Video Chats: Fredo Tovar and Scott Fleishman on 'ILLuminate' by Ab-Soul Feat. Kendrick Lamar

Directors Fredo Tovar and Scott Fleishman of Aplus Filmz have been working with Ab-Soul, Kendrick Lamar, and TDE for years now. Because of that, they’ve built a relationship that has allowed them to not only direct the style of music videos that the label needs for promotion, but also to direct the style of video that they want to approach as directors - their video for Ab-Soul’s “ILLuminate” is a perfect example of this. We talked to Fredo and Scott about the video, their relationship with TDE, and working around extremely busy artist schedules.

Doug: You guys have done a lot of videos for Ab-Soul and TDE in general, I’m curious where your relationship with the label began?

Fredo: Our relationship with TDE began probably about three and a half years ago, almost four years ago. We met them at a recording studio while Jay Rock had a session there. Then I was in the back at a studio, Kendrick was hanging out there, and I played him some of our videos on my phone. He liked it and he asked me if he could send some records that he might be able to shoot some videos for him. This was like early on before anybody even knew who he was.

Scott: He was still K-Dot, and he was like Jay Rock’s hype man basically.

Fredo: Yeah, he was still K-Dot. Then he ended up sending those records and then I think the following weekend we shot a couple of videos for him and then that’s where it all started.

Doug: At this point, is it a situation where TDE basically just reaches out to you guys when they have a song ready to do a video? Or is it still a little bit more formal than that where you’re still submitting a treatment?

Scott: It’s pretty casual. We’ll just link up with them at certain times and tell them what we’re interested in, and they’ll tell us what they’re thinking. We’ll sometimes write treatments if we have a specific idea. Sometime they’ll come to us with a concept and say like we decided we want you guys to do this song and we just get the ideas together that way.

Doug: As far as this particular video, the narrative elements of this video, were they inspired by the lyrics, is it subject matter of the song, or did it come from you guys, where did this particular idea come from?

Scott: This one was pretty much us. We had done couple other videos on the same project, Ab-Soul album Control System. We did this “Pineal Gland” video which was the first one, and then he had the “Terrorist Threat” song with Danny Brown. Those were the two videos we shot over the summer, and then “Illuminate” was one that we really wanted to do so, they were sort of just waiting on us. We got their performances and then we came up with that whole concept of how we were going to put it together.

Doug: You mentioned the “Control System” album, that came out back in May, and as you guys said there’s two other videos from over the summer. Do you think this third video is still promotional material for the “Control System” album? Or do you think it's intended to promote Ab-Soul as an artist in general?

Fredo: I think it's a little bit of both. I think with the internet nowadays, you don’t have to specifically push one album anymore. I feel like it’s just the Ab-Soul brand that this video helps out. Whether it be for the “Control System” album or just setting for all the other projects he’s got coming out this year. I think this video in general is just to remind the people that Ab-Soul is dope, and he’s got a bunch of things coming up this year.

Doug: Getting into the technical process of the video itself, there are performance sections that looks like are projected there on the side of the wall. Did you guys actually project that on there, was that done in post?

Scott: Pretty much everything in the video was in camera. We actually shot all that stuff and edited it ahead of time, and then went out with like a car battery and a projector. We weren't exactly sure how well it was going to look, and it actually turned out that the projector was more than powerful enough. Just finding those right corners and parts of the city at night where there was there was the right combination of light where we could still see the image on the side of like a two or three story building. There weren’t really any special effects in the video.

Doug: Did you scout the locations or did you guys just go out there with the projector and look for some place that would look good?

Fredo: We went out a couple nights before both shoots. The Kendrick part was done first, and the Ab-Soul part was done second. Both of those locations were one of many locations we had picked just in case we got in trouble around there, or if it just quite didn't work with the actual projector. We went out there before without the projector.

Doug: You mention the car battery was running the projector. Was that car battery also used to run the television in the Kendrick scenes?

Scott: Yeah, we had this guy we worked with who is a dope production designer and he built all that stuff. That was all real - he built the TV on to the back of the bike and it's all being powered off the battery with the VCR.

Doug: You mentioned being concerned that you weren't sure how it was going to look to project stuff on the side of buildings. Was it a situation where as soon as you projected it and saw how it looked through the lens that you realized it was going to work? Or is it something you're not really sure of until after you've pulled the footage and looked at it on the computer?

Scott: Once we got out there we figured it out. We started out we were too close, and the image was too small. So we started to move back and once we figured out that we could be all the way across the street and really hit like an entire building we knew, "This is definitely going to look good."

Doug: You mentioned shooting the performance pieces with Ab-Soul and Kendrick prior to the other more narrative stuff. Were the performance pieces always meant to be as a part of this overall storyline? Or was more of repurposing old footage?

Fredo: That was specifically shot in that way for the video. The whole video itself is supposed to be like in the apocalyptic future. They actually wouldn’t be around in the element of this video. So everything was thought of ahead of time.

Scott: Kendrick was ready to go on tour this spring for practically the whole year. So we like got his out of the way first and then tried to put all of the rest of the pieces together.

Doug: Is that something that you guys have to keep in mind when you're coming up with an idea, that you might not be able to fit Kendrick into the narrative of a video? From the very beginning, even when simply conceptualizing the idea, do you have to keep in mind that scheduling might be an issue?

Fredo: That definitely comes up. Especially when coming up with the idea for this video. It's also because the other two videos that we did for Ab-Soul, and the other videos with Kendrick, it was very needed as far as the label asking us to do those videos - this one was more like our pitch to them. Creatively, it was our idea so we knew what we needed to get out of them. Usually ,when we shoot videos we want to keep the artist there for eight hours, 12 hours, just in case something happens. This one we knew what we wanted and they just let us shoot his performances and like left us alone for a couple of months. Then we just showed them the video when it was done. It was our idea.

Doug: It's not like they were checking in on you guys or asking how things are going?

Scott: I think for a while they weren’t sure if we were going to get it done. Then we showed to them and they were like "OK, dope! Let's put it out tomorrow."

Doug: Is that an unusual dynamic there? They're typically a little bit more involved in the edit?

Scott: Usually they’re more involved. Usually, it’s more in tune with the plan of their albums dropping and things like that. It's like "All right, we want to premier this day because this other thing is happening, or we want to align the video with that." This project, they knew that we wanted to place it somewhere after the initial push for Kendrick’s album, and before Ab-Soul starts dropping his new stuff. We just got it done and it's new content for them, so it all came together.

Doug: Do you think the ability to take on a project on your own comes from your previous relationship with TDE and that trust that you’ve built with them over these past years?

Fredo: Definitely.

Scott: I think the whole team is very conscious of how they present themselves. I don't think are at the point now where they're letting people just come in out of nowhere. There are times where sometimes it’s a good pitch and then the final product isn’t how they pictured it, or it doesn’t portray the artist in a certain way. I think we've definitely built that trust up over the years.