50 Cent's 21 Questions

(Did these for a different director and video, but they are a nice visual opening...)

A few years back I did a number of music video storyboards with director Philip Atwood and his partner Dr. Dre. It was a real education for me. The first song I wound up doing was by Eminem, and I was prepared to be underwhelmed. Instead I was amazed to learn what an astute storyteller he way. Could it be that you can't believe everything you read about people in the media?

Here is a quick demonstration of how I worked on these projects. In the morning (or afternoon before) I'd get a fax of a script that I would read through. Then I would get together with the director, Philip, and we would go through and visualize the script. He would have a very precise idea of what he wanted to show on screen, and he would describe it to me. I would very quickly draw a little scribble of what I thought he wanted, and I would show it him. He would either accept it, or would ask for a quick revision. In the process we would both come up with solutions or ideas and toss them back and forth. It was a very pleasant working arrangement.

Working very quickly, we would run through the script pages with me drawing as quickly as I could  and withing a couple of hours we would have the frames for the video thumbnailed. At this point I'd head home and start working on a cleaned up version of the drawings and would return them to him in a couple of days.

Oddly enough I never went to any of the sets while they were filming. I think for the most part they were out of town. However, one day when I came in, Philip was heading out the door:"C'mon, we have to go to Dre's house." I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the man I met reminded me a lot more of Bill Cosby that a gangsta rap star.

When I got home that afternoon, I told my lovely wife Annie: "You'll never guess what I did today. I went to Dr. Dre's house!" She was working for the LA Zoo at the time. "I had to give Hugh Heffner and his seven girlfriends a personal tour of the zoo today." was her reply. Trumped in my own house.