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Least you think South Africa’s Afrikaans rap scene comprises but a single freaky group, Jack Parow dispels that myth whilst kicking arse to protect the currency of his lyrical flow in the promo for Afrikaans is Dood from director Ari Kruger – who we last featured dissecting a perfect relationship to death in Focus.

Having written up a treatment with Jack Parow in mind but unable to make any headway in contacting the rapper or his representatives, Kruger put his idea on ice, until Roland Sweet from Little Big Productions told him about MK MVP – a competition fronted by a South African music station to fund 12 music videos annually. Kruger dusted off his treatment and as luck would have it, a phone call from Sweet saw him pitching the concept face to face with Jack Parow who was onboard as long as they could secure the funding. After submitting and waiting for a couple of months, they made the cut and were ready to go:

“Because we only had two days to shoot everything, and since there was quiet a bit of action in it, there was not going to be too much time to work things out on set. Because I used to be an animator I was able to create a 3D animated previz which allowed me to make a lot of big decisions way before getting to set. This previz proved invaluable as far as creating the actions sequences and giving the actors the clearest idea of what I expected from their performances.”

“We had a day of stunt rehearsals before shooting which helped get the actors prepared for their scenes. Leander Lacey was the stunt co-ordinator and was incredibly helpful in showing the actors how to do a whip pan with their heads to sell a punch. Jack was also a great sport and did everything I asked of him — he arrived on set the next day with a stiff neck from all the rehearsing but fought his way though it no problem.”

Lead bad guy in the promo Milton Schor wrote up a pretty extensive piece about his experience on the promo, and you can also check out these behind the scenes stills from the shoot:

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