Kāpiti College was one of three venues visited by a Korean television crew as part of a student interview process. Photo / David Haxton
Kāpiti College was one of three venues visited by a Korean television crew as part of a student interview process. Photo / David Haxton
Five Kāpiti College students were interviewed yesterday for the potential to be in the newest season of a Korean television show.
It’s a reality show called After School: School Trip, which is based in Seoul, South Korea and follows five international students over eight days.
The show’s scriptwriter, Kyeongjin Jeong, said the students will stay with a host family in Seoul, and they get to attend a Korean school while also doing some “touristy things” too – all on air.
She said New Zealand was chosen for the show due to the increase in popularity of K-pop (Korean popular music) in the country.
After School: School Trip’s fifth season will follow Kiwi students, but in past seasons they have had students from Italy, the United States, Finland and France.
Jeong, and the rest of the film crew, will be travelling around the country over the next few days, where they will be conducting interviews with about 50 students who were selected based on video submissions that they had sent in.
The interviews can last anywhere between five and 30 minutes and give the students the opportunity to tell the crew why they should be picked.
The crew will only be travelling to three different parts of the country to conduct interviews - Kāpiti, Tauranga and Auckland - so students from outside those areas will have to travel to take part.
(From left): Theo Jennings, Sophia Armstrong, Mackay Thomson, Aroa Al Masri and Ben Spies are the five students who interviewed for a role in After School: School Trip.
Kāpiti College hosted students from several different schools around the country for the competition, including students from Whanganui, Dunedin and more.
Out of the 50 students interviewed, only five can be picked for the show, and they have to come from just two different schools.
The Kāpiti College students in the running are Aroa Al Masri, Ben Spies, Mackay Thomson, Theo Jennings and Sophia Armstrong, and the college’s director of international marketing, Paul Western, said it’s pretty good to have five students selected.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity.”
Jeong said there were several different factors the crew is looking for in the students.
She said they were looking for students who were genuinely interested in Korean culture and who had done some Korean study.
Jeong also said that because After School: School Trip is a reality show, they were looking for students with strong characteristics for entertainment television.
The crew will be finishing their interviews soon, and will be heading back to Seoul on Wednesday, where they will decide which five students they want in the show.
