Lecrae’s new music video for “Welcome to America”, off of his album Anomaly, peels off the veneer of the America many of us know for a heavy look into a broken world of poverty, fear, and injustice which lies beneath the surface. It’s a powerful song which resonates with people all the more with every new headline in the news.
The director, Isaac Deitz, who’s been working on the video since December of 2014, revealed some of the behind the scenes process in an interview on the Film Rant Podcast. . Shot as a documentary, Deitz wanted to “show America in the way Lecrae’s describing it, how people are struggling in this world. We’re all humans at the end of the day, all trying to get food on our tables.” He shot film all over the place, including just blocks from his own home, including (with release forms), footage of “prostitutes, a crack head smoking crack in his house — police men, firefighters, it’s all real, the only direction I’ve given anyone is ‘do what you do.'” Once you’ve seen the video, you’ll realize how big the scope is and why it must have taken months for Deitz to put it all together. And what you see on the video in four minutes barely dips into the three terabytes of film he captured. Listen to the whole interview, because Isaac Deitz shares some great stories and insights into his process.