Seoul Singer's Hit Video Shot With iPhone 4

SEOUL, South Korea Oct. 28, 2010— -- A music video entirely shot on iPhone's 4 model has stepped into the limelight while the Korean mobile phone industry moves fast towards a smartphone-oriented market.

The successful debut of song "Garosu-gil" is an example of how Koreans living in the world's most wired nation could utilize and market their products digitally without spending big bucks on gear and agents.

"My songs are targeted at middle-aged listeners, a steady but not so popular market. It's been tough," said Yang Jin-Seok, 45, a celebrity known for his multiple talents as a singer and an accomplished architect.

In an ailing global music industry where revenues suffered a decline for the 10th year in 2009, the challenge he faced was even worse as the Korean music industry is dominated by teenage idol groups and their trendy dance music.

Yang's miracle started on Twitter when he began to tweet ideas for the song's debut. Thanks to an amazingly accessible wireless broadband service nationwide, Korea is where people tweet, watch morning news live, and trade stocks real time on a high-speed bullet train.

Replies flew back instantly from his 9,000 followers and among them were a group of friends who pondered the idea of shooting the music video with the then upcoming iPhone 4.

"It all started as a joke," recalled Wonsuk Chin, an American independent film director of "Too Tired to Die" and "e-dreams." At the time Chin says his friends in the United States were marveling over the video quality. "We said why not? I wanted to check out what it could do and push the limits."

Another Twitter friend Hyeon-Gil Cho who runs a popular entertainment production company joined the group suggesting locations and actors. "The excitement here was that the entire staff was volunteers. We were all early adaptors who were simply curious about what this new technology could do," said Cho, CEO of H-Plus Communication.

Three days after iPhone 4 came into the market, Yang and his volunteers were shooting "Garosu-gil," a name of a road in Seoul's chic artistic neighborhood. The song is about a man recollecting memories of Garosu Street he had shared with his past girlfriend.

"We had one day to shoot, but many questions and doubts," said Chin.