5 hours Ago By Tony Okuyeme
Azeez Olawale Rahmoni, popularly known as Walex05, is a cinematographer, video editor, filmmaker, and music video director. In this interview with , he reflects on his journey so far. He also shares his thoughts about cinematography, video editing, filmmaking, and music video directing.
. My journey in the creative industry started at a very young age when I assisted my brother on a project for Bisola swag. I was the production manager for the project.
I love the way the production process was done and I was highly interested in the directorship and cinematography aspect so I decided to do a national diploma in mass communication then move to get a degree in visual and performing arts (film and tv production major) from kwara state university. It was brother AyoRay. He was directing for playhouse tv, shooting prank videos that featured late Da Grin, Stereoman and other top musicians back then.
As a director, I do a lot of storyboarding, location recking before I plan my frame. The fact that I directed most of my videos makes it easy to decide the framing, type of camera and frame rate I will be shooting the project on. I do most of my editing on set, visualizing and shooting only content that will make the final edit.
After so many years in video production I basically finish a full music video edit in less than six hours. On projects that I don’t direct, I basically work with the script/ storyboard available. On music video that I shot for other directors, we spend time on breaking down the scene by scene and a shot list is created before the actual shoot.
My creativity as a director is always felt in all the project that I I have shot for other colleagues in the industry as most of them know the quality of my videos. Most afrobeat music speak for themselves and as a creative director, it’s a thing for me to always add a story line to all my music video directly or indirectly. My biggest challenge during my early days as a filmmaker was budget.
Most artists don’t usually have a proper budget for upcoming video director back then but after proving myself with using little budget to achieve great visuals, the budget started coming and the creative aspect suffer less. One of the most meaningful project I have worked on is the biggest tv show in Africa. I can’t discuss much about it but the project allows me to collaborate with more than 500 people and it was on tv for 99 days across all African country including few countries in Europe.
It was a massive project. Working on music video is good but working on three seasons of the show is a great experience. I consider a lot of thing while during my creative process but the major thing I consider is the type of artist and there history.
I really love to create something new entirely for each artiste and I consider their past project and enhance the video we are working on to make sure it’s better than what they already have in the past. Story telling is how I approach music video. I love a music video that’s entertaining and tell a story.
Dance, styling and other creative aspect is what I use to enhance the story tell to make sure my videos stand the test of time. Being in the filmmaking scene for more than 10 years, I have withnessed the invention of new cameras and new softwares for editing. The creation of smaller camera with high frame rate and sensors will be the greatest innovation for me.
I believe every creative should find time to improve their skills by getting more education. Personally I have improved myself by going outside Nigeria to get a masters degree in courses related to filmmaking and it has really improve my visual production skills generally. My creative journey is a slow and steady process.
I see myself producing and directing my own feature length films. I currently have a script I’m working on about the librarian civil war and it’s a script I have worked on for almost four years. I see it coming to live soon and it was take over the film industry when the production starts.
However, on my music video scenes, I have being working with lots of artists outside Nigeria, collaborating on projects with companys and producing fitness videos and other promotional contents for big brands outside Nigeria. The future looks bright and I’m very optimistic a lot of local and international collaboration would be done..
