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A documentary capturing the making of the music video, ‘The Young Man and the Deep Sea,’ is invited to the Jecheon International Music & Film Festival.
“The high-difficulty filming, including underwater guitar scenes, made me feel a sense of solitude.”
“I’m someone who values dreams. I’m happy because I’ve achieved a dream I’ve long wished for.”
BTOB Lim Hyunsik sang and played the guitar in the deep sea. He spent countless days to capture the sea that seemed so stunning that people might have thought it was a CG. He also spent years of planning to create a five-minute music video, and that journey has been documented in an hour-long documentary. The radiant journey of a dream is now unfolding on the big screen.
Lim Hyunsik shared his excitement with a bright smile, “It’s unbelievable. Although I’m a singer, in the documentary, I became an actor as part of the cast. I was already grateful that my first work was submitted, but I never imagined it would advance to the competition section. My main goal was to share and show the work that I had created with such difficulty to as many people as possible.” His first filmography as an actor is impressive. He will walk on the red carpet at the film festival. There will also a scheduled GV (Guest Visit, a Q&A session) with the documentary director, Kwon Jinmo.
On the day of the interview with JoyNews24, both scheduled GV sessions sold out immediately after opening. Lim Hyunsik expressed his amazement, saying, “I heard it sold out in just 30 seconds. Even my mother failed to get a ticket. I haven’t even shown the finished work to my BTOB members yet.”
“I started diving as a hobby around 2019 or 2020. Working on music was exhausting, I also experienced slumps and felt like I was losing myself at that time. It was a time that everyone goes through at some point in their lives, and I suddenly thought I needed a change. I called a director whom I had maintained a good relationship with for a long time, and we left on the very next day. When I got into the pool, the stress disappeared and I felt at ease. I realized, ‘This is something I’ll do for the rest of my life,’ so I bought a full set of equipment.” (laugh)
Since then, Lim Hyunsik and his diving crew have gone on diving tours at least three or four times a year. He found healing through diving to the extent that he began recommending it to those around him and experienced significant changes in his life. He also wanted to capture the beauty of the sea, marking the beginning of his music video and documentary production.
“Divers often say, ‘There is a big difference between being born and experiencing the underwater world and dying without experiencing it. It feels like discovering a new world.’ Although I haven’t been diving for long, I can physically feel the changes in the sea. As the water temperature rises due to global warming, corals are dying, and tropical fish are appearing in Ulleungdo and Jeju Island. Seeing this is upsetting, and while thinking about future generations, I felt a strong desire to capture the sea even more.”
With the advancement of CGI, there are many works depicting the deep sea, but I wanted to record the ‘real’ sea. He stated, “I wanted to show how amazing it is.”
The music video was filmed in Palau in July last year, but the preparation began much earlier. He consistently trained for over 2-3 years for underwater shooting and also conducted location scouting. Lim Hyunsik explained, “I wasn’t in a situation where I could train once a week regularly. I went and enjoyed my training whenever I had a vacation.” Before the shoot, Hyunsik also lost about 7-8 kg. He recalled, “Holding my breath makes my face got puffy. The calorie consumption underwater is enormous, so I endured eating only salad for over a week since the preliminary survey.”
Their passion and effort resulted in a satisfying outcome. Lim Hyunsik swam through the beautiful South Pacific sea, while singing and playing guitar in the deep sea. While the compressed music video is ‘pretty and beautiful,’ the documentary capturing the production process has a much rougher and more vivid texture, deeply infused with their sweat.
“The underwater filming took place for over two days, working about 4 hours a day, with each underwater session lasting at least 40 minutes to an hour. I had to appear comfortable in the water, so I did a lot of mind control. I practiced calming my mind extensively. Agreements with the camera crew were also important. Since my visibility was poor underwater, it’s hard to know where the crews were. We set up specific signals for camera rolls and actions. Since I took off my breathing apparatus, I had to hold my breath until they arrived, so I did a lot of breathing training. Just like the title of the song, I felt a deep solitude while doing this. There’s a scene where I had to lip-sync underwater, and eventually, I became comfortable to do so.”
“I did a lot of testing for the filming, and the director was aldo doing things they had never done before. I went to Gangneung and bought a broken guitar for training. Weight is crucial for diving, so I drilled holes in the guitar to insert weights and adjusted them, while I also added a 1.5 kg weight on my ankle. I had to find the right weight to create the scene of jumping and sinking in the water. I even tried using waterproof makeup for the visuals, but it was all in vain (laughs).”
The staffs’ dedication, which wasn’t seen in the music video, was also impressive. Not only the underwater filming crews but also the staffs who waited for a long time on the boat. Even when faced with harsh weather and various other challenges, they comforted and encouraged each other.
“When I was getting my hair and makeup fixed, I would come up on the boat, and the staff members fixed it while their eyes were out of focus due to seasickness. Some people lost their mental composure during the filming, and I had that experience too. After keeping my eyes open underwater for several hours, I found that I couldn’t open them properly outside. I realized my vision was affected. That was when I lost my mental composure.”
Lim Hyunsik recalled, “When water got into my nose, it felt like my brain was also filling up with water. I thought my body wasn’t my own, so I entrusted everything to the people around me. I had such a big trust to them.”
He vividly remembered the sound of “Last Cut” as they wrapped up the filming. All the staff embraced me and expressed their gratitude. Lim Hyunsik shared, “I felt so overwhelmed while looking at the sea and drinking coffee. I felt a sense of accomplishment for achieving something I had dreamed of for a long time.”
When asked if he would do the same shoot again, he laughed, saying, “While watching the director edit the documentary, I thought, ‘I did something crazy.’ I wondered how I managed to do it and said many times that I don’t think I could do it again.”
This project exhibits a glimpse of the authenticity and passion of artist Lim Hyunsik. His solo concert ‘Dive Into You’ held last October, his second mini-album ‘The Young Man and the Deep Sea’ released in February, and this documentary are organically linked to each other.
At the end of the documentary, Lim Hyunsik said, “I have confidence, but I never think highly of myself and always feel that I’m lacking. Still, I am growing. I am striving to show myself as a good artist.” The reason behind his constant effort and passion is ultimately to become a ‘good artist.’
“I am well aware that I am lacking and weak. I don’t have many worries in life, but what keeps me constantly contemplating is how much I can grow. I think I need to live while continuously feeling those things in order to grow more musically and artistically. When I released an album after four years, I wanted to show a more mature version of myself. I want to show that I have grown even more next time, and I am confident that I can do that.”
As a solo singer Lim Hyunsik, as member of BTOB who established BTOB Company and announced their second act, and as an actor with his first filmography, the sea Lim Hyunsik will swim through remains vast and deep.
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