MEET: AG ROJAS

AG Rojas is a young director on the rise. He believes that we’re at the beginning of a new time in music videos where directors will be given more control and allowed to take more risks. And he’s more than willing to be the one taking them.

Labels aren’t paying his rent so why should they have final say on the making of his videos? It’s a necessary stance to take in an industry that far too often withholds creative control from directors and turns an otherwise exciting medium into nothing more than a commercial. What people tend to forget is that it is a real ”author-director” work. When you make a music video you write, you prep, you shoot, you cut and then you post your finished work. And in the end music video directors have very few rights and don’t usually get paid.

Since there is so little money involved, and with free content hitting the web on a daily basis, labels and artists have come to realise that the best chance for their videos to be seen and appreciated is to give directors full creative control to fulfil their vision. Only then will it be something truly special and not just another easily forgotten clip that feels as if it was cooked up in a boardroom to cater to a certain demographic.

AG makes the kind of music videos that we like. He’s living proof that having a clear vision and holding your stance, with your middle finger held firmly at the man, is necessary if you’re going to make it in an industry that doesn’t really want to pay you, or let you fulfil your creative vision. We spoke to AG while he was in-between Los Angeles and a last-minute project in London.

Interview by Karl Henkell for Surface to Air.

Click to read the full interview: www.surfacetoair.com/blog/2012/05/meet-ag-rojas/

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