Director Jungkook Shares Details About The Making Of BTS’s “Life Goes On” MV

Jungkook directed BTS‘s “Life Goes On”, a comforting music video that touched the hearts of ARMYs everywhere. Now, he’s sharing behind the scenes details about his creative process.

In a new interview with Weverse Magazine, Jungkook said he was “really eager” to direct the MV, and he began the project with a detailed plan.

My plan was to organize the synopsis, discuss it with the music video director I was working with, shoot and edit them, but we were short on time. So I worked on it while sharing ideas with the director.

— Jungkook

Changes, such as replacing some lip-synching scenes with different shots, were made along the way.

Originally there were a lot of scenes with lip-synching in them, but we took some of them out and put in more scenes that conveyed the members’ emotions better. It wasn’t easy to combine scenes, but I think now I know more about how much of everything is needed when shooting a music video.

— Jungkook

While on location for the MV shoot, Jungkook combined scripted moments with candid shots he took during filming. His snapshots show each member as they wanted to be presented.

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Once we were on location, we had directions for everything we needed to shoot prepared in advance, so I took candid shots of the members here and there with a camera during the shoot. We were filming in a beautiful place so when they asked me to take pictures of them as they wanted to be presented, I did.

— Jungkook

While filming and taking photos for the MV and for his Golden Closet Films, Jungkook focused on his members rather than on himself.

I was just, in them. (laughs) I’m not in the shot for the Golden Closet Films either. I kind of take a back seat. The director had to shoot my parts for the music video, since I couldn’t film myself, so I relaxed a bit. I tried to make the other members look really good when I recorded them.

— Jungkook

“Life Goes On” MV was inspired by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic and how the world drastically changed because of it. It was important to Jungkook to convey others’ thoughts in the MV, not just his own, to show that we’re all in this together.

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Since this was a BTS music video and not my own, I wanted to show what was happening with every member and the team, not just one individual’s thoughts. Each person who watches the video might feel different, but I wanted to show that we feel what other people feel, that we’re in the same situation.

— Jungkook

For more, find out why Jungkook doesn’t always like being photographed.

BTS’s Jungkook Reveals How He Feels About Having His Picture Taken