The inner workings of idol casting are what brought TXT and EN- to the world

FEATURE

When it comes to scouting, it’s all about plucking stars from the sky

2023.04.10

Credit

Article. Lee Yejin

Design. Jeon Yurim

Photo Credit. BIGHIT MUSIC

BIGHIT MUSIC Casting head Hong Seung Woo can still remember the first time he caught sight of future TOMORROW X TOGETHER member BEOMGYU. “Even though I was far away, I could see he had really strongly defined eyes, nose and mouth as he ran for his parents’ car, and I chased after him with all my might knowing I couldn’t just let him go.” His sharp eye, which he used to find TOMORROW X TOGETHER members BEOMGYU, TAEHYUN and HUENINGKAI, as well as ENHYPEN members JUNGWON, HEESEUNG, JAY and SUNGHOON, is a testament to how important scouting and, more broadly, casting are in the K-pop world. MOA, the fandom of TOMORROW X TOGETHER, often asks how BIGHIT MUSIC was ever able to find five members with their looks, personalities, backgrounds and capacity for growth, as well as how different they are from one another. If TOMORROW X TOGETHER were made up of different people, it’s unlikely they’d be anything like the group they are today. If ENHYPEN didn’t include former figure skater SUNGHOON and taekwondo buff JUNGWON, it’s likely the performance styles and even seemingly trivial in-house content items may have been impacted. “From management to production, things only move forward when the casting’s done the right way, and that’s what makes it the first step of everything in the entertainment industry,” Hong explained. “That makes the casting team an important pipeline that’s tightly integrated with all other areas.”

Every possible way is utilized for casting: open auditions held by labels, visits to K-pop academies and even scouting on social media. Of all the approaches available, you might expect chance encounters with future talent through street scouting to yield low results, but there’s a surprisingly active effort toward it. It’s exactly how Hong discovered BEOMGYU in front of his middle school in Daegu and where he handed his business card to future ENHYPEN member HEESEUNG as the idol-to-be left the entrance exam for an arts high school “wearing a red padded jacket” but whose “face is what immediately caught my eye.” While good looks are an important factor when it comes to street scouting, it’s what comes next in the process where the true casting takes place. According to Hong, although neither BEOMGYU nor HEESEUNG had ever had any training whatsoever, they showed clear potential during their auditions. “As soon as I heard BEOMGYU’s voice, I knew he would be great with some training,” Hong said, “and you could tell HEESEUNG had a feel for singing right from the start.” He could see what direction and how far the two boys would go after training with BIGHIT MUSIC (then Big Hit Entertainment) despite their as-yet unpolished abilities and that’s what led to the label signing them on as trainees. HEESEUNG had the skill and the attitude to make him, in the other ENHYPEN members’ words, the “model image and paragon of a trainee,” placing him top of the trainee class every month. BEOMGYU was not only ready to debut after a short time of preparation but also the song he wrote while first learning the craft, “Maze in the Mirror,” was included on one of TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s albums. Cases like these demonstrate why Hong emphasizes each person’s “potential” again and again. “There’s so many times that someone thinks they can’t sing or dance but they actually have a talent they don’t know about. We’ll even ask candidates to sing the national anthem or their school song when needed. We also have them rap or act. It’s impossible to say what talents will turn up where so we keep every door open.”

With the increase in people who want to become idols, the number of auditions has increased as well, giving them an opportunity to have their skills and potential judged directly. It’s for this reason that there are academies that specialize specifically in preparing students for the K-pop audition process entirely separate from those for music and dance alone. “We used to focus on vocal or dance skills, or teaching for school entrance exams, but now we provide training exclusively for idol auditions,” a representative from one such academy said, explaining that there’s now a demand for “training that prepares people for the audition screening process.” Their academy has come up with a system that focuses on teaching idol hopefuls to put on “a performance that most effectively shows off what makes them unique by taking a balanced approach that doesn’t prioritize either vocals or dance over the other,” and they coach students in how to maximize their individual visual appeal, too. For example, if someone aspires to join BIGHIT MUSIC and has something about them that reminds of YEONJUN from TOMORROW X TOGETHER, they receive help on crafting “a similar image, using YEONJUN’s hair and styling as reference.” As K-pop idols continue to become more skilled and the expectations in scouting and auditioning for labels have followed in tow, thorough training for a high level of aptitude across a wide spectrum of talents has become an integral part of the process for attaining the idol dream. In that sense, scouting and auditioning are equivalent to a job-hunting process in the eyes of prospective idols today, the academy rep said. “Everyone finds the process of looking for a job hard. You have to have the right stuff on your resume and put together a portfolio. What these people are doing is making a portfolio made up of singing, dancing and themselves.”

With everything idols-to-be put into training to try and become one of the labels’ trainees now, being selected through scouting or auditions is more and more about the amount of effort they’re willing to put in. It’s becoming less and less likely to be selected on looks or first impressions alone. “These days it’s hard to make it to the end, even if you look good, if you don’t have talent,” the academy rep said. “Naturally, talent tends to be proportional to the amount of practice you put in. So few people are actually scouted and it can take more than a year to be signed as a trainee, especially with the major labels, but those who continuously set goals and put in the time and effort make it in the end.” Some labels monitor how well probationary trainees are coming along before officially inducting them, and trainees in this situation are especially aware of this reality. “For those who get feedback from the label telling them where they can improve and that they should work on it, if they take that and make a real effort to improve, they usually make the final cut.” Some people therefore have the “potential” that Hong pointed to, but others can also reach the same level on their own sheer willpower. In ENHYPEN leader JUNGWON’s case, Hong received his photo from another trainee’s mother and was immediately “surprised by how cute he looked, so I had to at least check this kid out, even if it’s just because he’s so cute. They set up a proper meeting after JUNGWON had finished training with another label and Hong casted him after seeing he had “a good overall balance of singing, dancing and looks.” After Hong wrote a report on JUNGWON for the label, he was concerned how “his cuteness unfortunately didn’t come across as well as it could” and Hong suggested he go on a diet. The eventual ENHYPEN leader instilled renewed confidence in Hong, making a “drastic change in a really short timeframe thanks to cutting out his nightly ice cream completely and working out.” Hong felt “from now on he could do anything if he’s that driven and persistent.”

The academy rep said there’s been an increasing number of young hopefuls who “find the right academy and program by themselves and register after getting consultation on their own.” Teen stardom seekers have become very active in the process and it’s having a positive effect on their personal development, including in nurturing their talents. “Their one goal training to be an idol is to debut, but they also have a lot of fun doing it. They feel alive because they’re doing something and they end up knowing how to do more things in the world.” It’s also become possible thanks to “parents becoming much more aware about K-pop idols due to world-famous groups like BTS.” Hong added that he can feel how “the acceptability has clearly gone up because of this generation of parents having a comparatively strong understanding of K-pop culture.” JAY from ENHYPEN has previously talked about how he had given careful consideration to his future plans after wrapping up his previous training, at which point he had taken lessons with the goal of being a part of Big Hit Entertainment like BTS before him, practicing hard before finally passing the audition. “He stood out more than anyone his age,” Hong recalled upon having met him. “He was especially good at rapping and came across as shy at first but it was amazing to see how confident he looked as soon as he started rapping—like he had never been shy at all.” It was at that moment when all the effort he had put into, as he said, practicing for months to sharpen those skills, finally paid off. The representative with the academy stressed the importance for there to be safety measures in place to protect teenagers at a time when it’s become so commonplace for them to pursue the dream of becoming an idol. There’s fairly open access to relevant information now compared to how shrouded in secrecy the label audition process was in the past but there are still some questionable people who prey on kids’ dreams of the idol life, which is why the academy rep works so hard to share information about all the different trainee ecosystems, including their scouting and auditioning processes. “For aspiring idols, the more information, the better. I think it’s on the adults to create a healthy culture since this is a world for people in their teens and 20s.”

Generational changes have had a progressive impact on the casting process, but changes in the K-pop market have had an impact as well, as HUENINGKAI’s own experience shows. “HUENINGKAI looked particularly young for his age but it’s his voice that really stands out in my memory,” Hong said. “He had the pop vibe Big Hit Entertainment was going for at the time and I thought he would go a long way to making the team succeed not only in Korea but worldwide.” TOMORROW X TOGETHER was intended to appeal to a global audience directly from the debut and so Big Hit Entertainment was looking for trainees who would have global appeal right from the scouting stage. According to the academy rep, “It used to be that companies like overseas labels came looking for training or auditions, but now there’s far more individuals contacting us because they want to become idols in Korea.” As K-pop spreads the world over, people from all around want to become K-pop idols and, at the same time, the industry is looking abroad to scout for and cast people, which is exactly why the global BIGHIT MUSIC NEW BOY GROUP AUDITION is being held: to find future members of the successors to BTS and TOMORROW X TOGETHER. Hong said the auditions for BIGHIT MUSIC’s third boy group has an identical set of standards for all potential talent, whether Korean or not, and that “anyone who dreams of being an artist can try out.” The academy rep offers what could be another tip for those looking to audition: “The labels never used to give much thought to things like academic performance but nowadays I think they’re accounting more for grades and the ability to speak multiple languages. I think they’re paying more attention now to those who show themselves to be individualistic and self-motivated.”

When TOMORROW X TOGETHER member TAEHYUN talked about his own casting experience in the group’s promotional video for BIGHIT MUSIC NEW BOY GROUP AUDITION, he said he chose BIGHIT MUSIC over all the other labels that were trying to court him because he “felt certain that I would receive wholehearted support.” That was after the casting team spent a lot of time and effort to persuade the future idol at a point when he was refusing to become an idol trainee. Although he didn’t scout TAEHYUN personally, Hong was the one who first told TAEHYUN’s scout about him. “TAEHYUN’s so shrewd that he already had his whole life planned out despite being so young,” Hong said. “He was really passionate about his studies and was determined to get into a good school. He was mature and realistic, so we didn’t feed him an idealized version—we told him everything straight and we were realistic about it.” SUNGHOON was making a name for himself as a figure skater before he eventually debuted with ENHYPEN—again the result of Hong “pouring everything I had into” getting the future idol on board. Hong spent a significant amount of time talking with SUNGHOON’s parents, trying to persuade them with various possibilities including that he take on his careers in sports and music simultaneously. “In the end,” Hong said, casting is all about “sincerity.” Casting directors must come prepared with a full vision for their hopefuls and concrete steps the trainees-to-be can take to fulfill it, and be confident in their decisions at the same time. It’s that confidence that led him to persuading SUNGHOON, who already showed many different talents, to try out to be an idol. “I figured he would pick up dance quick thanks to all his experience figure skating and, seeing as he was an athlete, I was confident he would be responsible and competitive. People with that kind of ambition always end up doing well.” Hong’s confidence went on to completely reshape someone’s life.

Back when they were still known as Big Hit Entertainment, the label had just one team taking on a new artist’s every need—from casting all the way to training and management. Now, BIGHIT MUSIC has a separate, specialized team for every concern, and they continue to iterate on their casting process to this day. According to Hong, the BIGHIT MUSIC Casting team continuously researches new methods on the best paths to cast artists, evaluation standards that are in line with the latest trends and approaches to promotion and scouting in addition to actually casting group members. “For casting, you can’t get stuck in an outdated mindset and you have to be quicker than anyone at picking up, and then keeping up with, new trends and especially those that are unique to and popular with teens,” Hong explained. That’s why the casting team “goes out and interviews teens directly about what they like to do, their patterns, what they’re interested in and more,” developing new avenues for scouting based on the information they amass. “Using apps like ZEPETO and Bondee that are popular with teens” is something else they consider when making contact. “We take many different possible approaches to casting, researching the trends of today and doing market research like plotting out the appearances of idols by generation and the characteristics of each country and making guidelines for that.” Hong said that casting is “mostly intuition- and feeling-dependent” and it isn’t absolutely required that they make concrete, systematic decisions for such a subjective and abstract job. Still, the reason for taking the approaches they do is clear. “If it could be in any way helpful, we just try it. We’re always eager to discover people’s latent potential and help them explore their dreams of becoming an artist. That’s also why we work hard to cultivate casting professionals by establishing a system for casting and improving on that process.”

Last year on Teachers’ Day, JUNGWON expressed his gratitude toward Hong on the EBS radio show Listen, calling Hong a memorable mentor and explaining how he spared no effort giving advice and encouragement from the time JUNGWON was casted to the day he became an artist. When artists he casted reach out from time to time to tell him they’ll never forget his efforts, Hong said, “any sense of feeling tired or drained goes right out the window and I think about how I made the right choice getting into this job.” But for anyone working in the field, that same sense of joy is accompanied by an equally serious sense of responsibility. “I used to go full speed, fearlessly, into casting, but since then I’ve necessarily started to think things through a little bit more and be more cautious,” Hong said. “My decisions change the daily and long-term lives of countless people.” Not only does the decision to cast someone in the role of idol have a profound impact on that person’s teens and 20s, but that one person in turn will have an influence on innumerable others. That’s why happiness for casting directors like Hong is their discovered trainee blooming into an artist. Hong and others can also rest assured they made the right choice when they see those artists grow. “I’m always rooting for TOMORROW X TOGETHER and ENHYPEN,” Hong said. “I feel as proud as a dad. When the members I casted myself and continue to cherish—people I realized were the one—continue to grow as artists and I see how much they’re loved by people …Is there any feeling in the world better than that?”

BIGHIT MUSIC

BIGHIT MUSIC NEW BOY GROUP AUDITION

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Dream Criteria Seen through the BIGHIT Audition2021.11.15