Vlogging K-Pop, Sister Style: Nutty Nomads Talk Their Career And New DramaFever Show [INTERVIEW]
YouTube is practically everything for international K-pop fans, and two big K-pop fan girls began their career there before becoming so much more. KultScene met Cristina and Daniela aka Nutty Nomads at KCON LA 2015, but they’ve been around for quite some time and we’ve always been big fans of their pair and their video projects.
Check out this interview with the pair, where they tell us all about their career, what it’s like working together as sisters, meeting VIXX, and more.
KultScene: How did you guys start off?
Nutty Nomads: Well, our first K-pop-related content was what we created with MNET America back in 2012! After that experience, we made the decision to continue to create K-pop and K-drama related content on our own. Then, we were approached by Dramafever to form a partnership, and we decided that we would try and make this a full time venture!
What’s so nutty and nomadic about the two of you?
We came up with the name Nutty Nomads before we started creating K-pop-focused content. We actually started by creating travel videos! One of our earlier dreams was to have a show on the Travel Channel and hang out with Anthony Bourdain! So, the name Nutty Nomads made much more sense at the time. As we started leaning more towards K-pop videos, we questioned whether or not we should change our name to reflect that, but decided to stick with our original name. We think it’s catchy! We also consider ourselves pretty “nutty” since we like to have fun wherever we are, so it still seems appropriate!
Right now, we are currently working pretty closely with the K-drama streaming site, DramaFever! We just finished our original series with them called “Adventures in K-Drama Land”! We are also prepping to cover the various K-pop shows that are coming to the U.S. this fall!
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Is it difficult working together as sisters?
Haha! We have always been very close, and shared similar interests. As we grew up, we kept saying how awesome it would be if we could work together. We each have different strengths and weaknesses, so we fit well professionally since we each have different responsibilities within Nutty Nomads. But, some days are more difficult than than others! We ARE sisters, after all!
How hard is it to do everything yourselves?
It can get difficult sometimes, say, when we are trying to film an interview, but are constantly thinking about how the framing and focus look, or if the sound is coming out clearly enough, but we also really enjoy it! We both have video production backgrounds, so it feels really natural! Some days are a piece of cake, and others are a nightmare, but when all is said and done, we usually are pretty proud to be able to say we did the shoot ourselves!
We’ve seen you at a few events and saw you with cameramen on several occasions. When do you film yourself versus filming with a crew?
If we are shooting at an event for one of the bigger partners, like DramaFever or MNET America, sometimes they give us a helping hand, but we are usually trusted with filming on our own. When we have friends around us, we might turn them into honorary crew and shove a camera at them to help us out in an emergency!
What can you attribute the success you have?
We are truly blessed to have been put in contact with some really motivated and like-minded people who continue to help us with our goals! Our parents are also a HUGE part of how we’ve gotten to where we are today. They continue to support us (even though they’re not totally sure what it is we’re doing exactly….lol!). We also tend to be very tenacious! We don’t really accept NO as an answer…it just means we haven’t asked the right person! We still feel like we still have a long way to go until we can say we’re a success!
What has been your favorite interview so far?
Our most memorable and favorite interview would have to be our first one. When we were with MNET America, they sent us to Baltimore, Maryland to Otakon to interview a new rookie group that had just debuted. We were so excited since this was our first interview assignment. We didn’t really know what to expect, but the group was so friendly and outgoing! Of course, we’re talking about VIXX! They were a great first interview and we’ll never forget it!
What films inspire you the most for your work?
We watch a ton of K-dramas! Those serve as the inspiration behind “Adventures in K-Drama Land”. We kept seeing similar themes repeat themselves and thought it would be fun to play around with them! K-dramas are kind of an obsession for us…We actually stayed up two nights ago until 3am watching “Oh My Ghostess” on DramaFever!
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Has there been any hardships in your career?
Of course! We constantly feel that we are fighting for our chance to prove to others what we can do. There are always the people who say we don’t fit a certain mold, or we don’t speak enough Korean so we can’t do this, or that we’re flat out crazy, ect. But, those words only make us stronger and more determined to prove people wrong! It’s been a wobbly road full of detours, cracks and bumps, but we will continue to follow it until we realize our dream!
Who are your favorite bands?
Hmmm…always a tough question! Well, we are both Starlights! We really like VIXX and support everything they do. Right now we also like EXO, SHINee, and GOT7!
What was the first video that got you into K-Pop?
Cristina’s first video was TVXQ’s “Mirotic”, while Daniela’s was [Girls’ Generation’s] “Gee” by SNSD. We both really liked what we saw and continued to search for groups and videos until we just got sucked in completely!
What is the one things you’d like to do (or change) that you’re not doing right now?
Something we’re not doing right now that we really want to do is make videos from Korea! We think that’s our next step, and we’re working on a way to get over there, finally! Korea is calling us!
Is there anything you’d like people to know about you?
We also really like video games and anime! We play A LOT of Halo and are super obsessed with Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki’s work!
What can we look forward from NN in the future?
Well, there’s a lot of stuff we are working on currently! At KCON this year, we shot a special video with Buzzfeed’s “The Try Guys”, which will hopefully be up soon! And, we hope to be able to continue to show everyone more fun videos about K-pop and K-dramas!
Thanks for chatting with KultScene!
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