Scott Lazer was just an aspiring filmmaker and J. Cole fan when he went to see him perform in Charlotte in 2013. Eager to impress, the Rutgers University grad brought storyboards, and through a chance encounter on the loading dock, presented them to the Dreamville team. That meeting produced little, but five months later in Los Angeles, they reconnected at a production house tasked with editing a now-shelved documentary about Coleās life and career.
Though that documentary never came out, it lead to Lazer directing Forest Hills Drive: Homecoming, which aired on HBO in 2015. Now, the 29-year-old works as Dreamvilleās in-house filmmaker, where he produces and directs. Increasingly, though, heās sharing the directorās chair with Cole himself. They collaborated on the 4 Your Eyez Only companion documentary (which also aired on HBO), a handful of music videos (including Royce Da 5ā9ās āBoblo Boatā) ā plus Coleās videos for āA.T.M.ā and āKevinās Heartā (starring Kevin Hart), from Coleās new record, KOD.
We spoke to Lazer about the making of āKevinās Heart.ā
How did J. Cole start directing?
From the first couple weeks that I started working with him, it was clear he had a very keen interest in filmmaking. The first video that I directed for him, āApparently,ā we edited that together in his hotel room in London while we were on that press tour for 2014 Forest Hills Drive. We finished it at like two or three oāclock in the morning and I could tell he was completely juiced about editing. He asked me what else we could do and I didnāt know what he meant; like, weād only shot one video. But Iād been shooting all this other stuff, so he just said: āWell, mess around with this song.ā So, he gave me the āIntro.ā I had shot him riding his bike around Manhattan. I thought maybe that could work. So, we just cut in one shot of him riding his bike around the city. It felt good. It felt like the right tone. And we cut that video in like 30 minutes. When we did the 4YEO documentary, he was even more involved in the conceptual phase of it, with production and then into post-production. He is a visual artist and Iāve gained filmmaking insight from him. People have told me one of my signatures is really long shots and I totally got that from him. Because we were cutting āApparentlyā and I had this really cutty version and he was like, Let the shots play, man; theyāre great shots, just let āem play. He said: You should trust your shots. I was like: Trust your shots? Youāre a rapper, bro. But it was pretty eye-opening.
What was it like to work together on the video for āKevinās Heartā?
With āKevinās Heart,ā he knew what he wanted to do. That was different. We directed both of them together, but āA.T.M.,ā I was heavily inspired by the artwork that Kamau did for the album covers. With āKevinās Heart,ā he had the idea for Kevin Hart to be in it and itās basically him riding around L.A. and he encounters one of two reactions from people: temptation or shame. I thought that was a great idea but it wasnāt a story. So, I think I called him one day and we just riffed for like an hour and then I wrote all those notes down, wrote it into a treatment, added images and tried to create an overall aesthetic. We wanted it to be very cinematic. And then we did that one too; we did āem both at the same time. We did āA.T.M.ā and then āKevinās Heart.ā
Can you talk about the Kevin and temptation aspect a bit?
The way I reasoned it in my head and how I wrote it in the treatment, Iām always interested in how polarized public conversations are these days because of social media. Either youāre the pariah or the messiah ā¦ I think Kevin Hart was an interesting example because what he did was wrong, what he did was bad, but it wasnāt violent, it wasnāt something thatās reprehensible and he and his family worked it out, you know? Or seem to have. But still he was subject to ā
Ridicule.
Yeah. Enormous ridicule. And somebody that I think is pretty much well-liked became all of the sudden a devil to a lot of people. So, that was kind of the thinking for the video. I mean, just having Kevin Hart in a video for a song called āKevinās Heartā is gonna be awesome; but like, how can we make that stronger?
What do you think it is that allows Cole to direct people well?
If Cole feels like it isnāt real or doesnāt speak to the essence of what the song or the video should be about, heāll say it. He has no problem saying what he thinks, especially about creative stuff. Also, people say this all the time about celebrities ā that they seem normal, but he is very grounded in reality. Thereās a quality that I always appreciate in people and that is reasonableness, and he is very reasonable. Heās very capable of understanding different sides of arguments. Even when heās on one side of an argument and someoneās on the other side of an argument. I think what that comes from is an ability to empathize. I think his ability to get on the level with others and not think of himself as above anyone allows him to reach people in a way that others in his position might not be able to. And heās a storyteller; I mean heās been working for a long time to get good at storytelling so I think that work just translates to other media.
Did his presence make it easier for you to deal with Kevin?
If it was just me, I might have been a little more cagey. But Kevin was great. From the moment I saw him he was just, like, down. And we had a call with him a few days before and I walked him through the whole treatment and he was laughing the whole time; itās a funny video. Itās meant to be weighty, but itās Kevin Hart so thereās going to be comedy in it. When I was walking him through the creative, I just heard him giggling to himself on the other end of the line and I was like, all right, itās good vibes, he gets it and heās gonna be good.
Considering how divisive the climate is right now, was there concern about putting Kevin in the video?
For sure. That dominated the conversation. We didnāt want it to look like, āPoor Kevin, his life is so hard.ā And itās not meant to do that. I think thatās why I tried to conceptualize it in my head that ā itās not about him necessarily. Itās about how these types of conversations tend to go these days where youāre only on one side of the spectrum and thereās no nuance or gray area in the conversation. So, he was just a really great candidate.
A character to make that point.
Yeah, because he had that experience. But we didnāt want it to look like we were trying to have a pity party for Kevin Hart.
Did Kevin say anything about that?
Not to me. He may have said something to Cole, but he didnāt say anything to me. He was down. From the moment I first talked to him, he was into it. There were a lot of concerns about that. But at the same time I was excited by the fact that this could be very controversial.
What about Coleās cameo?
He makes a Hitchcock cameo. But back to that earlier question, my point is: We were very conscious of Kevin and it was a combination of wanting to be sensitive, but also hopefullyĀ encouraging a more nuanced conversation in response to the video. Obviously weāre not going to solve the bipolar disorder of public conversations these days, but at least we can comment on that commentary.