The second time, the eyes really close: rewatching HWANG MIN HYUN's 'OUR' music video

This is the music video for 'OUR', the title track of HWANG MIN HYUN's digital single 'OUR', released on October 7. The Bugs album notes describe the arrangement as minimal, built around guitar and pluck sounds (short, clipped electronic notes that sound like plucked strings), and the music video as a story in which 'I' become whole only when all the versions of me that have passed through different times and experiences exist together. The lyrics are by Lee Oneul (이오늘), the music by WWWAVE and Rowan, and the arrangement by WWWAVE. We split the sound into four parts, vocals, drums, bass and everything else, and matched the picture to it in 0.1-second steps: at four points where the backing comes in or drops out, the screen changes at the same moment. Times follow the official music video (2:50).

0:00 · One bar of light and three notes

The video opens on a horizontal streak of light. At 0:02 a short bar of light bends into a crescent-shaped arc, and at 0:05 blue discs of different sizes are laid out in a row like stepping stones, and a figure steps onto them. Until 0:09 the sound is almost entirely the 'everything else' part, in other words the guitar and pluck side. The same three notes are plucked four times, 1.2 seconds apart, then three different notes four more times. At 0:10, with the first line, '위태로운 거리라' (a precarious distance, someone might say), the vocals, drums and bass all come in at once, and at that very moment the screen washes white and changes.

0:37 · The empty beats after 'close my eyes for a moment, and you'

In the line just before the first chorus, '잠시만 눈 감으면 넌' (if I close my eyes for just a moment, you), right after '넌' (you) is sung, at 0:37.7, the drums, bass and the rest of the backing all drop out at once, leaving only the voice. At 0:38.7 the sound goes completely silent for 0.1 seconds, and at 0:38.8 the backing returns with the chorus. The backing is gone for 1.1 seconds, close to two beats in a song that runs at about 99 beats a minute. The picture cuts on that 0.1 seconds of silence. In the side-profile close-up as '넌' is sung, HWANG MIN HYUN's eyes are open.

0:39 · One person walking among shadows

When the chorus starts, a crosswalk appears, seen from above. Translucent, person-shaped shadows walk across a crosswalk made of glowing panels, and among them only one figure, in a white knit, is a real person. At 1:28 the picture flips. On a real crosswalk with white stripes on asphalt, dozens of people in light-colored suits are walking, and a single translucent white shadow is mixed in among them. This is the passage where the second verse sings '매일 걷는 거리와 / 이 도시 위에서' (the streets I walk every day / and in this city).

0:58 · Nine seconds without drums, a crosswalk turned into one line

The drums drop out at 0:58.1, as the first chorus ends, and from 1:01.5 the bass drops out too. Meanwhile the screen washes white and moves to a crosswalk on asphalt; as the camera turns, the stripes grow thinner until, at 1:03, they become a single thin line. Beside it, a figure in white floats with the body laid out sideways. At 1:06.9 a door made of white light appears and the screen fills with white, and at 1:07.5, the very moment the drums and bass return, the video moves to a scene of glass panes. The drums are gone for 9.4 seconds.

1:08 · A different pose of 'me' in every pane of glass

Inside several panes of glass standing at an angle, there is one figure dressed in white in each. At 1:20, as '우리라는 시간을' (the time we call 'us') is sung, the figures in white knits and black trousers stand in a different pose in every pane, and at 1:22, when the real figure in front of the glass stretches an arm out to the side, two of the figures inside the glass stretch their arms out too. It looks as if the many versions of 'me' from the album notes, each having passed through different times and experiences, had been lined up in a single frame.

1:35 · This time, the eyes really close

At the end of the second verse, the same line, '잠시만 눈 감으면 넌', comes back. At 1:35.3 the backing drops out, and after 0.1 seconds of silence at 1:36.3, the second chorus begins at 1:36.4. Unlike the first time, in the side-profile close-up HWANG MIN HYUN's eyes close at 1:35.9. In between, at 0:55, on '널 느낄 수 있어' (I can feel you), an arm is raised against the light, and the shadow of the fingers falls across both eyes like a black band. Open eyes, then eyes hidden by a shadow, then closed eyes. As the backing returns, the screen moves to a stage of dancers in black in front of walls lit with blots of light.

1:55 · The bass steps back for 'the word us'

From 1:55, when the first line of the bridge, '우리란 단어' (the word 'us'), arrives, the bass gets about 15 decibels quieter than in the chorus, and the drums come in only here and there. On the decibel scale, which measures loudness, a drop of 10 already sounds about half as loud to the ear, so the bass has stepped well back. The picture goes into a close-up at 1:56, the face sinks into shadow for a moment, and from 1:58 the song is sung looking straight into the camera. Our main photo is this scene. 'I don't need the answer / I don't need the proof' at 2:12 also sits inside this bridge.

2:43 · An ending where the first three notes return

When the drums return at 2:24, short scenes follow one another in quick succession. At 0:07, a figure in white on a black background was reflected upside down on the floor; at 2:30, a black silhouette stands on a white background, reflected below. The colors of the background and the figure are the reverse of the beginning. When the drums and bass cut out together at 2:43.5, the remaining 'everything else' part plucks the same three notes as at the very start, again four times, 1.2 seconds apart. In blue, watery light, HWANG MIN HYUN looks straight ahead, and then at 2:47.9 a single horizontal bar of light shrinks and the video ends on the 'OUR' logo at 2:48. The edges of the logo are made of small dots of different sizes. The Bugs description of the music video includes the sentence 'A single moment is marked as a single dot.' Apple Music

The credits in the Bugs album notes list DENIM on guitar, Rozzy on electric piano and haim on synthesizer. The music video description names director Joon Koo Cho, along with separate credits for 2D motion graphics (moving flat graphics) and AI VFX (visual effects made with artificial intelligence), and for 3D scan VFX (visual effects made by scanning people or objects in three dimensions). The three songs on the single and the release news are in our October 7 news briefing.