The music video release for El Prez & Dale Danja’s “Floss Angeles” happened yesterday and it has received a lot of positive response online. The whole production process is a testament to the collaboration that it takes to make these things happen.
The idea came from a conversation between myself and J.J. as we were driving back from Austin and the South By Southwest festival in Texas. We were talking about artists in L.A. that had projects coming out soon that we should do a video for. A list of names came up and of course El Prez named popped up. I told him about Floss Angeles, my favorite track off of the Perfect Strangers EP that was just released a few months earlier. It was a song that featured 5 other artists and it reminded me of those vintage, 1990’s Hip-Hop posse cuts and I loved that. J.J. agreed with the notion and we hit up Prez as soon as we reached California. A meeting was held with him, E-Dubb, Eazee and Vanessa the PR girl. Everyone loved the idea and we set the production wheels in motion.
We made the video with a super low budget because we were working with an independent artist. So we designed the video to be shot guerrilla style at certain locales around the LA area. We got everyone involved with the project together on a weekend and we shot the video over those 2 days. I was dealing with 6 artists and 6 different locations, so it was a little crazy getting all of the shots and keeping everyone focused.
The editing process was another story. I wasn’t able to get all of the shots that I wanted, so I couldn’t make the video that I had initially planned on making. I made a first edit in which I was still trying to make my initial idea work, but the edit just wasn’t there. After abandoning my initial idea and strictly working with the shots that I got, another 2 edits happened before I was content with the project. But Prez didn’t agree with some of the choices I made. A lot of back-and-forth would take place between everybody and I had to balance their ideas and my editing to make it work. 3 more edits would take place before everyone was happy with the project.
A lot of people don’t realize that these videos are collaborations. Compromises are necessary and you have to admit when you’re own ideas aren’t going to work. But as long as you’re working with intelligent people, the project will find a way to get done.
