\n\tPay close attention to the end credits of \u201cBTS: The Return,\u201d now streaming on Netflix, and as the documentary\u2019s credits roll, viewers will see that Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook all earn individual \u201cadditional cinematography by\u201d credits.<\/p>\n
\n\tHow did that happen?<\/p>\n
\n\tThe doc follows the band from Los Angeles to Seoul, South Korea, as they reunite after serving mandatory military service. All seven members return to the studio to record and mix their latest album, \u201cArirang.\u201d When director Bao Nguyen set out to film the documentary and tell the story of the biggest band in the world, he knew he wouldn\u2019t have access to the band 24\/7. Speaking at the Los Angeles screening of the documentary, Nguyen said, \u201cI had this idea of, what if we gave them their own camcorders?\u201d He added, \u201cThey shoot their own content on their phone, but that\u2019s a very specific visual language.\u201d He added, \u201cI wanted to evoke something like your brother, mother, or uncle were filming a vacation. To give them the cameras, added this texture that I think is very intimate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe portrayal is indeed intimate and personal as they ready to return to the global stage. Their journey is one he compares to that of Homer\u2019s \u201cThe Odyssey.\u201d Nguyen said, \u201cWhen I first saw them at the So-Fi show, there was something really magical in that show, and just their connection to ARMY and that mythical storytelling that I always think about. ARMY was like Penelope, and BTS was like Odysseus.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen Nguyen gave them camcorders, he opted not to give them directives on what to shoot or even when to shoot. He said, \u201cI think coming into it, you just think that they\u2019re a monolith, they\u2019re just BTS, but they\u2019re so, like, distinct individually. Certain members were like, \u2018We should capture everything. We\u2019re just gonna roll it.\u2019 Other members are quiet, and they want their privacy. Whatever we can get from them. I was happy with.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tBetween the footage his crew shot and that shot by BTS, Nguyen ended up with over 40 terabytes of footage.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe high stakes and pressures of their return is the core thread running through the documentary. <\/p>\n
\n\tEarly on, one scene shows the members sitting around a dinner table talking about recording their album. RM says at one point, \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of pressure.\u201d It\u2019s a raw insight into the group and shows the immense weight of their anticipated return. <\/p>\n
\n\tJoining Nguyen for the conversation were producers R.J. Cutler and Jane Cha Cutler. The team came in slightly later in the making of the album. Nguyen admitted, \u201cThey had picked a lot of songs and they were tweaking. My fear was like, \u201cOh, we\u2019re just gonna capture, like people at their best, doing their best, which is not the best type of storytelling and drama.\u2019 But within the first couple of days, we had live translation when we were filming. But I was watching the footage afterwards. You can see and hear this pressure, this challenge and tension.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tJane Cha Cutler, who produced \u201cMartha,\u201d calls the BTS story a \u201csingular\u201d one. She added, \u201cThere are not that many bands that have to step down at the height of their popularity, and then the anticipation of their comeback is so huge. But for them, after the time away, they have to figure out how they\u2019re different, how they interact differently as individuals, as a group. How much do they want to change? They talk about that a lot because it\u2019s high stakes. It\u2019s that they want to create something new and exciting and push themselves, but at the same time, they want to remain the band that people love and adore.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen the band returns to South Korea, after spending two months in Los Angeles, a debate centers around Arirang, a traditional folk song featured in the standout track \u201cBody to Body.\u201d Chairman Bang (Si-Hyuk) [chairman of HYBE] and how it should be woven into the song.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe integration of Korean lyrics also becomes another topic. Suga says, \u201cWe\u2019d like to write more lyrics in Korean. There\u2019s too much English right now, especially for rap verses.\u201d RM adds, \u201cFor this album authenticity matters.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s just one of the many moments of the group coming together, but showing their uniqueness to a global audience, along with their sense of brotherhood and camaraderie. <\/p>\n
\n\tR.J Cutler explained the 92-minute documentary really gets to the \u201cguts of what it means to be BTS and how that relates to what it means to be each of them individually.\u201d He added, \u201cThat\u2019s a very rare thing to see with a legendary band. There are few and far between the films and the music documentary canon that you can think of that do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe documentary comes as BTS earned its seventh No. 1 album<\/a>\u00a0on the\u00a0Billboard 200<\/a>\u00a0with \u201cArirang,\u201d scoring the biggest sales week for an album by a group in over a decade.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cArirang\u201d opened on the chart with 641,000 equivalent album units, 532,000 of which are pure album sales. It\u2019s the biggest first week for an album by units since Taylor Swift\u2019s \u201cThe Life of a Showgirl\u201d bowed at No. 1 with over four million units last year.<\/p>\n \n\tAs previously reported,<\/a>\u00a0BTS<\/a>\u2018 live concert special reached 18.4 million viewers on\u00a0Netflix<\/a>. Provided by Netflix, that statistic accounts for viewers who tuned into \u201cBTS The Comeback Live<\/a>: Arirang\u201d during the initial livestream plus those who watched it over the course of the next day. The special, recorded at Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul, South Korea, was among the 10 most-watched Netflix titles of the week of March 16-22 in 80 countries, and was No. 1 in 24 countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pay close attention to the end credits of \u201cBTS: The Return,\u201d now streaming on Netflix, and as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1845,146,85,46,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-367422","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-bts","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}