New coming-of age series 'Gangnam Project' brings the world of K-pop to Canadian screens
In an interview with bunni pop, showrunners Sarah Haasz and Romeo Candido on developing the show, the challenges of finding a Canadian cast and the growth of K-pop fandom
(Photo credit: CBC)
From Blackpink to BTS, there really is no denying the cultural impact of K-pop. Now a new coming-of age-series is bringing the phenomenon to Canadian television screens.
Gangnam Project is told through the eyes of a 16-year-old Korean-Canadian named Hannah Shin (Julia Kim Caldwell), who travels to Korea to work as an English tutor for K-pop trainees at a major company. Taking the job is a way for Shin to learn about her Korean roots. But soon, she finds herself recruited as a K-pop trainee herself — learning how to dance and perform for a crowd all while working towards her K-pop idol dreams.
For Sarah Haasz, the show’s creator and co-showrunner, the CBC Kids series was six years in the making. Though its arrival couldn’t have come at a better time.
“I think it's because there are K-pop fans in every single country,” she said in an interview with bunni pop.
“When BTS or Blackpink tour, they sell out everywhere. Because of this, we want to reach an international audience as well. It just seemed like the perfect sort of vessel for us to include in the storytelling.”
Haasz and her co-showrunner Romeo Candido recently sat down with bunni pop to chat about making Gangnam Project.
Do you remember the moment you both became K-pop fans?
Romeo: For me, I’m second generation K-pop. So it was like Big Bang, Wonder Girls, 2NE1. I was living in the Philippines at the time. And I just remember it started blowing up. And I was so envious because with Filipino artists, it's always kind of trying to chase either a North American sound but Filipino. And the music videos weren't necessarily super great. But then, that generation of K-pop came out. Obviously there are North American producers there, but it just felt like its own thing.
I was directing commercials at the time and I would just use K-pop music videos as references because they were colourful, they were glossy. Second generation K-pop was my jam.
Sarah: PSY, definitely. He really transcended borders. I think he was the first to get a billion hits on YouTube. But for me…when you’re young and you’re in love, those are the songs are the only way to express it. You know, EXO-CBX’s ‘Paper Cuts’, Crush’s ‘Beautiful’. It’s all slow ballads. That’s how I felt at that moment. And I don’t know, for me, maybe it’s because they’re Korean. They get the lyrics, the music. It’s all expressive. I loved it.
Sarah, this show is a personal project of yours. Where did you get the inspiration for Gangnam Project?
Sarah: It started with the experience of me going to Korea. I was born there and immigrated to Canada when I was one and a half. And when I was 16, the Korean government had this program where they would subsidize a trip to Korea for people of Korean background. And when I went, I had this sort of vision that I would just hit the ground running, be accepted, everything will be great. And it was in many respects, I got to see my family.
The other part about it that I didn't expect was that I wasn't Korean enough there, and I wasn't Korean enough at home. I spoke the language very well, and I understood everything. But I just didn’t feel like I was Korean in my own birth country.
These experiences are a dime a dozen. We wanted to appeal to a younger audience. So that’s how the K-pop vessel came into play [for the series].
(Photo credit: CBC)
What kind of research went into the trainee system while writing the show?
Romeo: I'm not Korean. Obviously, I'm not a 16-year-old girl. But earlier in my career, I was part of a Filipino R&B group [Kuya]. And so when Sarah brought the project to me, I just had to see where my hooks into the story are. In my 20s, I went to dance training, we had songwriting camp, I did vocal lessons. We were being molded to be our the first Filipino R&B music act here in Toronto. We went to New York, we went to LA, we trained with everybody. A lot of those same people went off to work in Korea. For me, I just really plugged into what it is to want to write your own songs and dance somebody’s steps and go through that kind of rigorous training to become a pop star. So I had my own firsthand experience of it.
Sarah: It took six years to get [the show] right and we wanted to bring authenticity to it. And in the beginning, we went to Korea to visit some K-pop schools. [One of our writers who was a former K-pop singer] is a friend of one of the founders of YG Entertainment way back when. So we visited a songwriter that he worked with, just to get some stories and experiences that we can inject into the series. That was very, very important to us.
It’s firsthand accounts of what it’s like to be an idol. You can’t have a girlfriend…just little things like that might not have been known. So with those tidbits, we kind of expanded that in the writing room.
(Brianna Kim as Chan-Mi. Photo credit: CBC)
Much of this show was shot at Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario. So what was the biggest challenge of trying to create an authentic experience right here in Canada?
Romeo: Finding enough Korean BG! I think the whole thing was hard. In Canada, the hardest thing was finding the cast, frankly. Finding Korean performers who could sing, act and dance. I keep saying that this cast is amazing! The show is about watching dreams unfold for young people. A lot of this cast is first time television actors. I just feel like that was the most exciting thing, but finding them was the hard part.
Sarah: It’s the economics. We get a five per cent tax bump on our labour by shooting in Hamilton. But, when we first moved to Hamilton from Korea, it’s where my parents went. My mom took English classes there. My dad took machine shop courses. So it has sentimental value that we were able to shoot there. We had a phenomenal production designer who transformed that space into a Korean K-pop school and she did a fantastic job.
(Gangnam Project also explores main character Hannah Shin’s biracial identity as she is thrust into the K-pop trainee system. Photo credit: CBC)
You talk about how hard it was to find the cast. So what did it take to find the perfect leads?
Sarah: Praying! It was truly finding needles in a haystack, because our lead had to be biracial Canadian-Korean. Our two leads had to be Canadian in order to access funding. So finding a biracial Korean-Canadian that can sing, act and dance. Romeo, you’d say it’s pretty impossible, right?
Romeo: You’d think that because K-pop is so popular that it would be easy to find. But finding people who are authentically into K-pop, who can be triple threats, it’s tough. Some people came from traditional casting. Some people, it was serendipitous. How we found Julia Kim Caldwell was because Sarah ran into her mother. Some people came from the internet. Some people came from theatre. We had to do calls through social media. It was not the straight ahead process at all. A lot of them are first time television actors, so there’s a freshness, there’s an authenticity.
Hannah’s biracial identity is highlighted in this story. Why was that particularly important?
Sarah: I can speak for myself that I have three biracial children. I think society wants to pigeonhole you into this sort of cultural identity, that it becomes even more difficult to figure out who you are. So being biracial is even more difficult to find your identity in a place that you feel you're half of, if that makes any sense. So that conflict really makes story, as well. Everything storywise that we address has been personally felt by someone in our writing room, or by one of us. It just adds to that authenticity that we really strived for.
You worked with producer/songwriter August Rigo to create original music on this series. He’s worked on iconic songs by BTS, Seventeen and Justin Bieber. How did that come about?
Romeo: We are the most lucky to have gotten him. But in my past, as a Filipino boy band guy, August was coming up in the younger Filipino boy band that used to follow us and do performances with us. So I've seen him grow from this cocky kid who was trying to take our spot to becoming a PREMIERE producer. And it’s been an over 20 year relationship. We just haven't worked together before, but we've always been kind of looking for something to do together.
And so when this project came up, I needed somebody who can write K-pop, who can write it fast, and to write it good. August just kind of fit the bill. And he had this really small window of time where he wasn’t flying to Korea and he wasn't doing some big project. And so I'm like, “Okay, do you want to lock in? And do you want to disappear from your friends and family for a month and just go?”
Because while I was writing the scripts, we would be like, “I need a song for Chan-mi [played by Brianna Kim] to sing in a karaoke bar.” And then I would go to sleep, he would work through the night. I would give him an assignment in the day. And then at 3:00 AM, I would get a song from him to ‘Yay or nay’.
He batted a high percentage of things that we used. With August, because he has 20 years of writing music and pitching music, his muscles are just finely tuned to turn over songs.
This show is coming out at a time when K-pop is massive. What do you make of the timing of this project?
Sarah: I think the timing of this couldn't have been better. I think five years ago, four years ago, three years ago, this would not be greenlit. I think the timing really worked for us. And the idea of authentic stories being told by diverse creators and developers and writers, it was just right.
One of the things I don't think we often talk about enough in Canada is just how many Canadians actually work in K-pop…from the idols, the songwriters and the producers. How do you hope this show and help people appreciate the industry and the music a bit more?
Romeo: I'm a big fan of the process and how the sausage is made. People will always see BTS or Blackpink or they'll see the final product but they don't see how hard it is to make it. What was so exciting about working within the world of a so-called K-pop school is people are forged by fire! These performers are not fully formed. There is a process.
We see BTS is a finished product but we don't see that it's like thousands of hours to cultivate their talent to make it look effortless. There’s dance lessons, songwriting lessons, singing lessons that’s needed to become a K-pop star. There's so much work, but there's blood, sweat and tears.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
All episodes of Gangnam Project can be viewed on CBC Gem as of March 8.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Accountability is important to me, so please address corrections and concerns by sending me an email at bunnipopnewsletter@gmail.com. Continue the conversation by following bunni pop on Instagram and Twitter.