Get to Know….
In the first of a series of interviews with the crew and creators of “Stevie Hyper D: The Hidden Influence’’. I sat down with first time film-makers and possibly the most ambitious documentarians you’re likely to meet, Director / Producer Jamie BC & Writer / Producer Darrell Austin.
Tom: So, question number one, how did you two first link up?
Darrell Austin: Cool. So one day I was on Facebook and scrolling around as you do, had a little scroll down and I saw this page that posted a video of a U.K. rapper that I was a big fan of K-lash / Klashnekoff.
And I followed the link and I came up to Jamie’s BeatCulture page and I was quite interested, and I thought; ‘Yeah, you must know your thing’.
So I reached out to him on Facebook…..
Jamie BC: Yeah, to that point, I got the call from Darrell when I was working on the Olympics in 2012, and he was like, Oh, I’m his [Stevie Hyper D’s] nephew. Would you be interested in doing a film on Stevie? I saw your your Navi [MC Navigator] documentary.
I was like; ‘Yeah, definitely, but I’m about to move to Canada. Let’s meet up before I go’.
We met up in September 2012 just before I left. And yeah, then we started basically developing the project from there.
T: Where did the idea behind the film come from?
D: So, the idea came off the back of the radio documentary [I did with Matthew Gale], but previous to that I’ve been offered by lots of people to make a film, and one thing I did say to Jamie is that I didn’t want a road video, you know, a hood tape kinda thing. Which is what I imagine we would have turned out with [had I gone down the route]. Jamie totally got that and his work spoke for itself.
J: Yeah, so for me, before I met Darrell, I’d finished the Navi documentary and a friend of mine, Lee, said to me, What’s next? and I said, It’s got to be Stevie Hyper. Because it was such a visual story, I was just so captivated by it and there was little to no information out there. So when Darrell approached me it was a no brainer.
T: How have you found the experience of making the film?
D: It all started really exciting, but I’d say the last five years [whilst making it] have been some of the most difficult because it is like having something at your fingertips and you can’t totally grasp it. It’s been very emotional. And some days and I’m sure Jamie’s felt like this is just like; ‘fuck, you know, are we’re ever going to finish this?!’.
I would say over the last year and a half, you can see the light at the end of a tunnel, but that tunnel has been and is really long. It’s been like raising a child. Lots of different emotions (laughs).
J: For me, it’s been probably the most amazing and difficult thing I’ve ever done work wise, including the Olympics! Like I can’t explain how complicated it has been. I think our naïveté and complete lack of experience in making a feature film has enabled us to make a feature [documentary], ironically.
T: What can we expect from the film?
D: If I was to describe the film, it’s like going back to various [key] points of Steve’s life [and the film is centered around those points]. I think when people see the film, they’ll not only get Steve’s life, they’ll get a period of diverse London culture and understanding of what Steve [Hyper D] meant to a lot of people.
J: And I think to back that up, the logline that we’re using for the film is “A family tragedy, at the heart of Jungle Culture”, and that’s really what we found at the core of the film.
We found the universal theme of grieving, and an authentic British and London story, told in the most authentic voice possible.
T: And finally, what’s next?
J: Well, that’s a good point. We’ve got a couple of things we’re developing. One is a direct offshoot directly related to the film about the culture surrounding the film and story.
We can’t say too much, but we think it’s an insane idea to follow up on, it’s very much a big, documentary idea as well. So yeah, we’ve got plenty of ideas in the pipeline. And yeah, we just love this culture.
D: Yeah, that’s what’s next is to continue documenting our culture, our UK culture. You know, there’s a lot of people at the moment making films all around rave and it’s like they are making a stepping stone for us.
J: Yeah. And to finish that point as well, no disrespect to anybody that’s kind of come before us in our world, But I don’t think anybody has made a film about our world like how we have.
D: The film doesn’t have an ego in it, which is where we made a film about an icon that died not knowing how much he was loved and how powerful he was as an artist.
J: Salute to that!
T: Wicked, nice one. Thanks guys!
T – Team Hyper D.
“Stevie Hyper D: The Hidden Influence” feature documentary, proposed first public screening in final quarter of 2023. Hyper D 25 years, July 5th.