AaronMan Director/Editor Reel 2011

Posted by AaronMan on Jul 27, 2011 in Blog | 31 comments

Its been 18 months since i directed my first music video….last month i directed my 7th Music Video and by the time we reach the beginning of August i will be smack bang in the middle of Directing my 9th Music Video as an independent Music Video Director and Editor……

It was 18 months ago that i reached a point where i felt that although i was loving life and having an incredible time…when i lay in bed at night and had those personal mind diving one to one sessions that we all have with ourselves late at night when we cant sleep that i really felt i was genuinely capable of anything i put my mind to….so it was at that point i asked myself a dauntingly honest question……’if i could be anything in the world…..what would i be?’….and the answer that question regurgitated was…….. ‘A Feature Film Director’.

Id always loved films since i was a kid, and although i was an athletic achiever i still found a lot of time to watch TV and Films (although admittedly my school homework was neglected very regularly which got me into constant trouble at school). So the very next day i decided to start looking online at film schools in New York and Los Angeles and chatting to people who i thought may be able to offer me some advice on the best route to take on my road to Feature Film ‘Directordom’. To go to UCLA i needed qualifications and as i decided to skip University getting into UCLA was going to be a bit of an issue….. so eventually i looked at New York Film School, this was an option because i didn’t need any major qualifications, i just needed to complete a 1 year film course that would allow me study what i really wanted to study there in my second year, and oh yeah pay the hefty tuition fee’s. Then a very good friend recommended Vancouver Film School in Canada, apparently it was one of the best intensive Film Schools in the world and there was no semester breaks they just power through the curriculum in a year instead of 2…. this sounded good. I researched VFS and to cut a long story short i eventually went to visit Vancouver to see how i felt about the place and check out the school. I went there and liked the place enough to live there, it was a cool city for sure and the school was impressive. I Felt good.

I left Vancouver and flew back to Asia where i have been living for nearly 5 years now…at that time i had moved from Bangkok, Thailand to Bali in Indonesia…. one of the surf capitals of the world. I had a plan now, i needed to save $30,000 to pay for tuition and be in Vancouver for a year studying. I felt like i had taken my first step.

Living in Bali was great, i was surfing a lot, but there was a huge down side, i wasn’t working very hard! After surfing twice a day there isn’t much else you want to do apart from eat and sleep…so when i wasn’t surfing i spent a lot of time lying on my bed or the sofa ….watching movies!!! This was reminiscent of times gone by when i was watching movies instead of doing what i should have actually been doing such as ’school homework’ only now it was just ‘work’.

Then something happened that would alter my path slightly, i had to go to Singapore (an hour flight from Bali) to renew my Visa to be in Bali (you have to go in and out of the country to do this for those in the U.S or Europe who aren’t familiar with this wacky process)…. while i was in Singapore i saw something that was nearly as sexy as Adriana Lima in nothing but high heels and Black Victorias Secret lingerie……. it was a Sony Ex1 Cinealta Camera with solid state memory card recording…and…full HD video in a plethora of different frame recording rates (yep i know i’m a nerd)…..id saved about $6000 towards my $30,000 Vancouver Film School fund and as stupid as it sounds i decided to blow it all on this camera….in that minute had this moment where i felt like i should be making short films and i needed a decent camera to do that and this was the one.

So i went back to Bali with my new camera in tow, and sure enough i proceeded to make a couple of short films, one in Bangkok, one in Bali and one on a surf trip to Brazil…… but they were all to music, without dialogue and weren’t getting a lot of views online. It was at this point that i figured well they’re kind of music video-ish so i should just find upcoming artists who need music videos and shoot music videos because then not only would i be promoting my work, but the artists would, and the fans would and that would give my work much more visibility, and i felt that’s what i needed. So i got online and managed to find an artist in Thailand who i thought was talented and that i liked called ‘Eazy’ so i contacted him and explained that although i haven’t made an actual music video before id love to make a free music video for him….he was keen and hesitant at the same time as you can imagine. Eventually we arranged a day and shot the video ‘feeling good’ and during the shoot i was lucky enough to meet ‘Dandee Supwattana’ another artist who i would shoot my next video with (and still one of my favourite to this date) ‘Kane Money’. The budgets at the time were tiny but Id eventually to come to have a really good working relationship with Dan which would lead to 2 more videos for songs and artists he was involved with that had increasingly bigger budgets, one being Project E.A.R ( a Rock/Hip Hop hybrid band that consists of some southeast asia’s most popular groups such as Thaitanium, Slapshock and Pop Shuvit) and Liquidsilvas – Become Number 1 Music Video. It was after these videos that i first got a call from Way (Thatanium – undisputedly Thailands Number 1 hip hop group) who id met on the Project E.A.R shoot who asked me if id direct Thaitaniums next video ‘Tae Ung’…this was incredible for me as a i clearly remember coming to Thailand 5 years ago and as i liked Hip Hop….Thai people and mostly taxi drivers during those inane taxi conversations would always tell me ‘oooh Thaitanium…Thaitanium…Thai Hip Hop velly good ’ so i was curious and went to the mall and bought a Thaitanium album….if someone had told me the day i handed my money over for that Thaitanium album that 5 years later id be on the cusp of directing my second Thaitanium Music Video that would get heavy Daily airplay on MTV Asia id have thought that person was mad.

So now as i look forward to the future and post up my Directors Reel i ask myself again what the next step is to get where I’m going….and the answer to that question is ….. to get director representation and move to LA……Hollywood ‘The Land of Hope and Broken Dreams’, time to throw my hat into the ring. Here i come.

‘Anything is Possible’

Thanks for Reading.

Aaron