Syncing Up Music And Choreography In An Animated Movie Is Apparently A Nightmare, And The 'KPop Demon Hunters' Directors Told Me Why

Cinema Blend

There are tons of reasons why "KPop Demon Hunters" had me wide-eyed and in awe while watching. From creating a totally unique animated world like "Spider-verse" did to its incredibly catchy pop music, there’s a lot to love. However, one of my favorite elements of this film is how almost every choreographed moment, whether it be a fight or dance, is perfectly synchronized with the film’s original music. So, when I had the chance to interview the directors, I asked how they did that, and they detailed the “torturous process.”  While interviewing "KPop Demon Hunters’" writers and directors, Chris Appelhans and Maggie Kang, for CinemaBlend, I asked them to walk me through the process of syncing music with animation. They both quickly laughed while saying that it’s a very arduous process. However, it’s one they nailed through a workflow with their editors that Appelhans explained here

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00:00the other thing i loved about this is how everything is timed to the music whether

00:04it's legitimate like dance moves or like even like the fight is timed what is it like figuring out

00:09how to sync the music with the animation can you walk me through that process it's a horrible

00:14torturous process very torturous no we had i mean i think what we had was a great editor and and

00:21then within our editorial department uh a guy named orin yakubi who's a really incredible music

00:28editor and so he he's a musician and uh an editor at the same time so he can our picture editor nathan

00:36could create great rhythmic picture thing and then orin could like reverse engineer the song

00:42trim bits and pieces he'd go to nathan and say i figured it all out but i need eight more frames

00:47here to make this tick so it was this math problem that was also a story and entertainment problem but

00:53having people who could do that was that was the key yeah yeah definitely and which came first the

01:00music or the animation or was it like the two things were kind of working together the music

01:04always comes first because it's always um because the music was also part of the story it was so

01:09integrated into storytelling so yeah there was always um and then they used like kind of a bouncing ball

01:15to really track like the rhythm of um and then to match um animation beats to the music i love it yeah

01:21it's incredible and when what was it like hearing the songs for the first time for for you guys

01:28tears oh yeah i i think when we because we we did a bunch of iterations for each of the songs

01:36until you know we we were trying to get everything get it to feel right and um some of the songs were

01:43very difficult to figure out and um i think it was only when i had tears in my eyes that it was like

01:50okay yeah this is this is it yeah what what was the moment in the movie that caused that reaction

01:57oh i mean i think even um the the version of how it's done that we're hearing uh i think that really

02:04was like okay that this felt we hit the level yeah of coolness and like the the lyrics kind of

02:12suggesting that they were more than what meets the eye and um not just idols but we're also warriors and

02:18and all of those ingredients just always just felt like came together and it was like this is it this

02:23is our song

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