Check out BUILDESTROY Collaborators: Miguel Perez, Ratha Nou, and Stephen Schuster.

admin — Wed, 13 May 2009 23:16:17 +0000

I wanted to bring some attention to my boys that have helped me make my work be so much better and to show some of the work they do on their own.

First off is my good homie Miguel Perez aka BOUNCE - DOA. He reps Trust your Struggle crew and originally from the Bay, Berkeley to be exact. He’s been a part of many of my projects from painting in the CHAINS documentary, LATV Rebrand, and Latino FIlm Festival pieces to doing design for the Artsy video and most recently the Paris music video. Miguel is one of the illest cats I know with spray paint, marker, pen, and mouse.

He is a nomadic brother that splits his time between Bay, NY, LA, and touring all over doing ridiculous murals for the people and communities that he visits.

Please check his work here: devilsorangels.com | trustyourstruggle.com

Next up is my boy Ratha Nou representing his design company Stablished Creative. Ratha is an all around B-Boy who can dance, write, and design his ass off. Ra comes from San Jose and the Bay Area and reminds me of me when I was his age. If I was more funded right now Ratha would be in LA with me working on all my projects with me and prepping him to be the next hottest DIrector. Ra’s helped me to collaborate on commercials for Bronx based Graffiti and Tattoo empire TuffCityStyles and the Paris video. Ra can kill it in AE and C4D and keeps getting more and more ill each month.

You can check his work here: stablished.tv | stablabs.com | vesl.com

Last but not least is my good friend in LA, Stephen Schuster. Stephen is living a parallel life to me, whereas he is making the transition from amazing Designer, Animator, and Creative Director to being a fulltime Director. We both still dabble in the freelance world of design and animation but push each other to achieve the dream of Directing. Stephen also got married around the same time as me, so we try to train together so our wives don’t think we’re fat and falling off. Stephen has helped me with the Paris video and we both do top secret projects together for agencies to make extra money. We share a love of fine Cinematography, stop motion, and fine art. Stephen was one of the big guns at Kyle Coopers company Prologue for a few years before going solo.

Check his work here: element217.com | stephenschuster.com

BUILDESTROY Completes Revolutionary Video for PARIS “Don’t Stop the Movement”

admin — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 09:06:39 +0000

OG revolutionary rapper PARIS drops his first album in years called Acid Reflex. The song is “Don’t Stop the Movement” and Paris called me to make a greenscreen music video that has him leading an ever growing mob of activists to the White House for a takeover of the crooked Bush regime. This video dropped before the election and hit MTV2 on election day.

The video takes place in a Bay Area where we created a 3D world for Paris to illuminate the corruption and features a police chase of Paris, police brutality, angry mobs, revolutionary graffiti, and scathing lyrical assaults on the wackness in current hip hop and politricks. Definitely was a huge project that took about 3 months to complete but has been a dream of mine to make a video like this for some time. We shot 1 full day of P-Dog on greenscreen in LA and another day of just the extras. Don’t ask me where I got the elephant on greenscreen.

Buildestroy graphics for Peter Spirer’s new Doc. “Rhyme & Punishment”

admin — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 06:48:35 +0000

My first real project for Peter Spirer since I didn’t get to do too much for “Ghostride the Whip.” This one I went extra crazy on and did a combination of 3D tracked type and graphics elements onto live action footage and also full blown 3D environments.

I also got to do some dope stop motion mixed with After Effects 2.5D camera moves. This is a deep and somewhat dark film while at the same time containing a spirit of hope and positivity. It is about rappers that are in jail or have spent time in jail. Peter get’s in deep with the likes of Beanie Siegel, Prodigy, Slick Rick, Ras Kass, J Dee, J Sw!ft, and numerous other hip hop heavyweights. The beginning of a really powerful team at Rugged Films, nuff respect to Peter Spirer and my boy Joel, here’s to lots more!

BUILDESTROY / SECRET HISTORY Signed with Bucks Boys Productions and Labuda Management

admin — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:31:56 +0000

From the success of The Grouch “Artsy” video along with so many years of motion graphics work I got representation as a Director. My partner Ryan Flanery and I together as Secret History are now backed by a great team to make our commercials, music videos, and films. We are thankful for the support and about to move into a new office with our Production Company Bucks Boys. We are repped in the US by Tommy Labuda and in the UK by Streetlight Films. Give thanks!

The Grouch “Artsy” Video Goes Big

admin — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 06:41:58 +0000

So about a month after releasing it, the video got put on the front page of Youtube and Myspace, MTV2 picked it up with no payola and very little censorship, and Itunes put it for sale. We wound up with half a million views and a cult classic. We only entered it into one festival/competition which is the main one for Music Videos: the MVPA Awards.

We were nominated out of hundreds of entries for best hip hop video of 2008. We were next to Aesop Rock, Snoop Dogg, and Common, so we were happy, and it proves that if you put love and care into a project the people will respond and doors will open. It lead to us getting the number one music video rep in the country Tommy Labuda, and signing with Bucks Boys production company. We now share offices with them and have gone on to direct many more videos and look back at all the hard work of the Artsy video with love and a feeling of justice. Good hip hop will outshine the bullshit and good creative videos will get noticed! Thanks to all the blogs and internet awards we won. Thanks to SPIN magazine making us top 5 “Things you should watch!” (next to that illy Bjork video by Encyclopedia Pictura). Stephen Gottlieb at videostatic for the link up. Thanks to everyone that helped make that video possible. Daniel Blanco you are a Venezualen Beast! Ariel Shepard for the funny ass illustrations! Reel Roots for putting up with me and Ryan on a retardedly long shoot day (first of many, I know, I know) Secret History is now on the map!

Rest in Power Eddie!

admin — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 04:05:27 +0000

Eddie man it was a pleasure to know you my brother. I’ll never forget skating Downtown Oakland together. Or what a great family you have with Deb and your son. A real honest to goodness down brother, funny, humble and supportive and unique. You will not be forgotten.

“I’m gonna miss Eddie for a real long time, one of my favorite people in the world. Quintessential Leo. Conquering Lion. Such an awesome human being. Such an inspiration. I dont think Eddie had any enemies at least none that I knew of. It took a stranger to do this, if they knew him even just a little, they couldnt have done it. This Tragedy wont be but a blip to the rest of the world, but it will have lasting reverberations. Long live Eddie ” I Lush ” Campbell!”
- Ariel Shepard

Eddie was murdered senselessly in Puerto Rico while on vacation for a Bachelor party at an after hours bar. This bar called “The Vibe” in San Juan stays open till 8 or 9am so all the PR thugs can go there and don’t get searched. They claim the shooter wasn’t even 21. Everyone who knows how gentle and full of humour and fun Eddie was, knows that if he was involved in any altercation it was him defending on of his boys. So a coward killed a US citizen for no reason and PR newspapers have nothing to say and justice seems not to concern the local cops. Please help us BRING JUSTICE TO OUR FRIEND! WATCH THIS CBS VIDEO REPORT AND YOU TOO WILL BE OUTRAGED!! Check the site for my man and donate to the family if you have it like that: http://www.eddiemacocampbell.com

VIP Video - Bonsem / Hip Hop meets High Life from Ghana

admin — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 04:00:26 +0000

Did color tweaking and some title animations with Buildestroy collaborator Miguel (BOUNCE) Perez for our boy Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi. The group is VIP / Vizion in Progress from Ghana Africa and the sound is real dope. It’s a mix of African Highlife and Hip Hop. To me it’s real reminiscent of Dancehall but definitely has it’s own variations. Very melodic and the catchiest hooks, these kids are real tight. The video was shot in 3 parts between LA, NYC, and Ghana. We created 3 different looks for each section with the color palettes and title styles that fit each region. Eli is currently finishing the Documentary about this movement called “Home Grown - Hip Life in Ghana” check for it soon.

“The Row” Documentary

admin — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 03:52:31 +0000

I recently designed the website for the doc film “The Row” that documents the lives of a handful of Skid Row residents and their lives, trials and tribulations. Directed by Buildestroy collaborator Camila Martins and will feature music by BD audio collaborator Asa Taccone. The website I designed is in the works (therowdocumentary.com) and the amazing portraits below are shot by Chuc Ngyen.

Ghostride the Whip

admin — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 03:40:41 +0000

DJ Vlad along with my good friend Peter Spirer from Rugged Entertainment brings you the story of the Bay tracing the roots of Hyphy and Thizz to how Mac Dre came up to become one of the Bay’s biggest icons. Even people that grew up in the Bay can learn something from this joint like all that stupid doo doo dumb talk or how Hammer thought he was Turf Dancing too. I did some of the animation for it and it’s gonna be released through Image Entertainment so you can peep it on Netflix or in the stores. A must for anyone lovin’ the Bay.

3 Thug Mice - Support the Hood Not Hollywood!!

admin — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 02:18:17 +0000

Old Buildestroy partner in crime Steve Marcus has really outdone himself from our early days of animating together. One of the first After Effects jobs I ever did was with Smarcus. He got us the gig to make a cartoon for The Red Hot Chili Peppers world tour stage show, for the song Californication. Later that year they played it on MTV Music Awards when the Chili Peppers performed that song. Well Mr. Smarcus had put some really raunchy words in Japanese during one part, and MTV Asia played it all the way through to the horror of thousands of proper japanese families and of course MTV. But they never asked our permission to show it so take that.

Years later we haven’t grown up much and Steve’s latest offering is an amazing world that he created called 3 Thug Mice. It follows the exploits of NYC’s nastiest critters starring some of the illest characters in the known world. From Kool G Rap and RA the Rugged Man to Min, Fuzz, and Ket. Each week brings a new episode of hilarious shit, you gotta watch to understand how Steve’s humor goes down. So check it here on the weekly: 3thugmice.com. There’s been talk of turning it all into a feature film too, so help support.

Check out this interview Stevie Steve on this blog called Mvmnt, he talks about our first collabo and the world of the mice

Oh yeah my favorite part of the site is this crazy scene with the whole cast. Roll over each one and click to hear a soundbite from the actor. It’s tight and he’s got some real underground people on this joint. There’s also a Flash game where you have to blast on piglet cops and turn them into ham. Word.