Cam Fairfax | L.A. Leakers: Justin Credible and DJ Sourmilk

As the clock ticks, the mouse continues to click on Cam Fairfax’s desk. It’s about 2 o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday, but sleep doesn’t appear to be on the horizon for the talented creative director, or “composer of cinematic moments,” as he describes it in his Instagram bio.

The workload is set for Cam, who says he hasn’t slept in three days, but diligently works on eight different projects simultaneously. Of those, five are in post-production, while three remain in the early stages of pre-production.

While working, he takes a moment to express how grateful he is to be in his current situation as Head of Creative Direction for singer/songwriter Eric Bellinger’s YFS (Your Favorite Song) label. Prior to that he was Kalin & Myles’ photographer, before moving on to do freelance work.

“The industry is a crazy place and that’s why I’m so comfortable at YFS, it’s all a family thing,” he shares. “I’ve always heard you can’t mix friends and work, but I think that’s dumb because I want to win with them even more now!”

Bellinger first met Cam while he was working with Kalin & Myles and admired how focused he was, as well as the quality and consistency of his content. Through their first interaction, Bellinger was able to see Cam’s passion and work ethic, which matched his own.

“I respect Cam’s passion more than most, he’s super creative that goes without saying. But if a project isn’t the best it could possibly be he won’t put his hands on it. He won’t be involved,” explained Eric. “He’d rather not get the job. And if it’s something he is into, even if it’s for someone else he’ll cut his own costs just so the task at hand can reach its maximum potential. Real stand up guy.”

When describing Cam in one word, Eric used the word “brilliant,” saying Cam simply “does it all.” That was quite evident at a recent Eric Bellinger video shoot, when Cam, already having the stressful task of director, additionally took the time to fix the Serato sound for the DJ set.

With a venti Starbucks cup of water in one hand and his phone in the other, Cam used his resources by calling a DJ friend on FaceTime to troubleshoot the issue at hand. In about 10-minutes time the problem was solved.

That situation was a perfect representation of how Cam has lived his life. Upon dropping out of film school, he has juggled “as many things as possible.” While still in school he would take trips to LA from Arizona twice a month, before just packing up and leaving for SoCal.

“Every time I left I felt I was leaving behind opportunities just to go back to AZ and bury my head in a textbook,” he said. “I was never into school. I dropped out, I moved to Compton and drove a Honda Civic from Arizona, no plan or anything.”

Upon arriving in LA he received a call from someone advising him to drive Downtown to meet his favorite director at the time, Taj Stansberry. Having no other plans, he did just that.

“I met him, he was such a cool guy and he showed a lot of interest in me because I’m from the Bay Area and so is he,” said Cam. “From there we started to develop a working relationship and today we’re friends.”

Spending time with friends like Taj is what Cam likes to do on his limited time off. He’s only had a total of 12 days off this year and he’s spent the time talking to his little sister, hanging with friends, and recently upheld his duty as a groomsman by going to Cabo for his friend’s bachelor party.

While we discuss his friendships, Cam looks through his closet and reaches for an old VANS box perched above his collection of jeans. The box contains a significant amount of memories that include old pictures he’s taken and ones he makes appearances in.

Looking through the photos, he begins to reminisce and relive the moments photo by photo. One photo sticks out, a photograph of his younger sister, whom he holds very close to his heart. He tells me that’s the favorite picture he’s ever taken. I ask why and he responds, “me and my sister have always been so close.”

“It’s hard being away from my family,” he utters. “Out of all my friends, I’m the only one whose parents are still together. My sister is turning 16 this year and that’s really scary, especially because I’m not there.”

Cam’s love for photography may be as strong as his love for his sister. On his desk he keeps a Polaroid Wide 300 as a reminder to never get too caught up in work and forget he’s doing it for the passion.

“This film is very expensive and you only have 20 chances, so you have to make the most of them,” he says about the Polaroid. “It’s capturing 1- 1/2500 of a second you’ll never have back again and sometimes I feel like I get lost, but I’ve got to remember I’m doing it for the passion.”

The passion has always been there for Cam, who in high school took a photography class that was a prerequisite for a video class. He instantly fell in love with the craft and soon purchased his first camera.

As a sophomore in high school he had two friends who rapped and he asked them to let him shoot their music videos. Without hesitation they agreed and Cam began to work on perfecting his craft.

“Everything was so bad, the music, the videos, but it was fun running around town and just shooting,” he exclaimed.

By senior year, he had discovered that he wanted to be a professional photographer in the music industry, as he’s always had a similar interest in music.

Currently Cam is paying for a full functioning recording studio to be installed at Livermore High School, where he attended and discovered his passion. The studio will allow the school to create a new music class and a place for students to find their passion as Cam once did.

“These kids are the future and as far as our future goes, everything we’re doing right now is for the future,” he said. “Everything is calculated and we give ourselves every opportunity to win, that’s why I don’t take days off, because even on days off we don’t take days off.”

The never-ending working, sleepless nights are sure to pay off for Cam, who is already seeing the fruits of his labor.

“He’s a shot away from being one of the biggest Creative Directors in the game,” said Eric Bellinger’s Manager, Nieman Johnson.

@IAMBNYCE

It’s been about a week since Wale dropped the visuals for his colorful single “Groundhog Day.” The song was received by many as a response to J. Cole’s “False Prophets,” but it’s much deeper than that. The video correlated with the song perfectly, as both had a deeper, complex meaning, that many may have overlooked.

The Cam Fairfax-directed video begins with clips of media personalities criticizing Wale. From there it goes on to show the rapper riding on a double decker bus and taking a stroll through Hollywood’s “Walk of Fame,” where he is met by an abundance of fans. After the original song comes to an end, it transitions into a static effect, where Wale lays down an extended verse.

None of this was planned according to Fairfax, who received a text from Wale on a Wednesday asking to shoot the video on that Friday. In fact, there was no plan, no video treatment, no security, no permits, no massive entourage, no budget. It was just Wale, Cam, Phil Ade, and Cam’s Director of Photography that made the trip to Hollywood Blvd. on that Friday morning.

“The plan was to have no plan,” said Fairfax. “He had just got off this “PYT” video that Colin Tilley directed and cost all this money and it looked amazing, but this video was just about getting back to the roots.”

Cam’s original plan was to go big, but many of his ideas didn’t end up making it. In his mind as a director the idea of having a $100,000+ budget was a fixed notion in his head. That notion was an epiphany for Fairfax, who was told by Wale that he preferred a guerrilla style, grassroots video, because it wouldn’t make sense being that the song wasn’t talking about material things, having money, or flashy cars. “I’m speaking about my life right now,” Wale said to Cam.

Wale’s words hit home for Cam, who reminisced on his early days as a director before he worked on big budget productions.

“He wanted to take it back to the original days when he first started shooting videos and making music and in doing so it took me back,” explained Cam. “We found inspiration in a lot of other things, whether it’d be other people, or a street sign matched a specific bar, a rugged terrain, the way the camera moved when he said a specific word, everything was based on gut feeling.”

It didn’t take a long time for the two to get on the same page. Throughout the shoot the ideas began to naturally flow. For Cam the vision became clear as the footage rolled. Wale was in his natural habitat of “Wale being Wale,” a man of the people.

During the shoot while Wale took pictures with a fan, a man came up to him and just started rapping. Cam recalls Wale being into it and listening so intently, that he gave the man his number and told him to send him some music. None of which was planned, or highlighted in the video.

“That’s who he is at the end of the day,” Cam said. “It was never my intentions to use any of it, but it just felt right when the song started to come to life, I was just like fuck this industry shit, let’s just let Wale be Wale and show everyone who he is.”

When it came down to editing the video, Cam’s goal was to manifest key elements like expanding the b-roll on certain lyrics, so it wouldn’t overwhelm the viewer and take away from the song. The way the video was colored was another thing. Cam did it in a specific way to give it a certain aesthetic. If there was a specific shot where they wanted you to really listen, the camera wouldn’t move and would be tightly focused on Wale.

“There’s a lot of little things like that in there that I really wanted to dial in and they maybe aren’t noticeable on first look,” he said. “But I want you to go back and watch it and try to figure out what we did there and sometimes you don’t catch it and that’s the point.”

The 5-minute extended verse was not in the plans during the original shoot. Wale called Cam with the idea of the verse and sent it over. Cam’s first reaction was he didn’t have enough footage for it, so the two decided to go with the static effect to keep viewers drawn to the screen, while not taking away from the words.

“This needed to be focused on the lyricism just because that’s what this song is, it’s the raps, it’s poetry,” Cam said.

The video needed to come out six days after it was shot to coincide with Groundhog Day. Videos usually take weeks if not months to be completely edited, colored, and perfected. Wale worked on the extended verse for about two days straight and sent the final to Cam on the same day the video was set to drop.

“I remember I was up for a little over 40 hours straight working on it,” explained Cam, as he flipped through photos for another project he’s currently working on. “I just wanted to make something that was visually stimulating and reciprocated the lyrics.”

In the end Cam matched the final extended verse to be somewhat of a response to the intro clips where different media personalities are talking down on Wale. That was meant to be a highlight because it’s become evident that Wale catches the backend of the media. Cam wanted to make it a point that it doesn’t go unnoticed and Wale acknowledges it by combatting it with music.

“It was for him to show he acknowledges it and almost embraces it,” Cam said. “That 5-minutes was just him saying, “I get what you’re saying, but don’t act like I’m not one of the best doing it” because if you’re truly a hip-hop fan you gotta put Wale up there with the Kendricks, the Coles, and the Drakes.”

@IAMBNYCE

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Profile: Director Cam Fairfax Shoots With A Passion [PEEP]

Behind The Lens: Wale’s “Groundhog Day”