Tag: director

Kyle Lewis – a passion for music videos

Despite being the visionary behind the music videos for some of the leading names in the local scene, including Cassper Nyovest, Riky Rick, Nasty C, Khuli Chana, Tumi, The Parlotones and Toya Delazy, Kyle Lewis still views directing music videos as passion project. “The first thing to be sacrificed is mine pay and my producer’s pay. I want to pump all the money that I have into the visual. It’s important to me that it looks good and that the idea that’s in my mind is executed as well as I possibly can,” Kyle explains emphatically.

With a bold visual style and thought-provoking concepts, Kyle’s work stands out from the standard performance videos that are so prevalent today. “Making straightforward performance videos are no longer appealing to me, because if you don’t make money from it you need to make it worth your while, and make something you’re really proud of.”

Describing his aesthetic as dark, Kyle Lewis shies away from producing overly happy work. “Looking at the dark side of the human psyche has always been an interesting place for me because happiness and this frivolity is sometimes a mask we put on for darker inner feelings.” He attributes this attraction to darkness to his dad exposing him to bad horror films as a child. This darkness can be seen in videos such as Cassper Nyovest’s ‘War Ready’, Riky Rick’s ‘FUSEG’ and his most recent offering for Durban rapper Zakwe on his track ‘Zebentin’, featuring Cassper Nyovest & Musiholiq.

Zebentin also features the artist Pure, who can be seen in ‘War Ready’ and ‘Good Girls’ too. Kyle directed the music video for her single ‘No Secrets’, and he describes her as his new muse. “She’s willing. As long as it’s art she’s down for it.” The video is raw and real, with the performers completely naked and appearing without makeup or hair styling. “It was all about body positivity. I’m very proud of that one,” Kyle says.

His videos also often feature more than just his creative vision, with Kyle getting hands on designing and making props such as masks, headpieces and wigs for his videos. “It started off with the necessity for me to make [props], and now it’s just become a thing,” he says showing me a wig he made that Pure wore in the ‘Zebentin’ video.

From making his directorial debut with Locnville’s ‘Sun in my Pocket’, shot on a 5D and R2000 budget, to epic productions such as Nasty C’s ‘Bad Hair’ and Riky Rick’s ‘Exodus’, Kyle Lewis has grown as a director, becoming more comfortable with his vision and more deft at executing them. Music videos aren’t the end goal for Kyle who hopes to make the move into feature films in the future although he is very sensitive about storytelling in South Africa. “I’m very opinionated about who can tell whose story. That’s why I think horror is a good direction for me because I don’t necessarily have to make it anything cultural that I shouldn’t be saying.” With his bold aesthetic, a feature-length Kyle Lewis directed horror would be a visual feast.

15 November 2017
Romano Pizzichini: The globetrotting director showcasing the beautiful similarities he sees in all people

The UK based director known for ‘A Young Summer’s Heart’ and the video for ‘Black Crow’ took over my Mac Book screen with his vivid imagery last night. Pizzichini’s work has a defining style and the ability to be real and surreal simultaneously. The unique diversity of Pizzichini’s skill compels his viewer to travel between feelings of discomfort and warm nostalgia. In my interview with Pizzichini we discussed his work further.

Born in Brazil, Pizzichini was raised between South America and Canada. Spending time in both Italy and Sweden, Pizzichini has settled in the UK and has been there for the past 9 years. “I think travelling around this much helped open my eyes to how similar people can be, and different perceptions of beauty.” Pizzichini tells me that filmmaking came to him almost by accident – “I was just put into the course and went with it.” Expressing that it was a blissful accident he aims to celebrate beauty and connect people in everything he does.

There is no evident pattern in the subject matter Pizzichini chooses to portray. The constants in his work are the stylized imagery that ranges on near perfection yet still maintaining their organic nature, as well as his focus on youth and youth culture from various demographics. Pizzichini, vigilant in his use of lighting strays away from imagery that appears lit. “Sometimes I have an idea in my head and then try to find the right subjects to bring it to life. Other times, the ideas come from the available elements.”

“I’m always trying to go beyond my subjects’ demographic or background and find out who they are as people. That’s the only way we can connect as people.” Pizzichini works from the UK but frequently travels for projects and states that Italy is a source of constant inspiration to him. Pizzichini is at the helm of writing and directing his film projects and his intention to bring people together in his work is clearly noticeable within this realm.

‘A Young Summer’s Heart’ was directed by Pizzichini in collaboration with The Mill and Smuggler. Released in 2015, the short film was shot in Calabria, Italy. In this film Pizzichini invites his viewers into a story that takes a closer look at a non-conformist Danish skateboarder discovering the streets of Italy on a summer holiday. At the heart of the film’s narrative is the summer fling between the skater and a local girl, and the language barrier between the two young lovers, as well as her father’s displeasure to her association with the young Danish skater. These elements contribute to a charming and wholesome storyline.

The video for Beyond the Wizards Sleeve’s song ‘Black Crow’ was directed by Pizzichini and released in 2016. This piece articulates a sense of immanent death for the off centre electro duo consisting of Erol Alkan, an electronic music rebel, and Richard Norris, a renowned record producer.

“Beneath the dramatic peaks of the track, there’s an underlying tension that’s always lingering. It doesn’t scream at you, but its there, like a sense of impending doom. I wanted the video to be in constant dialogue with that feeling by creating a world that could almost be normal, but is clearly not. Though shot in a matter-of-fact way, the imagery is constantly teetering between innocence and brutality.”

The music video for this track directed by Pizzichini evokes feelings of intense discomfort for its viewer as strange forms of brutality is shown in the form of two girls who are made out to be rivals. The brutality is shown in the form of these girls dragging around heavy bags with their bodies by means of a harness on a tennis court and injuring one another with tennis balls. The brutality of the video is juxtaposed by the youthful innocence of the girls portrayed. In stark contrast to the warm feelings that ‘A Young Summer’s Heart’ evokes as well as its real nature, the ‘Black Crow’ video invites its viewer into an eerie alternative reality that ranges on perfect discomfort.

7 July 2017
Flipping the Lens with Fausto Becatti and The Bioscope’s Camera Club

Last week, The Bioscope Theatre, in collaboration with The College of Digital Photography, hosted its second installment of The Camera Club. The talk series aims both to showcase and inspire up-and-coming photographers, through intimate discussions between artists and audiences. In dialogue with a series of images, photographers unmask stories from the other side of the lens. It’s an account of the creative minutia: the seconds before the light hit that spot, the happenings outside the frame, the moments before a subject looked up at the lens just so.

This week showcased Johannesburg director and photographer, Fausto Becatti. Many will know his work from the Hunters Dry advert, ‘Global Love’, which featured artist AKA and was shot in multiple locations throughout the world. Becatti has also directed music videos, including Spoek Mathambo’s ‘Awufuni’, and more recently Alice Phoebe Lowe’s ‘Society’.

When describing the making of ‘Society’, Becatti articulates a rare moment of untampered creative freedom. It was as though he was adding motion to his stills: his photographic eye brought to the video image. It’s an example, he told us, of the ways in which creative practices feed one another. In developing his artistic identity, Becatti has discovered a seeping of one creative life into the next. A book, in dialogue with a drawing, in dialogue with music, in dialogue with an image.

Another piece of wisdom, drawn from Becatti’s creative practice, is to photograph daily. He speaks about his stylistic growth as a matter of habit: forcing himself to capture one image every day and upload it to Instagram, regardless of whether he deemed it perfect or not. Embedded in this practice has been a mantra to ‘do’ and ‘not think’. Indeed, in articulating how he works, Becatti seemed to be describing a meditative process, in which he learnt to set aside all preconceptions about ‘the good photo’. His own aesthetic expectations, as well as those of others, were presented as the biggest obstacle to his photography, which sought to move, uninhibited, with his inner intuition. “Honesty is original”, he told us.

Initially, Becatti found himself regularly photographing his subjects from behind, alone, in moments of reflection. It was a compositional pattern that developed organically, born of his intention to capture candid moments of stillness, when people were unaware they are being watched. More recently, he has been drawn to images with a story: the sort of shots that prompt viewers to ask questions about the scenes depicted, or to speculate about the lives and relationships of the subjects. Having travelled extensively around the world (the US, Germany, India, Mauritius, Japan, the UK), Becatti’s images also tell a human story — both of diversity and connection. It’s ordinary people, captured cinematically, with enough depth and colour, to reveal their (and our) extraordinariness.

Stay tuned for the next Camera Club. It offers a rare glimpse into a photographer’s worldview, through the people, colours, places, and juxtapositions that capture their attention. These conversations not only allow us to explore an image, beyond what is captured in the frame. They also shatter the boundaries between artist and audience, which so often inhibit us from making our first creative move.

20 March 2017