animated music video which was commissioned by one of the top entertainment management in Korea, S.M.Entertainment in 2016. I worked on the project with Studio Cobb, a motion graphics studio in Seoul. My role was a director and an art director. This music video is about a girl and a boy who dearly miss each other as they stare at the stars each night.

I listened to the song ‘Starry Night’ carefully and tried to understand its storyline and the feeling of it. I described their feelings of longing for each other in their daily lives with the ‘repetition’ as the main concepts. I established imaginary spaces with unrealistic structures as a background and designed unusual costumes such as pink hair, green hair and so on of the main characters to convey the fantastic mood. The video was made by using Maya, a 3D animation program, in order to create dynamic moving scenes.

S.M.Entertainment contacted me for a music video request after seeing my personal work ‘Eden’. Since there were no special requests from the client, I was able to create my work without any limitations. The song is very romantic, calm and based on a sweet piano melody. Through this calmness, I tried to express how the girl and the boy maturely and gently handle the intense love going on between them.

Unexptectly, the Netherlands

In 2014, I wrote this book and a year after, the book was published by Future Media which is a publisher in South Korea. The book is filled with stories of my experiences during a year as an exchange student and an intern in the Netherlands. I wrote about episodes of my discoveries and observations with themes such as Illustration, Public Design, Typography, Audio Visual Design, Agency system, Street Art and so on.

Every theme starts from my curiosity. I put question marks on what I am wondering and presumed the question with my theory. To get confirmation of ideas, I had interviews with designers, studios, artists who are experts in their own fields. I was able to receive objective or subjective opinions from the interviews. After collecting all the ideas through independent research, field research and interviews, I was able to edit them as an article. I also included numerous pictures and images such as snap pictures of streets, artworks of artists which helps reader’s understanding in my book.

During my the first year staying, everything I faced in my daily life was so interesting. I was curious about why this country is so well-designed, If murals are painted legally or illegally, even how that erotic advertisement can be screened and so on. It came from the culture differences between Korea and the Netherlands and It led me to observe the Netherlands. I wanted to record my experiences and share my precious memories with Korean readers.