Deep Studio Entertainment (딥 스튜디오 엔터테인먼트) is a South Korean record label and entertainment company.
History[]
2017-2019: Establishment[]
Deep Studio Entertainment was founded on August 9, 2017 as a deep-fake technology developer by founder Ryu Ki-hyun in Seoul, South Korea. In December 2019, Deep Studio announced their plans to debut a virtual K-pop idol, Jung Sae-jin, inspired by the 1998 virtual singer Adam under the label Deep Studio Entertainment.
2020-2021: YOURS[]
In early 2020, Deep Studio began recruiting actual trainees for their project as well. It was revealed in December 2020 that this was to discover what fans were looking for in an idol and what interactions they wished to have, to improve the success of their virtual idol project.
On April 16, the first female trainee, Haeseung, joined the company. Through the duration of the second half of April and May, fourteen more trainees joined the company, although member Soyeon would leave YOURS on June 9, never being able to film a video with the team.
The company encouraged the trainee's to write captions on Instagram in both Korean and English and to communicate with fans in their native languages.
On June 9, the company started their first debut project, in which the fourteen trainees would be separated into smaller groups and were given a week to learn the choreography of a popular song to then film a dance cover of it.[1][2][3]
The project's format would later be improved. From the second series of dance covers onward, the fans would be able to vote on which members fancam they wanted to see.[4][5] From the third cover series onward, a new video format would be added to the project "YOURS Battle". Members would rate each other (from 0-10), and the trainee with the most points got to choose her position in the cover first, followed by the girl in second place and so on.[6]
In August 2020, the group went on a short hiatus as the company reorganized their plans. After this break, members Mew and Dayoung announced that they had left the group. Deep Studio also launched a Discord server at this time to help members engage more with fans and gain points towards their debut.
Member Minyoung went on a personal hiatus shortly after the group resumed activities and later left the group after a month of unsuccessful negotiations with the company.
In December of 2020, member Mina also left the group.
After a controversy related to fan interactions, in January 2021, Deep Studio shut down the group's Discord server and prohibited members from interacting with fans on SNS.
In February 2021, member Jia quietly left YOURS and the agency, while later in April, members Eunseo, Seonwoo, Mizin, Jimin and Minkyung announced their departures, and in May member GREX also departed.[7][8][9][10][11][12] Male trainees Eunhyun and Seojoon were also found to have left.
Since then, the YOURS project has primarily focused on video updates to showcase their trainees' dancing and singing. Despite the departure of several trainees at the beginning of the year, a new male trainee was introduced, named Minhyuk.[13] Additionally, on June 6, the agency unveiled more of their other trainees who are listed as 'rookies' rather than 'trainees' and have the potential of being promoted to a 'YOURS Trainee' and thus can be voted for debut, the current list of named rookies consists of Youngju, Irene, Jisoo, Sunmin and Hyeji, though there are several unnamed trainees.[14][15]
By July, Seojin and Hanhee had also departed, along with the trainees introduced in June.
On August 11, 2021, Danbi revealed that her contract had been terminated with Deep Studio Entertainment because she fixed her eyeliner that was smudged.[16]
In September of 2021, the last of the female trainees, Gain, Juwon, Haerim, Yebin, Seoyeon, and Haeseung all announced that they had left YOURS and Deep Studio Entertainment, with Gain and Juwon leaving on September 1, Haerim leaving on September 8, Yebin leaving on September 14, Seoyeon leaving on September 22, and Haeseung leaving on September 27. At some point after, male trainee Minhyuk also left the company; the three other male trainees have since deactivated their Instagram accounts and it is unknown whether they have left the company.
Shortly after the last of the female trainees left, Deep Studio deleted all content from the group's Instagram account and YouTube channel and deleted the group's Twitter and website. They later rebranded the remaining pages to the company's name, effectively ending the YOURS project.
2021-present: SUPERKIND[]
Deep Studio rebranded YOURS and started on November 29, 2021, with the reveal of new trainee boy group called SUPERKIND that they would be debuting in 2022, announcing also the first member Saejin who is a virtual idol.[17] On January 22, 2022, Saejin's debut trailer confirmed his joining into the group.[18] On March 24, 2022, Deep Studio revealed other four members of the group: Daemon, Eugene, Geon and SiO.[19][20][21][22] The group debuted on June 20, 2022 with their first digital single "PlaySuperkind : Apply for a Beta Test".
Artists[]
Groups[]
- SUPERKIND (2021–present)
Former artists[]
Trainees[]
- YOURS (2020–2021)