Trinity International Hip Hop Festival- Part One

By this point, I was hooked on international hip-hop. I'm a Global Studies student, and I love hip-hop, so it seemed like it was meant for me. Also, I Love Hip Hop in Morocco introduced me to the idea that there are people out there who are getting paid to go overseas and listen to incredible music. Sounds like a great time right? So I typed the phrase "international hip-hop" into google, and right there at the top of the results was the Trinity International Hip Hop Festival. An annual event, the Trinity festival brings together MC's, DJ's and B-Boys from all over the world to Trinity College in Hartford Connecticut.


This was exactly the thing I was searching for. Hartford is only 5 hours away from the school I go to, Lehigh, and even though I had never heard of any of the concert's participants, it seemed like it would be a great time for a student of global studies and a fan of hip-hop. So I started making plans, which began with registration.

The Trinity festival is free, but you have to register to attend, so I signed up on the site with my @lehigh.edu email address. Then I started thinking, since international hip-hop was so closely linked with all the things I was studying, how could I take advantage of this? I had two final projects for two separate global studies classes, and they both gave the option of submitting a film, rather than doing a research paper. This was when I had what I thought was the best idea ever- make a documentary. I mean, it couldn't be that hard right? I had made plenty of movies in high school with a friend who now goes to film school at NYU, so I knew how to point a camera and do some basic editing. And Lehigh had camera and editing equipment available for any student to borrow. So I figured I could just go to the festival, film everything I saw, and edit it together into an awesome movie instead of spending hours sitting in the library writing a research paper. What could go wrong? (Apparently, a lot, but I'll get to that later)

After that, I shot off a message to Joshua Asen, the director of I Love Hip Hop In Morocco, to ask for advice.

Me:

"Do you have any tips for getting solid, reliable footage of the actual performance? I'm only going to have one camera and a shotgun mic, and I plan on bringing enough tapes and batteries to film for the duration, but I'm relatively inexperienced when it comes to this kind of thing. Any advice on what not to do would probably be even helpful too."

Josh:

"No problem. The best advice I can give is to bring a tripod (or find a stable place to shoot) and make sure you're in focus and your mic levels are good. Then, just ask good questions. You'll definitely get some good footage. Just keep rolling.

Good luck
J"

This was great, Josh made it sound like making a movie was a walk in the park. So all I had to do now was get the equipment from Lehigh and find somewhere to stay while I was in Hartford. That was when I started talking to Greg.

Greg Schick is the PR coordinator for the Trinity festival, and he also runs a website dedicated to global hip hop. He first emailed me after seeing my @lehigh.edu address in the festival registration to ask if I had been involved in El Proyecto, a Cuban hip-hop festival that Lehigh threw in April 2008. I hadn't been, but we started talking, and I told Greg how I was planning on filming at the Trinity festival this year.

Greg:
"Yo man, it’s your lucky day. Check out these guidelines for filming at the festival:

- For any footage you put out – online or otherwise - the Trinity flier logo and sponsors’ logos will be displayed at the start of the video (we will provide those).

- During any artist performance video clips, the artist’s web address will be displayed at the bottom.

- A copy of all film will be provided to us for use in promotions.

When you check in at the festival, you will sign a short agreement to the above conditions. In return, you will get a press pass, permission to film and produce pieces with your film.

So I can get you a press pass. What do you think about that? I already put you on the list."

This was awesome! I had never done anything like this before, but I was already set up to get my own press pass! Okay so I'll be the first to admit that I may have been a little naïve, but I thought they only gave press passes to real journalists, not just students with a camera, so I was ecstatic. In just a few short weeks I had gotten advice from the director of I Love Hip Hop in Morocco, met a website owner and influential person in international hip-hop, and scored a press pass. Either this community was a lot smaller than I originally thought, or I had had an incredible streak of good luck. I made the arrangements to borrow camera equipment from Lehigh, and booked a bed at the cheapest hostel in Hartford, completely confident that I would return to Lehigh at the end of the weekend with a movie in hand. I can tell you now, in hindsight, that I had no idea what I was getting myself into.