Once upon a time not long ago, music videos in hip-hop were cool. Inexplicably, remarkably cool. Throughout the mid-nineties, video directors like Hype Williams, Brett Ratner, and Nick Quested delivered high-quality, in-depth videos that told a story and provided stimulating imagery that often went beyond the given song.
However, as hip-hop began to flourish and make more money than anyone ever expected, the values of rap artists began to lean more towards “the high life” and music videos depicted a care-free, party-themed lifestyle. In fact, at one point, it seemed as though mainstream hip-hop was solely based on cash, flash, and ass, reigning supreme even to this day. No purpose, no direction, and definitely no creativity.
Enter BBGUN Films, a music video directing duo who’s bringing a refreshingly edgy approach to videos that hasn’t been seen since the days of Hype in his prime. Although the pair is brand-spanking new, Alex Bergman and Maxim Bohichik have already worked with notable artists like The Roots, Fabolous, Busta Rhymes, Jim Jones, and J. Cole as well as Kid Cudi for the alternative video of “Day N’ Nite.”
Making such a strong, cinematic impression in the world of hip-hop and beyond, StreetLogik hit up Alex and Max of BBGUN Films to pick their brains and get a bird’s eye view of their innovative vision.
Where are you guys from?
Max: I’m originally from Columbus, Ohio. I went to Syracuse University upstate and then moved to New York after I graduated about two years ago.
Alex: I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, but moved to the Bronx at the age of 7 so really I consider myself more of a New Yorker.
How did you get into the profession of directing music videos?
Alex: We met actually on Craigslist. I use to be a cinematographer and funny enough; Max was searching for a cinematographer to shoot a documentary for a TV show he was directing. We linked up, worked together, and shot that and it just bloomed from there. Now we’re best friends (laughs).
Max: Like Alex said, we were working together on a documentary, it was about the music business and one of the artists was Kid Cudi. He asked us to direct the “Day N’ Nite” video and people really responded to that, then we were asked by other artists to do videos. Since then, it’s been full-time music video directing for us.
How would you describe your directing style? What sets you apart from other directors currently in the business?
Alex: We tell stories a lot but not all of our videos are story-based. We tend to shoot things more like a movie director would, you know, our stuff is cinematic and a little bit slower-moving. We try to put importance on every image.
Like the “Famous Girl” by Christian Rich?
Alex: Yeah, that’s the best example.
Max: The thing that sets us apart is the fact that we are a duo. We’re able to throw ideas at each other. It allows us to be creative but at the same time, if he doesn’t like an idea, we have more options of what to do and what needs to be made.
Who are your creative influences?
Alex: For me, I just watched thousands of movies when I was young and I picked up from everything, like whether it was a weird German expressionist movie from 1918 or like the latest Hollywood blockbuster. I loved everything and I accumulated all of these images and ideas in my head and that’s what I kind of recycle and play with. I mean, I love the greats like Scorsese and I love Tim Burton, Coppala, and John Ford. I could go on and on.
Max: On the music video side of things, two big influences of ours are Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry, really innovative directors. Every video that they do kind of raises the bar. We look up to them and their craft because they started out as music video directors but have since become really important feature film directors and that’s where we want to take out career.
What artists would you love to work with?
Alex: (laughs) I think we have a list for this.
Max: Well, we do a lot of hip-hop videos but we’re also very interested in doing rock and electronic music videos. Some bands that come to mind are the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Bat For Lashes, a woman who has really, really interesting videos so I think it would be fun to work with her.
Alex: I’d like to do a Justice video, Animal Collective…
Max: Kanye would be fun.
Alex: A Kanye video would be great.
Max: Artists who would allow us to do something different.
Alex: Exactly.
As directors, do you have more creative control or does the artist?
Alex: It really depends on the video. Some artists come in and know exactly what they want and we’re here to turn it into a video. I mean, we bring a lot of our own things to the table, but like Fabolous for “Welcome to my Workplace,” he was very specific about what he wanted. We would be going back and forth and be calling each other at midnight about what we were trying to accomplish. And those are some of our best experiences. But sometimes, artists just say, “Here’s our song, do what you want to do with it,” and those are also amazing.
Max: As we grow and people come to us because they want something creative and we’ve gained trust, I think some of the artists that we’ve worked with will have made it helpful for us because they allowed us to do things we wanted to do. I think the more we prove ourselves, the more freedom we will have.
How do you go about putting ideas together for a music video? What inspires the concepts?
Max: Usually, what we do is put on the song and we kind of just zone out.
Alex: We like to turn off the lights, close our eyes, and listen to the music on repeat. We’ll get up and just shout our ideas out until someone says, “No that’s ridiculous” (laughs). But we just keep getting ideas out until something sticks and it’s really great because we can agree on something and it can be fantastic.
So far, what has been your favorite project?
Max: That’s a really, really hard question.
Alex: Yeah, there is no favorite, we love em’ all.
You guys are in high-demand right now, what are some of your upcoming projects for 2010?
Max: We’ve been talking with
Donnis about doing a video for his song “Gone.” It’s still in the works but that’s what we’re working on right now. We’ll probably be working with J. Cole again because he has an album coming out.
Any shout outs?
Max: Yeah, we want to shout out to Brian Turner; Brian Turner’s the coolest (laughs).
Alex: I’d like to thank Kevin Moss, Vimeo.com, Microsoft Word, we write all of our treatments in Word. And Tiger Woods!
Max: Yeah, and Tiger Woods (laughs).
For more info on BBGUN Films, visit their website at: www.bbgunfilm.com and look for more of their stunning visuals on vimeo.com
BBGUN REEL 2009 from bbgun on Vimeo.
