Gotta Go - KC Hamada
Director’s Note
Our first day of production for Gotta Go was 19 October, 2021. This has been a long time coming, and there’s a lot to say about it.
When I had just started directing, KC and I talked a lot about subverting expectations - genre, context, audience. I did not really understand the long-lasting tradition of flexing in hip-hop music videos: it was always shades and chains, always cars and aggressive gesturing towards the camera. I understood the desire for the rappers to “stand out,” but the truth was that when all videos look that way, nothing stands out.
Gotta Go is the first single on KC’s Lights Out album, and you could already feel the heat from the album back when it was being produced and mixed. It was something different, so the MV needed to be something else. My pitch to KC went along the lines of, “Instead of high production value and low post-production effort, let’s do the opposite and green-screen the whole music video.” A shoutout to my DP friend Matthew @matthewtanfilms who filmed KC performing in a makeshift green-screen setup in my near-empty apartment while I was in the process of moving out.
And then post-production came, and we hit a few big snags.
I still needed motion capture footage for a 3D sequence I had envisioned, but life had grown complicated for both KC and myself - I had left the UAE at that point, and KC was busy figuring out the rest of the album, and the rest of his life. On top of that, KC reached out to me and let me know that while we were waiting on the footage, a new extended introduction had been added to the track that we did not really account for. I’ll admit that it was a frustrating moment in the collaboration, because the introduction - while amazing - changed the way that the music felt, and subsequently how our existing visuals would mesh. I shared my thoughts with KC, who was very open to dialogue and feedback, and that it was a beautiful moment to grow and learn together. With the added work in mind, KC had offered to release two versions of the song: the MV version (sticking to our original approach), and the updated version. But I knew in my gut - even amidst the frustration - that the introduction elevated the song, and that I wanted to direct new visuals to accompany that evolution. So we agreed to add another day of shoot while I was in the UAE, to faithfully represent the album’s story.
My idea was to shoot a noir-esque intro, inspired by the likes of Kiss Me Deadly and Dead Reckoning. We brought in Zuhair @zuhairdp to execute this vision, who then introduced us to Vineet @vinitsadhwani and his gorgeous Oldsmobile. We needed to find a secluded location to sell the feeling of isolation and noir, but also accessible so as to not decimate Vineet’s vehicle. It was a few days of driving around deserts with KC, trying to find a place that we estimated would not be packed in the evening. We eventually settled in a patch of roads right outside Dubai, and the plan was set.
Filming in the desert is always challenging, but the winds get more vicious as night rolls around. Visually stunning as it was, the camera did not respond well to the sand (there’s not much to say except sorry to the camera team…!) and so we were eager to wrap as soon as possible (also because the shoot was extending into early morning and everybody was exhausted).
We had budgeted a few weeks to work on post-production and test some new visuals that would fit better with the introduction, and finished the MV before KC’s Lights Out show on 27 Sept 2022. The show and the visuals received rave reviews, and set my and KC’s minds at ease about our approach.
It’s funny thinking back to how much Gotta Go (and the album) had changed from that initial green-screen shoot. I would’ve been proud of the original visuals, but the prolonged production and post-production period allowed the Lights Out album to mature conceptually, which then fed into more established themes for the MV. It’s serendipitous how if either of us had been a little less communicative after the new introduction was thrown into the mix, we would’ve ended up with a MV that would’ve been impressive but maybe just a bit disconnected from the Lights Out universe. To that, I’m so grateful to KC for his endless energy and ability to have hard conversations. Good collaborators elevate the creative process, and I’m constantly reminded by that when I work on KC’s music videos. More to come.
