One Degree of Byron
He's the biggest of the four I booked on the show. The hardest of all episodes to put together. We were scrambling up to the last minute to get things cleared, multiple cancelled shoot dates, last minute ideas, too much to list. Enjoy...
Dope album, get it here.
Ryan is a baaaad dude.... One of the most talented, smartest guys I've ever met. I have no clue why this guy isn't a bigger star than he is. Amazing performer, producer, songwriter words I say can't do him justice. All I needed to do on this shoot was coordinate the dates with BET and his camp. He came back with loads of ideas and a full schedule on what he wanted to do for his 'day in the life' shoot. He rehearsed 2-3 days non-stop with his band (which isn't cheap) and delivered a great performance. Check the clips below and judge for yourself:
For you digital marketing, social media freaks, peep his game online. Very savvy website and strong presence on You Tube, Twitter, etc.
Get BOTH of his albums! His debut, Ryan Leslie and the follow up Transition.
As you’ve probably noticed I had a lot of artists featured on this show **patting myself on the back**. Out of 8 artists featured in the series, I had half of them (Melanie Fiona, Kid Cudi, Ryan Leslie, & Hal).
Hal is the newest of the bunch. No album, no single, no video just pure talent and presence. After watching this episode you can see that this kid’s a star. This was a fun one to work, unfortunately I didn’t get the chance to do one of the shoots with him. I was away on vacation and of all the business trips I would’ve loved was this one. The Tourism Board of Barbados (Hal’s hometown) actually paid for the crew to fly to Barbados to shoot Hal’s ‘day in the life’ segment. DAMN, DAMN, DAMN!! I LOVE Barbados, flying fish sandwiches, Bank’s beer, and the best (& only) barracuda I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating.
Back to Hal, this dude is amazing. He's one of those guys you love hangin with and throwing back a couple beers and shots of dark rum. I really hope his label does him justice and gets the world to notice his talent. I had the pleasure of listening to some early work which I KNOW will blow your socks off. Follow him on twitter.
His full episode on Facebook here (glad he ripped it ;-)
Full episode here (in case you can't access his video).
Pics from the Barbados shoot here.
This was a fun and aggravating episode to work on. We moved the shoot dates about 4-5 times. Management, the channel, and I couldn’t agree on what we wanted to shoot. Each artist’s television shoots are broken down in two parts. One day of shooting had to be a ‘day in the life’ type of shooting where people could get a better sense of Melanie’s personality and her busy schedule. The other day of shooting consists of the performance in front of a live audience. The aggravating part was that we couldn’t all come to an agreement over what the ‘day in the life’ segment was going to be. The channel and I wanted to shoot in her hometown in Toronto but mgmt wanted it either LA or NY. After A LOT of back and forth, we ended up shooting in NY. The two days of shooting turned out to be great and I give kudos to mgmt to sticking their ground. If you haven’t already heard of Melanie you depriving yourself of experiencing a true rising star. She is one of the best artists I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Incredible personality, presence, voice, looks, the complete package. When she performed the performance portion of the show, I got chills like a proud papa. All that work culminated into a great mini concert & an episode that aired on BET. Enjoy!
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Buy her album here!
Follow her on twitter.
UPDATE:
BET Just did a 2nd season of Rising Icons this year. They brought Melanie back again this time with a stripped down performance. Ck it out:
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