SANJI SENAKA

Police brutality and systemic racism has existed from the founding of America, there isn’t a Black person who is oblivious to that. So I leapt at Lauryn’s lyrics with this surreal visualization of the harsh reality (not to make light of it) but to make the message unforgettable -since the act of seeing police brutality was conveniently forgotten by some Americans, while it remained indelibly etched into the minds of Black folk. I thought to myself, “how can we move the needle?” then I thought, “Let’s just move the damn needle, here, in this video - let’s drag it through the street!”

Nominated for a Grammy for VIDEO OF THE YEAR, along with 3 MTV Video Music Award Nominations for Best Hip-Hop Video, Best Direction, Best VFX.

It inspired replicas in GLOBAL advertising for commercials for FORD and in France, for RENAULT.

We all go through so many universal feelings and journeys yet our skin or gender or class makes it easy to see our differences - I wanted make our collective “ONE”-ness more visible.

Many of the actors seen here never acted prior to being filmed, however they gave very soulful performances.

WINNER MVPA BEST FEMALE VIDEO.

MTV AWARD WINNER - best R&B video.

SEE Mary’s acceptance speech. For 2 reasons:

1). Mary is so heartfelt, it is moving!

2). Witness our society’s SEXIST and gross norms of 2002. Norms that encouraged men to at the very least think in predatory terms. As Jimmy Fallon says something I’m sure he wouldn’t utter now.

So where were ARTISTS like myself, who never wanted to feed into those norms/expectations to go & create?

I can only speak for myself, but it meant not participating, often times retreating out of Hollywood.

MTV AWARD NOMINEE - BEST VFX

360 MILLION VIEWS ON YouTube

TRUTH:

I want to share this “on the record” that this is one of my least favorite videos/concepts I made, it lacks the substance I crave, or any sort of societal or humanitarian insights or thought provocation, that said — it IS one of the more recent videos I made, and it was executed well. MASSIVE CREDIT DUE to my great TEAM. First off my VFX team. My VFX lighting guy Scott Metzger was INCREDIBLE as well as VFX SUP JOE HARKINS and the rest of the ENTIRE VFX TEAM. And I LOVED working with Danish DP ULRIK BOEL BENTZEN. He became my viking brother!

This is a superficial video regardless of how well crafted. And that is 100 % on ME - which is why I want to take a moment and own that. It’s not bad film making just hollow in regards to giving social commentary. And I have ALWAYS preferred work that has social relevance. It’s uncanny - but a lot of people don’t know BANKSY and I share a connection - in 2004 he painted a piece titled “TV HEADS DANCING” - before his mural - in 1998 I created a video built on the concept in which humans had TV’S FOR HEADS - and it was lauded as a first of a kind. THAT VIDEO is also on THIS website for “RAPHAEL SAADIQ & Q-TIP “- (and it was that video that prompted Laruyn Hill to call me). Lauryn saw the social commentary coupled with striking imagery - which some consider filmmaking in the vein of Banksy. I fathom the comparisons, because if you took some of his iconic murals and converted them to music videos - they might look like some of mine - and if you took still images from some of my videos and painted them as street murals… they might look like some of his.

JLO and I discussed doing something she hadn’t ever done before. RAW. GRITTY. NOT ENTIRELY GLAMOROUS. Aesthetically scrubbed down - and vulnerable.

In the vein of great Mexican and or French Cinema-Verite filmmaking.

A precursor to the way she appeared in her movie “HUSTLERS”.

Academy Award Winning Cinematographer Claudio Miranda (LIFE OF PI - CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON) shot Academy Award Winning Actor ADRIEN BRODY.

STORY:

Misfits - who feel incomplete, meet & fall in love. Will their relationship help them become fully “formed” beings?

TRIVIA:

While we were shooting this video MARY J BLIGE & I had both won our first MTV AWARD for “NO MORE DRAMA”.

ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATED CINEMATOGRAPHER - DARIUS KHONDJI (SE7EN - OKJA - UNCUT GEMS) and I shot Maxwell’s cover of Kate Bush’s classic - “This Woman’s Work”.

MTV AWARD NOMINATED FOR BEST BREAKTHROUGH VIDEO.

STORY:

Losing a loved one, can make simple acts like crossing the street FEEL like you’re drowning. Maxwell mourns the death of his lover - we see his feelings via a surreal journey that starts in his mind venturing through his heartache & tear stained world.

This was my very first directorial effort.

And the norm in early rap videos was girls-cars-and more girls.

I tried to bring awareness that objectifying women was NOT the only art hip-hop had to visually offer. But the record label and band wanted MORE butts, cleavage and girls. I did my best to subvert 1992 norms as a teenage director who looked like he was 15 years old, so you can picture how my “VOTE” did not count - CUT TO 2020, our world still grapples with objectification - on ALL sides of the gender spectrum. Maybe “objectification” is one more thing we can all tack onto the long societal laundry list of ills we may want to examine? Count me in as a content creator inspired to move the needle.

TRIVIA:

Passing Me By is a hip-hop classic - considered one of the best videos of the 90’s - AWARD NOMINATED.

The song appears in Jonah Hil’s “MID-90’s”- Donald Glover’s ATLANTA and many other TV series & Films. EARL SWEATSHIRT “CHUM” video pays homage to it.

Words can be weaponized. They can cut, wound, and scar.

They can lead to shots being fired.

Here, in this concept, WORDS ARE “BULLETS”.

And we witness the time and effort it takes to heal from them.

Features Kerry Washington, Kanye West (who was the executive producer of the album), Derek Luke, Serena Williams and Alicia Keys.

TRIVIA:

It was shot on Abott Kinney in Venice beach in “Iron Man” (Robert Downey Jr’s) house.

A voyeuristic journey through New Yorkers lives displays 7 different derivations of LOVE while the phantom of SEAL’S haunting performance lingers unseen.

In 1998 Raphael Saadiq, told me he was scoring music to one of the first African American animation TV series (produced by and starring Eddie Murphy “THE PJ’s”) - I was I told we had to incorporate footage of the show- so I thought it was an opportune time to explore the idea of how we’ve ALL been pretty programmed by media - creating a concept where WE ALL HAD TV’s for heads - the idea also allowed a seamless integration of the TV show footage - averting arbitrary cut-aways.

It was an incredible amount of work to pull off in a 12 hour shoot. As EVERY facial reaction had to be shot after all the scenes were complete to PERFECTLY match the ALL action.

When this first aired - most people said they had never seen this idea before. A FEW YEARS later Banksy paints his mural called “TV HEADS DANCING”.

Banks, is from Bristol, and back in 98’ Bristol was deeply influenced by African American hip-hop and soul, as Bristol birth “Trip-Hop” acts like Portishead, Massive Attack and Tricky - back then music videos were a life-blood connecting “underground” cultures of Hip-Hop and Trip-Hop, so music videos traveled the world as exclusive forms or entertainment and info. Something tells me Banksy saw this video, but regardless of where “he” got his idea- we BOTH agreed the IMAGE had merit, as a form of social commentary.

Slaves were forced to toil the tobacco fields and ever since black communities have been besieged & preyed on by the tobacco industry - so when I received this song from MOTOWN- titled "I GOT U" -  I couldn't just make the normal R&B video (with a guy and girl in a bedroom) - I thought I'd make a multi-entendre visual metaphor - here - the BLACK HEROES are BLACK FIREFIGHTERS (not a pervasive image then in 94) the Black firefighters have "GOT U" they've got our communities back! But cigarettes affect on the three leading causes of death in African American’s lives (heart disease -lung cancer, and stroke)- have also "GOT U" / the hood in a choke hold .  It's a lot of social commentary, I know.  But the visual metaphors are there in this video for the unpacking.

I remember when people asked me back then, YO? Where did you get this idea from?   When I told them my inspiration, they said "wow"- but this is just a song bout a dude lustin' bout a girl.  I just smiled, nodded, kept my head down, and my eye on the eye-piece (as this is when your looked down the barrel of the lens of a Panavision 35mm film Camera).

SPEAKING OF "CAMERA":

In 1994 - there were no female DP's.... maybe one or two - but I had no exposure or contacts who knew them and the same was true for African American DP's - aside from the great Arthur Jaffa (Eyes Wide Shut, Daughters of the Dust) Ernest Dickerson (Do the Right Thing) , and Malik Sayeed (Clockers) I had worked with Malik years later, he had introduced me to his gaffer Eric Wycoff - who became a great cinematographer I collaborated with on my JLO & Emeli Sande videos.(I love Eric Wycoff, aside from him being talented, he’s a great guy!).

So this video was shot by Jeff Cronenweth ( acclaimed Cinematographer of FIGHT CLUB, ONE HOUR PHOTO, GIRL WITH DRAGON TATTOO) Jeff's father, Jordan, shot BLADE RUNNER - but this was one of Jeff's first projects as a DP in his own right.  I found him to never once condescend, or put on airs - he was a DEEP listener and it led to us photographing BLACK SKIN in a very unique light - only a handful of non-black DP's understood the nuances of chocolate hued skin. THIS VIDEO prompted SPIKE LEE and his Cinematographer (Malik Sayeed) to call us during their shoot for "CLOCKERS" to ask how we achieved the skin tones. 

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND:This was done in 1994 - with meek VFX capabilities - lacking VFX prowess, the kind we have now.

This was to benefit children in need and was sung by UK group JLS. Some of the nicest brothas you could meet on either side of the pond.

This was the 2nd video I shot on Abott Kinney, Venice. Inside GJELINA (big brother restaurant to GJUSTA).

I shot/operated this piece as the intimacy required it. As there was no room for 2nd hand interpretations. IT ALL had to be captured in the POV of the lads lovers.

This was my second directorial effort in 93' -   I wanted to explore a taboo (in the land of music video) - an industry "no-no" -  thou shall not mess with the audio.  So I dropped the AUDIO. Not entirely, but the levels fluctuate throughout, as the IDEA was that the band was an unsigned “garage”band - rehearsing, and they had pirated the airwaves of a local radio station.

WE heard the track from the POV of whoever- or whatever radio - was receiving the pirated airwaves.

DISCLAIMER: 

Now's probably a good time for me to mention NONE of my work on this website is PHOTOGRAPHICALLY PURE - meaning, I don't own ANY of my masters. So every piece of work here - is off YouTube.  If you're wondering how or why I don't have the masters - I'll explain more on that in the ABOUT ME section. So please know THIS VIDEO in particular is one of the worst re IMAGE quality. END DISCLAIMER:

RODNEY KING was still fresh on my mind and still aching my heart back then, as it was with all black folk and those living in the hood( brown/other Poc's). 

It's illuminating to view this work through the lens of  GEORGE FLOYD - as I remember HOW HARD it was back then to try to address racism and other systemic ills that plagued us because the norms were more restrictive.  I had to make my commentary in a campy way - because aside from NWA - CUBE - DRE - whose brands were “F” the PO-PO.  Others in the landscape were not trying to speak out in a MASS COMMERCIAL WAY. Imagine COLIN KAPPERNECK'ing back then- how QUICKLY you'd get ostracized (and I did).  If the GREAT Spike Lee was gonna get sorta Black-listed, then you know the industry wasn't gonna balk at throwing me out. But in this video I squeezed in a scene where some kids are getting harassed by COPS and the kids protect themselves by grabbing CAMCORDERS, chasing the cops away who fear they will get caught on tape.  It's a BLIP in the entire video - but I RECALL how hard I had to push and how uncomfortable our society was addressing it in "art".

LAST BIT OF INFO:

MTV aired the video with all my AUDIO drops and cinematic ADR/FOLEY and SOUND DESIGN. 

But MTV wrote a letter to Propaganda Films (where I was repped and the company who produced the video) saying that as much as they loved the video - and that their in-house team appreciated the never before done innovation, they got national complaints - as the video IN MY OFFICIAL VERSION - starts out with low audio - then when one the guys in the band turns up the volume on his guitar amp - the VOLUME boosts- and many MTV viewers were pumping up the volumes on their TV's early on only to have their speakers blown out once the VOLUME KICKED IN.  I scoured the internet - I could NOT find that version (my cut). 

I could only find these 2 versions.

Version 1.) retains about 30% of the original sound design, BUT IT LOOKS LIKE TRASH.

Version 2). is a higher IMAGE quality that looks closer to the original print, BUT HAS NO AUDIO/SOUND DESIGN.

I’ve posted both here.