Big Pun, aka Big Punisher, real name Christopher Lee Rios, was a Puerto Rican rapper out of the South Bronx in New York. He was discovered by rapper Fat Joe, who also appears in the video I edited. The song came from the album Capital Punishment. The album was recorded between 1997 and 1998. It became the first solo rap album by a Latino artist to go platinum. The album was extremely successful, peaking at number 8 on the Billboard Top 200 Chart. So it was a pretty big deal.
I edited Big Pun's second music video Twins (Deep Cover 98). So how did I, a rather pasty guy out of Baltimore, get such a cool gig? It didn't hurt that the director, Chris Robinson, was from the Baltimore area as well. He was working out of Flite Three Studios not far from my home. He was not my client. I did not have an existing relationship with him prior to the first time we worked together. The facility, not the director, hired me to edit the video. I don't know why. They had staff editors. It was probably a scheduling conflict. I don't care. I was just happy to have such a cool assignment.
Here's something you have to know about me. I always try to respect existing relationships. I have no respect for people who don't. For example, more than once I brought my personal clients to post production facilities for online finishing only to have the facilities try to steal my client away from me. I hate that and I never knowingly did it myself. If a facility hired me for an edit, their client was safe with me. I would never ask them for their contact information or try to ingratiate myself with them. I would definitely never talk trash about them. I would just try to be a professional clog in the machine.
This was actually the second video I was hired to edit for Chris Robinson. The first video was for the song Graphic from the album Fac Not Fiction by the rap group 187 Fac. Their album was not as big as Big Pun's, but it did reach number 88 in the Billboard Top 100 Album charts. That's nothing to sneeze at. It was a fun video. Here it is:
Chris must've liked my work because I was back editing the video for Big Pun. I am a bit hazy on the dates of most of my work during the 1990s, but I remember when I edited this video. It was a three day edit that began on Thursday, September 10, 1998 and ended the next Monday. (Someone had loaded the footage prior to my arrival and someone polished it after my work ended.) How do I remember the dates? Because that weekend, I was watching MTV and they broke a story about how Big Pun and Fat Joe had beaten a guy with a baseball bat and stole his gold chains. I couldn't believe it. Why would a guy with a bestselling album beat another guy to steal his gold chain? That's the question I asked Chris when I saw him on Monday morning. Sadly, his response, which I found both insightful and hilarious, is sealed under the confidentiality of the editing confessional.
It was a pretty smooth edit. However, I did want to try a different approach. Chris favored quick editing during the song. I am a story editor. I thought Big Pun sold the lyrics better if we hung on some of the shots of him singing a little longer. Chris disagreed. He said the audience had a short attention span and needed continual visual stimulation. We had to edit on the beat. I didn't argue the point. Chris was rising like a rocket in the music video world. He knew his audience.
Here's the video:
Sadly, this would be my last video for Chris Robinson. He was getting too big for Baltimore. He became a big name in music videos. Check out his IMDB listing HERE. Amazing, right? However, during our last conversations Chris expressed a desire to get into feature films. I pitched him an idea. I said the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar captured the musical spirit of the time. I said he should pursue a hip hop opera retelling the passion that would speak to the then current generation. I wrote a two page treatment tentatively called Ghetto Christ Superstar, but he didn't go for it. Too bad. It could have been great.
Still could be....
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