Interview: A Conversation With Visual Mecca

While fixing up a quick meal in his kitchen, Chris is discussing his newfound responsibilities since moving into the new apartment he shares with Nick Visuals; bills, cooking, laundry, etc. — but the young director displays a sense of pride and elation rather than stress or annoyance when talking about them. After all, this crib was obtained after years of hard-work alongside Nick, shooting videos collectively as VisualMecca, a video production team known for their work with friend, frequent collaborator and now roommate, Alex Wiley, as well as several other prominent Chicago acts.

Nick has now joined us in the kitchen and they both acknowledge that the apartment was the next logical step in life and their artistic careers. Nick comments on their aspirations for the future and even though they seem complex (visual shows to serve as opening acts for Wiley while on tour) or far-fetched (expanding their business to other areas outside of music videos), their exuberance and past accomplishments makes it’s hard not to think that they’ll find a way to complete their goals and even exceed them.

As the three of us sit-down at their table to start the interview, their welcoming attitude and undeniable friendship made the sit-down more of a candid conversation between homies than a formal event. Check it out after the jump.

How did you guys start working together and decided to create Visual Mecca?

C: It just kind of fell together. I knew I wanted to direct since I was like 10. Once I graduated High-School, I grabbed the camera and started shooting and this guy told me he had the editing software. He was the editor first and I was the shooter, now I’m the editor and he’s the shooter.

N: I hate editing now, unless I’m really into the project. I wasn’t even into this shit at first, I was doing 3D animation from 2010 to 2012. He came up to me because I had the editing software.

Which video would you say put you in the map locally?

C: In Chicago? Invitation, Martin $ky. If I would have to say what was the first video that was good, I would probably say “Road To Riches” with Michael DeJaneiro. We were working with him early on and he’s very creative with his vision. Working with him and us trying to get better, by the third video we knew it was good. From there we just kept filming.

N: But “Invitation” was the one that made people say “oh shit VisualMecca.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ioat0Ccjf7w

N: It depends on what artist. Sometimes it can be all us, but, most of the time what we try to do is have the artist involved. We’ll sit down and have a meeting or two to figure out what they’re trying to do and get their vision.

C: Yeah, it’s very collaborative. We bounce ideas back and forth.

Alex Wiley is your biggest collaborator, are you the same way with him?

N: Yeah, it’s funny actually. With Wiley, a lot of things we do with him happen accidentally [laughs].

C: Some of our best shit.

N: Vibration for example, was a complete accident.

That video came out super dope.

N: The thing is, we were just fucking around with these plugins trying to find cool shit and I clicked on something that I didn’t actually think was going to be anything and Wiley said he liked how it looked and that’s how we came up with the idea to make a moving painting. The Starry Night was one of the biggest inspirations for “Vibrations,” we really loved the look of it, so we took that and tried to make it a moving painting.

C: So it went from accidentally throwing in the effect to “man we know we want to use this effect but we don’t how to use yet,” and it all went from there.

How was it like touring with Wiley over the Summer?

N: I fucking loved touring!

C: Best time of the year.

N: Hell yeah, although those last two weeks of the tour…

C: Everybody was drained. After L.A. we were all just trying to go home [laughs].

N: We started off at SXSW…

C: Then Kansas for a week and a half…

N: Oh man, it was awful.

C: Then North Dakota.

N: North Dakota was weird as fuck.

C: Yeah, it was definitely a strange experience.

N: There’s nothing to do but get drunk and do drugs there. So that’s all those kids were doing. They were throwing up on each other and doing cocaine.

C: After the show we went to a packed house party; there’s one guy throwing up in the couch, another one doing cocaine in a different room, going crazy and wrestling each other. It was really strange.

Would you guys say that was the craziest experience you guys had on tour?

N: Definitely. L.A. was fun though.

How long did you guys stay there?

K: A week and a half.

N: We stayed there with K.R.

C: It was his birthday we we first showed up, he had a show on his birthday and we stayed in L.A. for a week. Wiley was working with Hippie Sabotage in San DIego and we were kicking it with K.R.. We helped him shoot a video, we went to a Schoolboy Q concert…

N: Yeah, that was dope. We were backstage for that.

Y’all shot a bunch of videos on the road in the States as well as Toronto right?

N: Yeah, Toronto is a nice ass city. It’s like a type of Chicago, they have a lakeshore.

What was the concept behind “Takeoff”?

N: There was no real concept, we just wanted to make a cool looking video and we definitely wanted to have Wiley taking off Earth. For the longest time we were stressing about this video because we had to get it done, but we didn’t have shit for it [laughs].

C: We were also shooting this video and “Treat Me” at the same time. Both of them were very stressful.

“Treat Me” must have been a hard song to properly conceptualized because of the theme and how it can be taken as controversial, was that a part of the stress?

N: We wanted to send a message to these people.

K: And we knew it was going to be huge when Mick called me. He had just dropped it and I listened to it and fell in love with the track. When he asked me to shoot the video, I said “absolutely, this is going to be huge.” But two or three weeks passed and we didn’t hear back from him, then the event at Ferguson happened and that’s when the pressure hit because I knew if we did it right it could send the right message and push our name.

I really liked the cinematic aspect of it and the split screen effect.

C: That was Supa’s idea and we actually had a budget for this one. Shoutout to Mick

N: We got a piece of equipment, Movi 5. It’s basically a stabilizer that makes things really smooth, so you could be jumping or running around and the camera would be nice.

Were you guys happy with the reception and how it turned out?

Kris: The thing with us is, after we do a video we critique so much that we always think it could’ve been better.

N: I wished we would’ve told a better story, I think we could’ve expanded a bit more.

C: Yeah, it was very elementary.

N: It was damn near perfect, but the story could’ve been better.

C: I mean, we came up with the idea, but then you have to get resources and shit starts falling through. We had to work with what he had, but overall we’re proud of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp5sAQSYyYs

That’s good though, you guys are always striving to get better. I remeber your videos prior to “Invitation” and I remember that being a huge leap for you guys and ever since then each new video is a bigger leap than the one before.

What has been your favorite experience since Visual Mecca started?

N: Getting a spot.

C: Yeah, this spot right here is the culmination of three years of grinding and trying to make it happen. It’s satisfying.

N: Yeah, that’s the best way to describe it.

C: It rebuilt a passion for this.

What are your plans for 2015?

C: Visual sets. We don’t want to do as many music videos, by the end of 2015 I don’t want the majority of work to be music videos. I’m actually starting to write scripts, doing commercials and short films. Doing more artistic things so we can go on tour with Wiley and do stuff with him. Flip the brand.

N: Work in 2015, so by 2017 we have our production company in Chicago because there’s no big production house here.

C: Yeah, we want to be that production house people want to come and shoot in Chicago with.