Audio Drama Based on the Novel of the Same Name Released on the 6th
Starring Actors Oh Yeon-seo and Lee Soo-hyuk
[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] The era of AI audio dramas is dawning, featuring AI voices as actors and AI music creation technology producing OSTs.
Genie Music, a subsidiary of KT Group, and Millie’s Library announced on the 6th that they will jointly produce and release the AI technology-integrated audio drama Welcome to Hyunamdong Bookstore.
This drama tells a warm and empathetic story about the owner of Hyunamdong Bookstore, which opened in an ordinary neighborhood, sharing life’s concerns with bookstore customers. Actress Oh Yeon-seo plays the bookstore owner ‘Youngju,’ and actor Lee Soo-hyuk plays ‘Seungwoo,’ a regular customer and star writer.
The original novel of the same name, written by author Hwang Bo-reum, was released as an original e-book through Millie’s Library last year and, thanks to word of mouth, was published as a paper book. It later became a bestseller in bookstores. This is a case where an e-book expanded into an audiobook, chatbook, and now an audio drama.
Out of a total of 19 cast members, 8 roles were performed by AI voices. Singer Yoon Do-hyun makes a cameo appearance through KT AI Voice Studio. Seven other bookstore customer roles are also performed by AI voices tailored to each character.
Genie Music applied AI music creation technology to produce the OST. Based on technology from Juice, an AI startup recently acquired by Genie Music, the song Same Pillow... originally sung by Taey in 2007 was rearranged and reborn as a new track. Juice possesses an AI listening learning and evaluation system that analyzes pitch length and melody by listening to songs and has technology to convert this into digital sheet music. The OST features Lee So-jung, the main vocalist of the group Ladies’ Code and a Top 4 contestant on Singer Gain.
KT plans to use this audio drama co-production as a starting signal to expand the production of audio and video content based on reading content discovered by Millie’s Library and to create synergy among group companies within the KT media value chain.
Kim Jung-wook, Head of New Business at Genie Music, said, “Genie Music will build a content library reflecting customers’ diverse audio content consumption needs and expand AI-based audio content creation to lead new trends.”
Kim Tae-hyung, Head of Content Business at Millie’s Library, also stated, “As Millie’s Library has expanded the reading population by presenting secondary content based on books, we will continue to demonstrate the infinite scalability of reading content through collaboration within the KT media value chain.”
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