After Hours - Project Review w/ Director Derrick Bills
Derrick Bills is a quickly-rising director based in Charlotte, bringing compelling perspectives and threads of abstraction through a round of projects in 2023. His pieces for Boundary, Pacsun, & Hoka saw collaboration with DoPs Jake Colletta of Campground, Cayne Tucker, and Alex Rivera, respectively, in addition to Hunter Buchanan for the QCFC campaign at year’s end. We chatted with Derrick about his thoughts on the QCFC project in retrospect.
Why was the project for QCFC important, and what feel/message did you want to convey?
“More than anything, I was motivated to work with QCFC because of the stories I heard about the team’s origins, the players, the coaching staff, and the purpose the team was created. Their goal is to provide opportunity in the realm of professional soccer to people who haven’t had the chance to play at that stage. There’s an immediate connection for me with a client like that. The team understands who they are and what they stand for, and their ability to define those things makes it easy to communicate the core of their organization to a wider audience.”
Our goal was to put visuals to how QCFC sees themselves. They’re deserving of having a bigger platform and getting more support to give the players a real shot at going pro. We wanted them to see what we saw, and we saw greatness through and through. It’s an integral part to who they are.”
As the leader on set, what qualities do you think are most integral for team cohesion & creative ideation, all while staying on task?
“I’ve learned a lot about my role as a director from projects like this. During pre-production it’s vital to dream up a fun and grand idea, but I think directing comes into play most during the early stages when you need to sift through ideas and simplify things to make a project achievable. Shoot for the stars, but work hard to stay grounded with the deliverable timeline and budgetary constraints in mind. On set, I think more than anything I like to focus on decision making. If you’re going to lead a project, you need to be able to decipher which paths are the best ones to travel down to respect the time and effort of everyone involved. There’s no stalling out - you have to stay light on your feet and keep moving forward.
In addition, I think mitigating conflict in a healthy way is a necessary component to on-set dynamics. Conflict doesn’t have to be bad, and that’s a huge lesson I don’t want to understate. It’s imperative to be good at navigating those conversations and decisions in a way that respects the cast and crew and keeps the entire project on the correct trajectory.
In post, I think directing for me can look a little different. I enjoy the editing process, and I’ll typically work alongside my editor to set out the bones for an edit, explain what’s in my head, and then let them play around with all the elements we have until we land on something we’re happy with. That looks like exploring a variety of iterations and admitting when we need to pivot to stay on target and meet our deadlines.”
Why was Hunter the right DP for the job?
“I’ve known Hunter for a long time now, and his character is genuine. He’s not someone who’s going to shy away from telling you his honest thoughts, and I think that mentality makes the end product better. He wanted to try doing something sports-related and when this project came up he actually reached out to me to direct. I jumped at the opportunity - I knew that if someone with character like his is going to be on a project, then the most important thing has been sorted out on my end. I value who a person is and how they treat crew above all else, and knowing him well made the decision simpler.”
Why did you all decide to go with the Alexa 35 for the camera?
“Arri cameras have such a distinct and beautiful quality to them. Their ability to capture imagery in such a naturally pleasing way is hard to match, so when our friends at Unify agreed to executive produce this piece, it granted us access to one of the best cameras on the market. The Alexa 35’s ability to work well in low-light situations was an especially important factor seeing that our entire shoot consisted of nighttime scenes.”
Having East Editorial for post-production - how much did they play a role in creating the finished piece?
“I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside one of East Editorial’s editors for a long time - Jacob McCall. We have a well-developed creative relationship that enables us to build off of one another’s iterations all throughout the post process. The bedrock of that partnership years ago gave me insight to know exactly what I needed from Jacob in order to take this project across the finish line. Jacob and Josh Swope (our post supervisor) made life simple with our tight turnaround time. They were integral to giving this project a clear and distinct look and feel.”
You can find more of Director Derrick Bill’s work at https://www.derrickjavon.com/
The final After Hours cut, a project synopsis, and additional behind-the-scenes photos can be found here