Video Chats: Matt Alonzo on 'What They Doin' by Kid Ink feat. YG

Sometimes music video directors can’t stay away. Even when they’re on vacation, when a good opportunity comes their way, they just can’t pass it up. Like Matt Alonzo for example: near the end of 2012, he thought he was done directing videos for the year, until DJ Ill Will hit him up to talk to him about the possibility of directing “What They Doin” by Kid Ink feat. YG, Matt decided to take on the job. We talked to Matt about the video, about being respectful of female cast members, and about not being able to stay away.

Doug: I’m curious about working with Kid Ink whose his career is kind of progressing. When you’re working on a music video for an artist who is that stage in their career, are you still kind of trying to kind of mold his image and the way he’s perceived by the public, or is that already established by the time he gets to you?

Matt: It depends. For example Far East Movement, I did their first video, so obviously bringing their image to the screen was was very pressing. For someone like Kid Ink, he’s put out 30 music videos already. Although his fan base is still growing, his identity is pretty solidified already. What I did with this particular video was try to add to that and visually bring it up to a new level. Give the visual a little bit more flash and make it all look a little bit bigger. That was the goal that I came into with this project, not to give him an identity but to visually bring it up to the next level.

Doug: As far as conceptually with the videos, did he have some ideas that he brought to the table coming into it, or does that mostly come from your end? How did that work out?

Matt: After taking a little hiatus, I got really anxious towards the end of the year. His manager DJ Ill Will and I talked about shooting a video. I was pretty antsy, so I said, “Yeah, let’s jump on this.” It was pretty much just up to me. Originally, I wanted to do a riot type of video, because I felt like the record had so much energy. I just wanted to match the energy on the song through the visual. Due to budgets and just some of the logistics, it just didn’t work out that way.  Basically, I just had a location and a rough outline in mind. Once we got there, I basically just went over the concepts as we did the walk-through. I knew it was going to be a performance-based video and it was just kind of like, “What can we do to make it different from all the other performance-based videos?” and just have a little bit of fun. That’s what really it was for.

Doug: When you say you were antsy, does that mean that you couldn’t spend time off? You had to keep working? Is that what you mean by you were antsy?

Matt: Yeah, unfortunately. I spent a good month or so away. I spent some time with the family, went back to Santa Barbara, hung out with some friends. But this is just what I do. When you’re away from it so long, you start going crazy, and just want to shoot. I want to shoot visuals that people are going to see and people are going to enjoy. I just had to jump on something and get the gears going to start the New Year. That’s kind of the choice I made to do that.

Doug: On this set, particularly on the outdoor stuff where you’ve got all the guys kind of hanging out, what’s the atmosphere on a set like that? Between takes is it kind of no holds barred, everyone is just doing their own thing, or are you able to maintain control on a set like that?

Matt: You have to maintain control as much as you possibly can. Obviously, something like "Celebration" when there are 150 people, it’s very, very, very hard. Something like this, it was a very tight crew. They were all Kid Ink or YG’s associates. They all knew us from previous shoots or gatherings. They were all cool. They understood what it was to be on a music video set. At that time, it was like two in the morning, so I’m pretty sure everyone just wanted to go home. There was a lot of laughing, a lot of fun. This video was more fun. Everyone was very lighthearted, just kind of having fun. The only problem was the flares. The flares kept getting in people’s eyes and the smoke. There were a lot of laughs and stuff like that with those. Other than that, it was a pretty calm shoot.

Doug: Yeah, I was wondering about the flares. Did you guys bring real flares, do they even make stage flares?

Matt: We did the walk-through with the production designer, the DP, and we all kind of went through ideas. I wanted flares somehow. I didn’t know how exactly I was going to use them, I just wanted them there. Like I said, listening to the song, I heard so much energy, so I just wanted to make sure to capture that energy. So he bought a bunch of real flares. Bought some of those smoker flares that do the big smoke in the background that we used. Basically, we just lit them and had some fun. It was more of a gorilla style shoot, which was fun for me because I normally don’t do those, at least in the last year or two I haven’t really been able to do those. It was fun just to kind of go out there and go back to my roots and have some fun.

Doug: Were you guys using those flares also as a light source in the video and stuff as well, or were you supplementing that?

Matt: Yeah, we used them as a light source in a couple of little locations. I loved the locations. We didn’t have the time, we had a very small crew, we just didn’t have the time to hit all the locations. My DP suggested, “Hey, let’s just light a flare, and that will give us enough soft light that things will look good. It will flicker a little bit because of the flare.” So we just went with it, and it turned out great.

Doug: This was all shot in one day? You said you went at two in the morning.

Matt: Yeah, it was like a six-hour shoot. Like I said, it was just kind of like gorilla style, run and gun, everyone show up, and let’s just have some fun type of thing. It was a one-day shoot, everyone was really cool and on time. It was definitely a well-oiled machine. It worked out well.

Doug: I’m always curious what kind of direction you give the female cast members in a video like this. Do you have to kind of work with them, or do you kind of cast a role like that with people who know what they’re doing on camera?

Matt: That is always a difficult part for me. I want to tell them enough information that you get the best out of them, I just don’t want to offend anyone. I basically just tell them, “Hey, just dance. Give me some good eye contact. Make sure that you’re showing the audience who you are.” I just basically tell them, “Give me what you have on your Instagram, give me what you have on your Facebook because you already know what you’re doing there. It’s the same type of thing, it’s just a different camera.” They’ll get a laugh out of it, and they know what I’m talking about. That’s kind of how that all works out. For this video, it wasn’t like a huge thing, they didn’t have roles where they needed to walk in and all this stuff. It was just more kind of, “All right, go in this alleyway.  Show me what you got.” That was kind of what we did for that.

Doug: That sounds like a very effective method, that “give me what you got on your Instragram and on your Facebook" method.

Matt: Yeah, and they already know their role is. They act shy for a little bit, and as soon as you tell them that, then, okay, they laugh and they’re good to go.

Doug: Is that stuff shot separately? Is it the same thing, where the artist and the whole crew is there also kind of making that situation a little bit more uncomfortable? Or are you able to kind of bring that away and separate that from the rest of the shoot to create a little bit more comfortable environment?

Matt: It depends. Sometimes the females will ask to be alone. Maybe they’ll want to do something revealing or something they won’t want the whole crew staring at them. On bigger shoots, obviously, we’ll have a second unit or somebody set that stuff up and I’ll go over there and check on it. For a video like this, it was a video where if a location was lit, then I needed to shoot while I was there, I couldn’t come back to it later on. We didn’t have a second unit to pick up shots. It was like once the artists were done, we walked the artists out, and we walked the girls in. Like I said, it was a small crew, so there wasn’t a bunch of people staring at them. At the same time, these girls are dancing in front of cameras in videos that are going to be shown to millions of people, so they can’t be that shy. That’s what they’re coming out here for. I think for them they have to expect that there are going to be some people watching, and the show must go on.