man, rik cordero is doing ALOT of shit....

check out this short interview where he defends himself against the claims that he is lowering the standards of music videos...

         

"Rik Cordero has been doing ALOT of shit"

Agreed. I'm not a fan of most of it but dude is burning the midnight oil for real this year.

To me it seems like in general the "hot" hip hop directors really keep the work rolling out when they have a buzz. Cordero, Ferguson, everyone's favorite Rage,etc.

While the "hot" indie directors take their sweet time

Like how does the Ace,Bruntel,Albertin crowd keep their lights on putting out only 3 or 4 videos a year?

Not to mention their budgets have to be so much less in most cases.

         

Mum, dad, and the odd commercial.

         

Hands down Cordero is the director of the year in my book, not just because of the quantity of his work, but also the diversity. And I like him even more after watching the interview- he seems to have his head on straight, and he has no misgivings about his function as a video director. Now seems like an awfully weird time to be "keeping it real" as a video director. Why be overly choosy about your work at a time when even the biggest artists are lucky to come with budgets that can put food on the table?

         

the mum, dad bit above is a bit cynical. Not saying it doesn't happen, but let's not discount the large majority that simply work their asses off doing videos as one of three jobs they hold down.

commercials- yes if they are at that level. under that it's a second job. most directors I know are either editors, photographers, designers etc... as well to make ends meet. that is also why it is difficult to bash out more than 6 videos a year.

         

Definitely cynical. Just a reflex action. It's true; many have more than one job, and the artistic talent required to be a great director will often be borne of the ability to do more than just direct.

         

Look at that silly arm wave dance they do - was that the director's suggestion? The ornate CG palaces an silly ghost of Arafat at the poker table - who do you think wanted all that stuff included? Certainly not the director.

On a job like this, the director has to balance what he can actually accomplish with what the artist/label want to do. This is especially hard with an artist (like Busta) that has lots of say in what he wants, no matter how crazy it is, and who remembers when he had $700k to spend on a video. Trust me, balancing 'unhinged from reality expectations' with a one day budget is very challenging.

As to what the indie guys who don't churn out work do? Commercials, website design, corporate videos. If we are gonna 'judge' the cool-ness of output from directors - don't look at some of that stuff, that might make 'arab money' look classy.

I touched on some of this directorial choice stuff a while back - 30frames.blogspot.com

         

I think the above comment hit the nail on the head with diversity Cordero works the whole range of hip hop artist. Yea he will do the club single video, but he will also do a video for boot camp clik or newcomers like Wale who doesn't even have an album out.

Seems "hot" indie directors only settle for the lead single off the next hyped band to do a video. We all know these bands are coming around less an less so it's like waiting on shooting stars to determine your shooting schedule.

Yea I know the budgets have gone down which means less quality. But shouldn't that mean more quantity?

         

Regardless of how many promos he does or how 'screwed on his head is', the guy doesn't make good videos and everyone (including this) still exists in a very amateur world of video making.

Do I dig his approach to it? Totally. Do I dig his work? Not at all.