Although the project was inspired by the song and lyrics, there were two major points I kept in mind for this MV. The first was to emphasize the off-duty feel between the members, the playful interactions they usually don’t get to show fans, and a private-like tone. With idols increasingly sharing more of themselves on their personal social media these days, I noticed that candid off-shots can sometimes generate more reach than a high-budget MV. So I thought that if we made a high-budget MV with an off-duty feel, it might resonate even more with fans. The second was to minimize, as much as possible, the common issue in group MVs where the members other than the vocalist end up with very little screen time. I addressed this by assigning gimmick-based expressions tailored to each member, using unique angles, camera work, and editing. In effect, this ties back to the first point as well: we created a way to present them in a manner only possible in an MV, and added value through those gimmicks. Because I kept those points in mind, the shooting approach and overall structure were almost fully determined at the storyboard stage to match the vocal parts, so editing became a matter of fitting everything together, which kept the offline workload quite low. That said, to further express the members’ playful energy and fun atmosphere through editing, I deliberately used a lot of craft-like effects, resulting in an MV that is playful throughout while still being cool and positive. One detail I quietly focused on was the scene where the car flies into space. This was also an extension of the playful concept, but I felt there might be people who, as boys, once dreamed of flying through the sky in a car or were fascinated by the DeLorean’s warp-like journey. I included that idea in the concept, asked for a location with a car as part of the interior, and created a space journey where items associated with the members float around. Seeing how happy the members were when they watched the finished scene was especially gratifying and memorable.

What I first felt when listening to the song was that the main girl is probably bright and cheerful, but not the kind of person who can honestly express her feelings. She falls for a man who seems like a player, and even though he doesn’t return her feelings, she ends up being treated as a convenient, on-and-off relationship. Thinking, “He should absolutely like me,” yet when she’s actually in front of him, she gets swept along or holds her feelings back—that was the impression I had. With the rise of matching apps and more services that make it easier to meet people, I felt that there are probably many women experiencing these kinds of feelings, and I developed the character around that idea. And as the title “Cocktail” suggests, I tried to let her cope with those feelings that have nowhere to go by escaping into alcohol, something she isn’t used to and is actually weak against, to distract herself. Even as she gets carried away by the alcohol and starts losing track of whether it’s a dream or reality, she herself wants this, and struggles in that dreamlike state. In the second half, however, she even starts to enjoy it, putting on the lipstick she had initially discarded because she thought it didn’t suit her, smiling as she applies it, running and jumping around, and shifting from a sudden lonely expression to a more free-spirited, increasingly positive mindset. I structured the piece so that it would link with her emotional journey. I also paid special attention to how the colors were created in the video. I made sure that colorful tones such as green, red, yellow, and blue—like ingredients mixing together in a cocktail—would coexist within the video, including the background and lighting. I also incorporated cocktail elements into the visual style through colorful confetti and mixed paint.