Photos by Dave Lichterman
If you know Grieves and Budo, you understand the definition of work ethic. (If you don’t know them read about them here really quick and come right back.) There’s a reason they are signed to Rhymesayers and were one of the first groups announced performing at Warp Tour this Summer.
With them growing, its required for those working around them to grow as well.
This has fortunately been the case for Griff J, who’s been making videos for and with Grieves for the last five years.
Griff is also a rapper himself and has a free album titled “Misrable Heroes” available for download HERE.
He recently directed two videos for Grieves that are featured on the Rhymesayers website and YouTube page. The first was for a free download, Pack it Up, and the second for the track Bloody Poetry off of Grieves upcoming album Together Apart.
Scroll down below to watch both and thanks for the behind the scenes look at the process Griff!
So how was working on the new video?
Oh man, it was really intense and awesome at the same time. I think it was this fall, but I was talking to Ben (Grieves) and he said he wanted to me to direct a video for his album. And while he was recording a verse for my album I was listening to some of the tracks off Together Apart, and Bloody Poetry just stuck out right away. So I kind of had dibs on it ever since this fall and it finally got approved.
Photos by Dave Lichterman
You’ve been working with Grieves for awhile now, how has the process changed?
Back in 2005, when I first moved to Seattle and met Grieves and Type we would just decide to make a video and do it. Now there’s managers and there’s Rhymesayers. So this is the first video I had to pitch the idea for him, write up the story line and shot lists. It was also one of the first videos I had a reasonalble budget for. So I basically had to show them what I was going to do with their money and the story I was going to tell with their money. So I pitched it to them and they went for it. It was cool because it allowed me to be able to do things I wasn’t able to do in the past.
Congrats man! The video looks great. Were you working for free in the past?
I’ve always gotten paid for my videos, but I’ve never been able to build a crane to lift someone up in the sky. I can’t take full credit, my buddy Tim Christenson co-directed and produced it. The Crane shot was something he kind of dreamed up. We rented a crane, and found someone who was kind of handy who built a plank off it. And we bought a safety harness and lifted it up in the sky. I need to make an outtake video because on some of the shots in between takes, Grieves just looks so fucking scared. And I would have been too.
How high did you lift him?
I want to say we lifted him like 70 something feet. There were some shots where you can start to see the trees below us. He had the harness, but if he would have fallen off he would have been in a very uncomfortable position.
Some people asked if we green screened it. But it’s all live footage.
I feel like I’m paying my dues still as a director, and I really wanted to go all out. So I was okay with not making a ton of money off of the video if it meant we could come out with a much better project.
Thanks Griff!