Grown up #hyphlife makes it tough to keep up with all the dope content I want to toss on the bloggy blogg, so I depend on the weekends to catch up. This video for Grynch and Sol’s “All I Wanna Do” dropped a few weeks ago, but if you’re not up on our burgeoning scene here in Seattle, you may not have seen it yet. Well, sleep no more…and relive your college days with a good ol’ fashioned Seattle style house party.
I forget which show it was at, but while out and about at the Nectar a while back, I ran in to the homey Thig Natural of the Physics and we started talking about videos. Since I see more music videos at my day job than you’ve seen in your life, I’m always down to share some of what I’ve learned in the music video industry. While I can’t take sole credit for sparking this idea, I remember telling Thig that they HAD to do a video for “I Just Wanna Beat,” since it’s a classic record. Not just a classic NW record. A classic.
Lo and behold, the crew hooked up with Jon Augustavo and dropped the visuals right in time for the end of the summer. To bring it full circle, it was filmed in Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington, where I spent many hours of my youth raising havoc while my mom worked in her office there.
Oh, and you’re lyin’ if you can’t relate…IJWB. Download the High Society EP here.
As I was saying, the talent in the 206 is immense right now. I meant to put this on TAOD when Ryan first sent it to me, but I failed. Thankfully, 2DopeBoyz posted it up and reminded me about it.
In Ryan’s own words:
All summer I’ve been working on my thesis project to graduate from the UW. It’s another still-image motion picture like the 2Pac Vs. Franz Ferdinand mash-up I made last year. It features Macklemore and a few other people you may know (list below). Take in mind this is version one. Between limited access, finances, etc I couldn’t really pursue a lot of the ideas I originally envisioned in efforts to make it epic. I feel like the music got there more than the storyline. However, we may do an improved remix of it for the VS. (Macklemore/RyanLewis) EP featuring Mack rapping and a revised production more like a music video, shot with actual video.
It was shot entirely with regular still-image cameras (Canon 5D, Canon 5D Mark II, Nikon D300 and a Nikon D3), batch-edited in Photoshop and produced in Final Cut Pro. The music was probably the biggest Pro-Tools session I’ve ever ran. Although it samples the original Fake Empire’s piano and backing vocals, everything else was recorded live over numerous sessions.
Thanks a ton to everyone who helped:
The National – Fake Empire (Sample)
JkoePhoto.com (Jason Koenig) – Photographer
MazagranPhoto.com (Johnny Valencia) – Photographer
Myspace.com/Macklemore (Ben Haggerty) – Main Actor
Tricia Davis – Actor
Kevin Veatch – Electric Guitar, Electric Bass, Engineer
Andrew Joslyn – Violins and plucking
Zach Fleury – Main Drums, Percussion
Jonah Peters – Percussion
Ryan Lewis – Music Production, Photography, Film Production, Drums, Key Strings, Organ
We shot 100 + strangers portraits who choose a sticker that pertained to an organization/company that has either consumed them or acted as an alternative means of communication to operate with society.
Group Vocals –
P Smoov (Mad Rad)
Rosanna Veatch
Zach Fleury
Sol
Xperience
Macklemore
Anna Clausen
Isabella Du Graf
and more.
Also, Ryan has been working with a dope MC/vocalist named Symmetry for about 3 years now and I believe they’re just about to drop their full project for the masses. Here’s a taste: