Kyle Lewis on Making Magic for Music & Finding Friends with Benefits

Many successful directors struggle to get the balance right between work and seeing friends and family. But Kyle Lewis has worked out a system. “I always try and get my friends involved in what I do because then, for me, it doesn’t feel like work, it just becomes my life,” he says. Bringing friends on set means Lewis gets to catch up with them, share what he’s working on and invite them into his creative process. 

I meet the Egg Films director and his crew at the production company’s Loeries party. It’s more like a group of friends than a workforce and although he’s a very hands-on director – location-scouting and designing sets himself – Lewis trusts and is inspired by his friends’ suggestions, offering them the freedom to create. He is also very loyal to them. “If the client doesn’t believe that they’re good enough, I don’t care,” he says. “It’s either my way or you don’t work with me.” 

He enthuses about Happy Umurerwa, his model and muse, who’s featured in most of his work and who now sometimes collaborates with him for free, as he’s one of the few directors who’ll push her creatively. She is part of his core team, together with his brother and producer, Will Nicholson. His mother has also supported him from the start, running his finances in the early days.

Pursuit of digital friends has also boosted his fortunes. A while back he looked up his favourite promo directors on Facebook to see who they were signed to and made 50 friend requests. “Martin Roker from Black Dog [in the UK] was apparently looking at my work the day before, so immediately called me up to sign me. Sometimes you just have to put yourself out there!” In South Africa, he’s now repped by Arcade Content for brand films and promos, and by Egg Films for commercials.

In 2010, he launched his own production company, Dirty Soul Productions, as he was keen to spend time developing his own style. His early work is a far cry from his more recent set-heavy, stylistic promos. He shot his first music video aged 20, while at Cape Town’s AFDA Film School, when rappers LOCNVILLE approached him to direct a promo for their track Sun in My Pocket. Though he didn’t think the brief suited him, he accepted the challenge to make a promo for the equivalent of £100. The song became a hit in South Africa and beyond and the video earned more than a million YouTube views, paving the way for Lewis to become a hip-hop director. “I’m very grateful and humbled to be accepted into the hip-hop community, particularly as a white filmmaker,” he says. For the 2014 promo he conceived and directed for Tumi, In Defense of My Art (below), the director’s signature style is evident: the monochrome spot has an open narrative, abstract artistic references and is rich in symbolism. “I like creating work where audiences have to work to understand it; not so on-the-nose stuff.” 

“I always try and get my friends involved in what I do because then, for me, it doesn’t feel like work, it just becomes my life.”

Creating kingdoms for teddies

Home is Cape Town’s Table View, a picturesque, conservative town where being creative wasn’t encouraged when he was growing up. Lewis was the black sheep of Table View; putting on one-act plays that he’d write and direct in high school.

His love of film came from watching “age-restriction” movies on Friday nights with his dad and brother. The slasher flick Scream was an obsession, along with Jurassic Park. He has developed a love of creating other-worldly environments and focussing on set design and props, as can be seen in one of his most recent promos – his first since joining Black Dog this year – Boy in the Picture for Kid Crème. Here a young boy retrieves stuffed animals from a dump and houses them in a self-made teddy kingdom. The promo reveals Lewis’ rigorous attention to craft and is a paean to a child’s imagination.

Now that he has honed his style in music videos, Lewis relishes being able to use it in his work for brands and always seeks as much creative control as possible. For example, for Nike’s Unlimited Fight spot he “got to conceptualise with the agency. They didn’t just want me to do the video.” He had complete concept control for his campaign for financial services provider Sanlam, Mr Madumane (Big $pendah) at bottom, where he followed a trend he’s noticed – disguising ads as music videos. Starring hip-hop artist Cassper Nyovest, the spot encourages South Africans to live within their means, so the agency asked Lewis to shoot a promo with recycled props that mocked materialism. It garnered great acclaim from the public and the industry – securing four gongs at the Loeries (one gold, two silvers and a bronze) and a Grand Prix at the African Cristal festival. 

Lewis still battles with getting the budget he’d like to fund his ideas. “When I’m conceptualising, my brain can go very far,” he says, “but the job is always money dependent.” Which is why when he reflects on his portfolio of work, he’s never fully satisfied. A perfectionist, he can always see room for improvement.  

So what’s next for Lewis? Like many commercials directors, he would love to do a feature film one day, but feels he is not quite ready just yet – having only recently moved into advertising. He would love to fulfil a boyhood dream to create a promo for his idol, Kylie Minogue. It might seem like a far cry from his current reputation as a hip-hop man, but he loves her effortless and understated style, which he describes as “not overtly sexy”. This dream might come true sooner than he thinks, as he’s just polished off a promo for The Saturdays starlet, Mollie King, who happens to work with a lot of the same crew as the Aussie diva. So, Kylie, if you’re reading this, give Mr Lewis a call.