Between sunny Alicante and windy New York: long production journey of Cres - One Life documentary
How our deceased friend led us to make this documentary.
The idea to make this documentary film wasn’t born in Vita Pictura; it had been a project of our good friend Alex Frantz Ghassan that he started several years ago, before his tragic death in 2016 in Oakland, California. Alex had already done an amazing job with Vita Pictura when filming a music video for the Eurovision artist representing Finland in 2016, Sandhja. Vita Pictura’s collaboration with Alex as the director promised a lot of things to come, but it was never meant to happen. One thing we could do, however, is to finish the documentary project about Cres, just like Alex wanted it to happen. We are thankful to many people who made this documentary possible — from Alex and Cres, but also Alex’s mother, Emilie, who kindly provided us with the footage shot by Alex.
Most of the footage of Cres in the film was filmed in the year 2017, when Vita Pictura’s production team visited Alicante and its vicinities in Spain. In 2017, Cres felt that the music is a reflection of freedom, which he exercised by having his unique two-language style of rapping on the topics he felt were important to him. Therefore, in some way, this is more than a documentary, this is a time capsule of that time period. Not only we understand Cres’s ideas, but we also interview other musicians from Spain and the US who collaborated with him previously. The time capsule that this film is shows us the state that the music was in before everything changed.
Carlos Santiago, known as Cres on stage, was raised in sunny Alicante, Spain. Cres has been doing graffiti and breakdance since 1991, and he started writing rap in 1998. At once, Cres decided to leave his job in Alicante and to pursue his dream instead, which was music. He moved to New York, traveled to Guatemala and Mexico to showcase his music and record several music videos. Once back in Spain, he continued working on new projects and performing every time he could. This documentary features Arkano — the Guinness World Record holder in freestyling, Alicante rapper MC and rapper Santiuve, sound engineer Dani Saiz, at Estudio Sacramento, and talented US artists who have been working with Cres and the unique director Alex F. Ghassan.
The Beginning of collaboration
After several demos and a solo project, Cres’s first official album was released in 2007 and his single “Reflexiones” was number one on MTV and was nominated for the MTV awards. While in New York, he has worked with some of the biggest names in the USA, like the Grammy Award winner Symbolyc One (Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Kanye West), !llmind (Drake, J.Cole, 50 Cent), Skyzoo (Lloyd Banks, Talib Kweli), and with artists in the Spanish scene, such as twice Latin Grammy nominee Nach, Spanish rapper and poet Toteking, Acción Sánchez, and many many others. In fact, our film turned into a short overview of the rap scenes currently active in Spain and in the Americas.
Cres and Alex collaborate
Alex, who was one of the best directors Vita Pictura team has ever met, filmed the music video in Mexico for the track “No Matter What”, featuring Seer (Z) and !Illmind. In fact, the legendary beatmaker and producer !Illmind introduced Alex to Cres. They decided to shoot in Mixquic, México during “Dia de los muertos” or “Day of the Dead” in English, which we think was a great choice. This wasn’t Cres’s and Alex’s first collaboration with !llmind — Alex shot and produced the music video “Stop Me” featuring !llmind and Skyzoo back in New York in 2013.
The next music video Alex and Cres shot was “I’m Down With It” in Mexico as well. Cres adds that the neighborhood they shot the footage at “was no joke”. The last video Alex directed with Cres was the single “Vibe” of the album Lovestalgia, shot in Tepoztlán, located south of Mexico City.
In 2017, Vita Pictura’s co-founders Georgius Misjura, Aleksei Kulikov and Roman Pototski have taken the initiative to go to Alicante, Spain and film the interviews with Cres, his friend Spanish freestyle rapper Arkano, rapper Santiuve, sound engineer Dani Saiz and Spanish rapper R de Rumba.
Cres and Alicante
One of the most unique features of Cres as a rapper is that he is unafraid to perform both in English and Spanish languages, sometimes rapping in both languages on the stage. After spending several days with Cres in his hometown Alicante, we understood that he could easily work for long hours in the sound recording studio, not forgetting about other responsibilities. This, however, doesn’t stop him from being spontaneous when it comes to music making and trying out new sounds.
Daniel Saiz, the sound engineer at Estudio Sacramento, who has an innumerous number of hours behind his back working with Cres in Alicante, reflects on his creative process:
“Forget about Internet. Don’t listen to advisors. Just do what you want, you don’t have to feel compromised, because you are wanting something that you feel that you are not going to get any time — this is when you get more purity of you and more purity of your music, and your art.”
Arriving from Estonia, Alicante blessed us with the warm sunshine and incredible views on the castle Castell de Santa Bàrbara. We met with Cres, tasted some tapas, and decided to schedule our production for the next week. We followed Cres along the streets he had been raised on and met his friends from the Alicante music scene.
In the documentary, you will see Arkano saying that Cres is an incredible artist and he always did what he wanted in the music scene. Arkano reveals the music scene in Alicante:
“I think that in Alicante there are a wide variety of styles, a lot of people rapping, and many of them with their own projects.” — Akrano
New York’s music scene
The following year after several days of shooting with Cres in Alicante, Georgius Misjura and Roman Pototski planned another trip — this time to New York. This is where Georgius met Alex’s mother Emilie and Rick Purvis, a friend of Alex. In addition, Georgius, with the help of Emilie, managed to find and meet Crystal Caines who was introduced to Alex by Cres, and record the interview with her.
Crystal Caines is a rapper, artist and producer based in Harlem, New York. Some of her most notorious productions so far included A$AP Ferg’s first music video “A Hundred Million Roses”, and in 2013 “Lord” on A$AP Ferg’s debut album, Trap Lord, featuring Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Apart from being known for her producing and rapping, her beats are now very well known. Alex wanted to film his next music video with Crystal Caines, but again, unfortunately, that was never meant to happen. We did include the interview with Crystal Caines and her story about how she got to know Alex and Cres.
Crystal Caines tells her view of Cres in the film:
“Artists merge two different languages, this actually opens them up to be a little bit more creative, because there are certain things that sound better in a different language, than it would sound in English.”
Alex’s mother Emilie gave Georgius Alex’s footage that had been filmed several years prior, and this helped us as directors and producers to understand our documentary in full and expand it — we now had the unseen footage by Alex from the years 2010, 2011 and 2012, during Cres’s collaborations with artists in New York. We also included in the documentary Alex’s footage of Spike Lee, !Illmind and Skyzoo. Soon, we understood that his footage was as important to the wholeness of Cres’s story, as our own footage that had been filmed in Alicante the year before.
The New York trip not only fulfilled our documentary with new characters but also enriched the film. We now understood the music, its origins and the locations much better and on a more personal and global level. In the end, we have a very personal documentary about the artists following their calling.
It is fair to say that without Alex’s mother Emilie this film wouldn’t be what it is now, since she had all the contacts of Alex’s friends in New York, she was our key to his world. For example, Alex’s mom connected us with his friends the director Isam Muhammad, producer Erick Purvis and publicist Richardine Bartee.
Alex had a big influence on everyone he used work or be firends with, including us here at Vita Pitura. For example, Alex used to push Richardine to create and supported her in her beginnings and later she became one of the most well-known publicists in the US and founder of Grungecake publication. Alex really knew how to inspire people and lift them up when they were down.
In addition, the earliest footage used in the documentary had been shot in the year 2010 by Alex, therefore it is fair to say that it took almost 10 full years to shoot, combine and edit this work that he started and we finished.
Cres: Future Plans
At the moment, Cres is working on new music. He has released three new songs for a new project. The last one launched is called “Dejándolo salir” directed by himself and David Salas, “Ahí lo dejo” also directed by Cres, and “Olrait” with a video directed by Iker López and has told us, first hand, that he has two more ready and 7 finished songs, plus more on the way. Cres also mentioned that his new project will include more records in Spanish, rapping and singing, and that he has composed a couple other songs with him covering the singing part for a different project.
The multinational, or even better, intercontinental production collaboration that was started by Alex Frantz Ghassan and CresOne, and later taken over by Vita Pictura’s team, had lead to the documentary you can watch. The long-lasting project has too many people involved in it on so many different levels, that it would be impossible to mention everyone who had helped us in making this documentary and tell you all the crazy stories revolved around this production. We, at Vita Pictura, are excited to see what will CresOne bring next to the international audiences!
Watch the full film for free here:
Written by Roman Pototski, with the great help by Cres and Georgius.
