Thibaut de Longeville
Thibaut de Longeville (born 1974) is a self-taught writer, filmmaker, creative director, brand marketer and entrepreneur.
De Longeville started out in 1989 as a columnist for No Way, France’s first skateboarding magazine, reporting on skate videos, graphics and threads of what was then still an underground culture. Whilst still in school, he became assistant editor-in-chief of the youth publication, which carried articles about music, graffiti, street culture, street fashion, comic books, films and videos.
In 1991, he worked as a consultant for Warner Bros. to help market motion pictures like New Jack City (while playing character Gee Money’s French dubbing voice) and documentaries like Listen Up : The Lives Of Quincy Jones to French audiences. At the same time, De Longeville worked as a production assistant at music video production companies in Paris and in New York City, working with Jean-Baptiste Mondino, Fab 5 Freddy and Brett Ratner, and collaborating on shows like Yo! MTV Raps.
In 1995, at the age of 21, he founded 360 Communications with skateboard teammate and graphic designer Alexander Wise, graffiti-artist and designer Mode 2 and a group of photographers, directors, copy-writers and music composers.
360’s two first projects were designing the visual identity for the Tour de France’s new mountain bike event, Le Tour VTT, and organizing an aerosol art tribute to The Rolling Stones in conjunction with Virgin Records and Agnès b., featuring the works of Mode 2, Jay One, Futura, Echo, Jonone, Sharp and the late A-One.
360 provided art direction, creative commissionning, event production and marketing for Virgin / EMI, Sony / BMG, Universal, Warner Bros., MTV, Nike, Etnies, Zoo York and Agnès B.
In his spare time, De Longeville founded mixtape label Passe-Passe with friends from New York City’s Tape Kingz, distributing mixtapes from Mister Cee, Doo Wop, Tony Touch, DJ Premier, and Funkmaster Flex on a monthly basis.
In 1998, De Longeville produced and A&R’d his own mix-tape, Opération : Coup de Poing, with the unsigned acts Ärsenik, Fonky Family, Mafia K'1 Fry, Oxmo Puccino and Pit Baccardi. This remains the best-selling mixtape in French music history. De Longeville also provided A&R for album projects by Oxmo Puccino’s Opéra Puccino, DJ Mehdi’s Espion : Le EP and The Story of Espion, Pit Baccardi’s first LP as well as label Première Classe’s compilation series Les Sessions Vol. 1 and Vol.2 : Les face-à-face du rap français. The Oxmo Puccino, Pit Baccardi and Premiere Classe releases went certified gold.
In the same year, 360 became the official marketing and creative consulting outfit for Virgin Music / EMI Records’s national and international urban music roster.
In 2000 De Longeville partnered with Steve Rifkind of Loud Records to form 360 Marketing & Promotion. Working as a sister company to Steve Rifkind’s SRC Records, 360 Marketing & Promotion adapted the guerilla marketing tactics of SRC's Street Teams to promote records, films, products and brands.
The joint venture provided promotional work for record labels Loud, Def Jam, Bad Boy, VP Records, Universal Records and award-winning campaigns for brands like Nike, EA Sports, Mc Donald’s and Coca-Cola.
In 2003, Thibaut de Longeville produced the first documentary on streetball in France, Battlegrounds Paris, and co-produced the first documentary about french Hip-Hop, Rapattack.
As a director, De Longeville made his debut with the film Just for Kicks : a documentary about sneakers, Hip-Hop & the corporate game.[1] Combining interviews, fast-paced narration and animated graphics, Just For Kicks premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival new York in 2005 and won awards for "Best Documentary",[2] "Best Overall Film"[3] and "Best Director" at the USVI Film festival,[2] New York Film Festival, Sheffield Documentary Festival, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Bangkok International Film Festival, Res Fest, New York Latino Film Festival, San Francisco Black Film Festival, NYC Urban World Festival, and the Leipzig Documentary Festival.
Since then, De Longeville has directed and produced over 10 documentary features, including 5 seasons of Quai 54 : Streetball Stories, a portrait of Nike designer Tinker Hatfield, and a segment about Jay-Z’s Global Express Tour shot in Taiwan for The Oprah Winfrey Show.
In 2007 he documented the collaboration between rap artists Rakim, Nas, Kanye West, KRS-One and DJ Premier in the video Classic (Better Than I’ve Ever Been), aiming to recreate the look and feel of a late 1980s Hip-Hop music video for Nike Air Force 1’s 25th Anniversary theme song.
Since 2002, De Longeville has also been the co-producer of the international streetball tournament Quai 54, held every summer in Paris. Nicknamed "The French Rucker", the event has 16 international teams compete for the championship over one week-end, with live performances by Fat Joe, Ludacris and Usher. The event was described as "the world’s best produced streetball tournament" by Bounce : From The Playground Magazine.
De Longeville’s recent works include :
- Directing and producing Air Force 1: Anatomy of an Urban Legend, a feature-length documentary about Nike’s Air Force 1 narrated by KRS-One ; which premiered in 2010 at NYC’s Apollo Theater in the context of the World Basketball Festival hosted by Nike, Jordan Brand and Converse
- Directing Hennessy Artistry’s The Art of Blending documentary featuring guest curators The Roots & Q-Tip, and the performers Erykah Badu, Mary J. Blige, Chaka Khan, Ron Isley, Jay Electronica, Mike Posner and D-Nice
- Creating visual identities and TV branding for Trace Media’s 4 television networks : Trace Urban, Trace Tropical, Trace Africa and Trace Sports as well as Nike France’s United : Nos différences nous unissent sustainable business program
- Executive production of Bobbito Garcia’s first documentary project, tentatively titled Doin’ It In The Park: Pick-up Basketball, NYC, scheduled for a summer 2012 global release.
Thibaut de Longeville currently lives between Paris, New York City and Dakar, Senegal.
References
- ↑ Masterson, Michael (2007-12-13). Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 254–. ISBN 978-0-470-18202-4. Retrieved 24 August 2011.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 http://www.watchimage.com/product/just-for-kicks/cd7a7173-37a8-4671-be1c-9c0200cc1cd4
- ↑ http://stthomassource.com/content/news/local-news/2005/11/20/s-wrap-st-croix-film-festival-ends-awards-ceremony