“Street Man Fighter” PD “Malicious comments towards BoA, I felt sorry… The production team was lacking”
PD Choi Jung-nam, who is in charge of directing Mnet’s “Street Man Fighter” (hereinafter referred to as “SMF”), drew a vision to promote “K-dance”.
PD Choi Jung-nam, who directed “Dancing 9”, “Hit the Stage” and “Somebody”, planned and directed “Street Woman Fighter” (hereinafter referred to as “SWF”) last year, broadening the base of the street dance scene. This year, she plans to introduce K-dancers to the global stage through “SMF“.
“SMF”, which is being broadcasted in popularity, is creating a dance craze again following “SWF” with dance performances by top crews. Tense battles between dancers in various fields such as hip-hop, krump and choreo delivered overwhelming power and energy to viewers in a short time.
Episode 6, which was recently broadcasted, broke its own highest rating by recording an average of 3% and a maximum of 3.5% (based on Nielsen Korea’s pay-per-view households in the metropolitan area). In the ranking of Good Data’s TV topicality non-drama category in the 4th week of September, it broke its own topicality record and maintained the top spot for 5 consecutive weeks with a share of 15.0%.
Amid the heat of “SMF”, we met PD Choi Jung-nam and talked about stories behind the production, including crews’ casting process, judges and MCs’ performance as well as the atmosphere of the site. PD Choi also spoke frankly about her ambition to promote K-dance overseas and various controversies surrounding the program, such as malicious comments towards judges, the backup mission and screentime issues.
Q. How do you feel about the reaction to “Street Man Fighter? Is it similar to “Street Woman Fighter”?
6 episodes have been broadcast, and the number of views and level of buzz are similar to that of “Street Woman Fighter”. Mission videos are getting more views. Since it is carried out with the same mission as “Street Woman Fighter,” it feels somewhat familiar. Rather than making changes to the mission itself, I tried to change the details. Unlike last time when only the leaders received attention, this time, the composition was changed so that the crew members could also be highlighted. I think a sense of déjà vu can be felt from a viewer’s point of view.
Q. Did you recruit the crews by dividing them into genres such as street and choreography?
The ratio is not fixed. Even in the choreo crew, there are dancers who are street dance based. We tried to recruit crews who could represent our country.
Q. When Prime Kingz was eliminated, judge BoA received malicious comments.
I felt sorry that the cast was put in a difficult situation. After this incident, we are looking for ways to take action at the company level to deal with indiscriminately malicious comments or swear words in a survival show. Also, I thought that in terms of directing, I should show the judges’ reviews in a way that viewers could understand a little more. The judges’ comments were convincing on the set, but it seems that there were a lot of things that were filtered out during the editing process. The judges’ controversy shows that the production team was lacking and I think we should pay more attention.
Q. It seems to be a concern that the viewers’ opinions and the judges’ opinions are different
On the set, the judges see the overall atmosphere of the entire 40-second battle, but as the production team highlights more impactful choreography points when editing, the dances with many wow factors seem to be more impressive for viewers. I think there is a limit to showing the vibe of the set alone, and we are trying to narrow the gap between what it is like on set and what is shown on broadcast.
Source: Nate
