With a gritty visual style, director Ramez Silyan entertains with dark, satirical interpretations of story tropes and current affairs. Known as MEZZY to close friends and collaborators, he embraces tempered absurdity in creating fictional realities, often employing long camera takes and layered soundscapes. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Silyan draws from diverse subculture experiences across filmmaking and the music industry in creating entertainment. He’s a first-generation Syrian American.
Ramez> Subversion, self-awareness, and authenticity. We are surrounded by so much façade, that anything that feels truly revealing, whether drama or comedy, is attractive to me.
Ramez> I simply write what I want to see. What would make me, as a viewer, excited?
Ramez> Understanding is everything; if I'm unaware of the overall story, then I won't know where we want to end up. It's a bit like getting dressed without checking the forecast.
Ramez> The lead creative team, whether agency or in house at the brand. A casual and direct line of communication is integral to fulfilling the vision. Second is a producer who is quite literally prepared for anything. Anything can happen and it always does.
Ramez> I'm a huge fan of levity. Approaching the hardships of life through the absurd! When brands can make fun of themselves a little bit, it goes such a long way! Ads are serious business, but the contents of them don't have to be.
Ramez> The biggest misconception... that film is too expensive or 'not worth it.' I've found that the few times I have forgone film, I have regretted it. The work at the end of the day would have been better served by shooting film. It is my preferred format and it never ceases to surprise me.
Ramez> Where to begin.... earlier this year I took on a passion project, a music video for a good friend and collaborator, Jesse 'Rainbow.' It was about six months in the making with my DP Marz Miller that started as a slight curiosity and evolved into tracking down a Photosonics high speed 35mm film camera (previously only really used on Inception), shipping it over from Germany (huge thanks to Dedo Weigert), custom machining aluminium film cores, testing the European electronics on American power with the only tech in town, Andy Bethke, and doing a test shoot to make sure when all was said and done the film actually exposed properly (1000ft converted to about six seconds of real time!). Once we confirmed everything was good to go, the weather went completely south. Hoping for a sunny day, we got huge cloud cover and rain, so we had to call in a huge favour with our gaffer, Nick Durr, to bring out six 18K HMIs, which were all pointed at our static subject: A fully casted, modelled, painted replica of the artist's head that we were set to blow up. The result was magical. No AI, no VFX, all in camera.
Ramez> I think that really begins with creatively aligning early on. If my sensibility matches the creative, it feels effortless. Of course when this doesn't occur or if there's creative resistance, it's important to figure out where we are trying to end up. My job is to help get there.
Ramez> Being a child of Syrian immigrants, it's incredibly important to me to mentor people - especially those under represented in the industry.
Ramez> I think I've used more hand sanitiser in the past three years than my entire life. Personally, the pandemic shifted my focus on germs in a way that I hope never happens again. Professionally, once we were able to de-mask, it really hasn't affected me too much.
Ramez> It’s always important to keep all desired formats in mind, but the main delivery always takes priority for me.
Ramez> I love combining the old and new. I would love to develop a workflow for 35mm film with Unreal Engine volume stages.