Bang Jaeyeob’s Directing Career
Bang Jaeyeob has become one of the most well-known music video directors in the K-Pop community, having worked with artists such as Stray Kids, ITZY, RM, GOT7, Kep1er, and more.
Bang started out directing commercials and music videos around 2018. He now works as a director, producer, and editor with some of the biggest clients in K-Pop. His music videos have a signature style marked by whip pan transitions, rotoscoped subjects, mask wipes, fake poster and painting freezeframes, and camera movements that follow the choreography.
Bang Jaeyeob’s first music video was with Korean rapper Kid Milli in the beginning of 2018. His gigs were exclusively with solo artists until gaining SM Entertainment as a client with WayV’s “Dream Launch” in January 2019. The following year he began working with Stray Kids, who he now regularly directs title track music videos for.
STRAY KIDS
The release of “God’s Menu” was a pivotal moment in the career of Stray Kids, with it being the group’s first music video to reach 100 million views and brought much attention to them. The video has over 450 million views, making it Stray Kids and Bang Jaeyeob’s biggest music video in their careers. The video showcases an array of transitions that were created using various editing and filming techniques.
Bang often utilizes a Mark Roberts Motion Control robotic camera rig to create the precise camera movements needed for seamless cuts between similar shots. This is what makes it possible to give the effect of people vanishing, appearing, or being multiplied. A prime example of this robotic camera rig in use is during Felix’s iconic “Cooking like a chef, I'm a five star Michelin” scene in “God’s Menu.”
Bang’s other Stray Kids music videos are: “Back Door,” “ALL IN,” “Thunderous,” “Scars,” “MANIAC,” “CIRCUS,” “THE SOUND,” “S-Class,” “LALALALA,” and “Chk Chk Boom.”
He uses a lot of motivated camera movement based on the lyrics and choreography. This can be seen in Stray Kids’s “ALL IN” where the lyrics “down” and “up” prompt the camera to move in the respective directions.
CURRENT STYLE
Bang’s use of the robotic camera rig has gone down over the years, as well as his use of whip pans and the blur effect on match cuts. He now opts for hard match cuts giving a sharper transition between shots. His videos contain more visual effects than in earlier years, with lots of added fire, water, smoke, graffiti, and floating objects. While VFX in K-Pop tends to be flashy or eccentric, Bang steers away from overused and cluttered effects. He uses a minimal amount of green and blue screens, making the atmosphere of the set as authentic as possible.
In more recent videos, there are also drone shots in his work such as “LALALALA” by Stray Kids and “BORN TO BE” by ITZY. When combining two takes in one frame, Bang “masks” or “rotoscopes” out the subjects in each frame. This can be seen in many of Stray Kids’s videos, “In the morning” by ITZY, “gimme gimme” by NCT 127, and “WA DA DA” by Kep1er when the members suddenly appear or transform into another member. Any flaws in the masks are hidden behind flashes and zooms, drawing the viewer's attention away from the subject.
Bang uses slight zooms to add more depth to static shots which can be seen in “Fighting” by SEVENTEEN BSS when Hoshi and Seungkwan are sitting down. This choreography-heavy video features camera movements that go along with the chaotic nature of the members’ movements.
The visuals of Bang’s work range from the minimalistic set of “Still Life” by RM to the intense, packed, and energetic set of “LALALALA” by Stray Kids. The robotic camera rig and geometric shapes are the main stars of the “Still Life” music video. With the use of the rig, Bang was able to take identical shots of RM moving throughout the train, giving the effect of multiple RM’s walking around.
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Website: https://bangjaeyeob.com/