(continuing from interview ①) Kim Si-jung, MBN production director, revealed the behind-the-scenes story of selecting contestants for "Mumyeongjeonseol."
Recently, OSEN conducted an interview with Kim Si-jung, director-general of production at MBN Production Headquarters, who is creating programs that bring happiness to viewers, at the MBN Media Center in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province.
"Mumyeongjeonseol" is a trot survival program that captures the rank war of 99 trot singers from unknown to famous. Although various trot entertainment shows have poured out over time, this "Mumyeongjeonseol" introduces many new faces never seen anywhere else, bringing freshness.
When asked whether it was difficult to find "new faces" as a latecomer in audition programs, Director General Kim Si-jung explained, "The process was hard, but personally I didn't know much about the trot scene. So I thought that recycling already known singers would be uninteresting even to me as a viewer. Therefore, from the start we recruited without distinguishing genre or age. Stage experience wasn't that important. By lowering the threshold from the beginning, anyone could apply."
He said, "Even in the first preliminary round, I wanted to hear the stories of a variety of people, from people in their 50s like BTS (Kim Ki-yong) to a bus driver (Baek Won-young). For this program, trot is just the packaging. What I focused more on was making a trot program that even people who are not trot fans could watch. Seong-ri's "Heung!" stage is a song completely unrelated to trot, but it was a work we put a lot of effort into. That's why it always ranks on OTTs. The trot market used to stay with a fixed viewer base, but because people who don't know trot see it as clips and memes, young people react too," he said encouragingly.
He continued, "Last year, 'K-pop Demon Hunters' director Maggie Kang mentioned the possibility of trot for season 2 OST, and Daesung of Big Bang performed the 'Look at me, defect' stage at 'Coachella.' Seeing that, I felt a bit moved and thought 'the time to introduce K-trot has come.' People have interest in K, and perhaps what we haven't exported yet is K-trot. So when I introduce this program overseas, I want to boldly call it 'K-soul.' I wanted to spread K-soul globally. Our goal was globalization and popularity, so we tried to select contestants who fit the hexagon a bit more."
Director General Kim said, "The most important thing is 'Again that person?' If it's 'again that person,' fans will watch and it will fundamentally rest on existing viewers. But we dared to challenge that. We really wanted to create a narrative of making someone from nothing, from obscurity to a legend. Many programs incite fan fights from the start. But I didn't want that," he confessed.
He added, "In my view, the most important thing in any program is authenticity. Whether someone is a celebrity or not seems like a secondary issue. Didn't 'Mumyeongjeonseol' also have more unknowns? I didn't think name value was that important. Lee Chang-min sang with authenticity, not because he was famous. Famous singers also chose authenticity over singing well. Even if the singing is lacking, if there is true desperation, we prioritized that person. If someone is handsome but not desperate, that's a no. But my contestants — all ten are handsome, desperate, polite, and none are likely to cause a major problem. If someone were ambiguously popular, it might spoil the atmosphere, but there's none of that," expressing satisfaction with the "hexagon" talents. (continued in interview ③)
[photo] MBN
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