The era of COVID-19 has been a challenging one for artists from all disciplines, and many have risen to the challenge by finding new ways to be creative and maintain a connection with their audience and supporters.
Within the Atlantic Bubble, a new collaboration was born out of a chance connection between award-winning Fairview hip-hop artist Quake Matthews and Halifax-raised filmmaker Christian Ghosn, who was back from Los Angeles with family during the lockdown and looking for a project that would make the most of his time while he was home.
After studying film at New York University and making a pair of short gritty character-driven crime dramas, When Don Met Vicky and Violent Nights, Ghosn moved to L.A. a year ago. There, he met up with video director Life Garland, who’s made clips for Justin Bieber, Lil Jon and the Ying Yang Twins, and started working on story treatments and assisting on his shoots.
Violent Nights Teaser Trailer #1 from Christian Ghosn on Vimeo.
While his short films display a keen visual eye and sharp writing, working on music videos gives a filmmaker a different skill set, from learning to tell a story in a tight time frame — often without dialogue — to directing performers who aren’t trained actors.
All skills he knew he could use in working with Matthews, who Ghosn knew remotely through his older brothers and some cousins, and mutual friends in Halifax’s Lebanese community.
“Obviously, I want to be directing, and I want to direct for Life’s company, and he’s well aware of that,” says Ghosn via video chat, now back in L.A. “He saw my films and thought they were really good, but directing a music video is very different from making short films.
“When I was home during the coronavirus quarantine, I thought (working with Quake) would be an opportunity to do something productive, get a music video made, and show what I’m capable of doing.”
Ghosn knew through social media that Matthews had been working on new material while in self-isolation, for a project due later this fall titled The Myth X, marking the 10th anniversary of the rapper’s debut release. After making contact via Instagram, the two started chatting right away, and Matthews sent him some rough copies of the songs he was working on.
Live Forever, which the rapper describes as a slice of “rap battle braggadocio” had the most appeal, and they were able to shoot the video on a handful of locations over the few days Ghosn had left before heading back to California.
“We just kind of knocked it out. We got some pretty cool stuff, some boat scenes and some car scenes, and the whole thing has a good vibe,” recalls Matthews, who found working with Ghosn was a natural process that went smoothly, despite having to work around the restrictions imposed on the project by COVID-19.
“I like people that are very easy to work with. If I had suggestions, he was all for it, and he’d hear me out. We weren’t scared to give each other criticism at all, or suggest changes. I just like that he was very open creatively, and very down for the collaboration.
“Some people you work with have their vision of how something should be, and you can’t really say anything, and it winds up like a tug of war. But this was just very, very easy; he’s a humble guy and always had open ears for my suggestions as I did for his.”
Matthews also appreciated Ghosn’s hustle, coming up with locations like an apartment tower rooftop on short notice, and having a supply of ideas to add significant production value to the video at little or no cost.
For the filmmaker, having that relative closeness in age and a shared heritage added a few extra layers of compatibility that made the project an enjoyable experience from the start.
“Working with him, I felt I could show my professionalism, and see that he was impressed with what I was doing,” says Ghosn. “I felt like he was challenging me creatively and I was challenging him creatively, and it was a very strong relationship in pre-production and on set, and even now in post-production.
“Had it been a different artist that I didn’t have a strong connection with, it could have been a lot more difficult. Especially organizing a shoot during COVID-19 and sticking to the guidelines for health safety and all of that.”
Although his time at NYU’s film school isn’t that far in his rearview mirror, Ghosn’s love of making movies dates back to when his Grosvenor-Wentworth Park Elementary School teacher Andrew Stickings encouraged his class to come up with an entry for the Viewfinders Kids Film Festival (now known as FIN Kids).
The resulting project, It’s Not Easy Being Green (Or Is It?), won some awards and went on to screen at other events like the Chicago International Youth Film Festival, and Ghosn went on to study acting at Neptune Theatre School and take part in plays at Halifax Grammar School before enrolling in NYU’s summer film program for high school students, which helped get his foot in the door for its four-year film degree.
When Don Met Vicky from Christian Ghosn on Vimeo.
One student film, When Don Met Vicky, premiered at New York Shorts International Film Festival and Toronto’s Redline Film Festival, while his thesis film, Violent Nights, recently premiered online with California’s Riverside Film Festival and will be showing up as part of the online version of New York Shorts around Aug. 21 or 22. Ghosn is also working with his girlfriend and fellow producer Morgan Cunning on a pilot script for a Violent Nights prequel series, delving into the life of its criminal mastermind Jack, played by Brian Gregory.
Aside from the films’ thematic similarities, and the fact they both feature Mason Gooding — Ghosn’s best friend from school and the son of Oscar-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. — they also show Ghosn’s desire to make films with strong, well-defined female lead roles as well as racially diverse casts more reflective of the world he sees around him.
“Absolutely. Sometimes it stems from doing it intentionally, ensuring a film has racially diverse characters and actors, and also reflecting that in the crew is very important to me,” says the filmmaker. “But sometimes you just find the best actor, and it doesn’t matter what their background is, whether they’re Caucasian or Black or Middle Eastern or Latino.
“Whatever it may be, I’ll look for the best actor and then work with them to incorporate their background into the character. But I might write a character that’s specifically Lebanese and then look for a Lebanese actor, but it’s project-dependent.”
Matthews says Ghosn’s timing for contacting him couldn’t have been better, as he wanted to do something that highlighted his Lebanese community connection. He notes that his heritage only occasionally surfaces in his work, most notably on the song Grandma’s Cooking — and jokes that most people probably think of him as “a white rapper” — but he says cultural identity will be an important factor in Live Forever when it premieres in the fall.
“I don’t like to generalize, but as you know, a lot of Lebanese people are in the business of development and real estate, so it’s kind of cool when you see someone go the other way and do creative stuff,” he says of his successful first encounter with Ghosn.
“I think this might be the first time in my career when I’ve collaborated with a Lebanese artist on anything, period. I can’t think of any other time, so this felt good. And it allowed me to show my culture a lot more.”
