Kanye West Documentary Filmmaker Says ‘In Whose Name?’ Is About Fame, Not Breakdowns

Six months after Nico Ballesteros graduated high school, he was pointing a camera at . Hired as a videographer to document the global music superstar’s life from every angle — no matter what, keep recording he was told, and that included candid moments with Elon Musk and fights with mother-in-law Kris Jenner to a routine teeth cleaning at the dentist — he stayed for six years. When it came time to put the camera down, Ballesteros had more than 3,000 hours of footage and huge mountain to climb to cut a documentary about the highs and lows he captured. The result, In Whose Name?, hits theaters this weekend from ASMI Entertainment. Related Stories The only child of divorced parents, both of whom work for the same biomedical manufacturing company, Ballesteros barely remembers a time when he wasn’t carrying a camera. His passion for filmmaking led him to Orange County School of the Arts, and an obsession with music and culture brought him into the DMs of L.A. tastemakers. One thing led to another, and eventually, he landed what was expected to be a temporary gig documenting West’s life. Over those six years, as West grappled with mental health challenges as a result of a bipolar disorder, the rapper and Yeezy mogul saw his marriage and career implode amid breakdowns and antisemitic rants. Ballesteros captured it all. “Empathy, a lot of empathy,” Ballesteros explained of his feelings toward West during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in the Chateau Marmont lobby. “It’s the human beneath the idol.” Now 26, Ballesteros talks a lot about fame after having been so close to it for so long. It’s also something viewers will probably be talking about, even if it’s just in reference to the long list of celebrities who have cameos. The list includes President Donald Trump, Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Drake, , , Lady Gaga, Pharrell Williams, Diddy, Anna Wintour, the late Charlie Kirk and, of course, ex-wife . (Tongues will surely be wagging about Saturday Night Live star Michael Che’s bold confrontation with West following the rapper’s controversial rant in a MAGA hat.) Below, Ballesteros opens up on how he found himself in West’s orbit in the first place, having to take out loans in order to support himself as an unpaid filmmaker, the Herculean editing process and what West had to say when he saw an early cut. Ballesteros, left, stands in front of a private jet with West, far right. Courtesy of Subject What was your first meeting with Kanye like? It wasn’t a meeting, I just immediately started filming. The first time I saw him was through a camera while recording. Tell me about that day. Ye, I believe, was just coming back into society after spending a lot of time at home [recovering] from a hospital stay. I don’t know the specific timeline, but [the hospitalization] was about a year-ish prior. When I got there in January, he had started hosting intimate concerts. He wasn’t performing but was inviting friends over to perform, and obviously there were a lot of high-profile people in attendance including Kim, Frank Ocean, Elon Musk. I was the only one documenting it. I had a Hi8 at the time because he was known for using videographers that worked in mediums like VHS, so I was thinking that if it was the creative language, I would continue that. With that, it also allowed me to shoot in night vision mode since it was usually so dark during the performances. I remember pulling up to the warehouse office and when they let me in, I was told to start filming whenever I saw him. “Feel free to follow him, he’s used to it,” they said. I filmed them setting up the event and was told that [Ye] was out front. I walked out and found him eating a taco, talking to friends in the parking lot next to his Maybach. I didn’t say hello because I was in work mode. He respected that and allowed me to do what I was there to do. Five minutes later, he got excited when someone arrived and I tracked him only to see Elon Musk enter the frame. What’s interesting, and you’ll notice that it’s sprinkled in the documentary, is that for the most part, no one acknowledged my presence. I became really interested in that kind of situational dynamic and distortion field, if you will. Eventually, I started filming everyone on an iPhone, which didn’t create a call to attention and allowed people to be themselves. West and Kardashian in a scene from In Whose Name?. Courtesy of AMSI Entertainment When you were hired as a videographer, were you told that it would be for a documentary? We always knew that it was going to be a documentary. What were the guidelines? And the schedule? In the very beginning, I’d get a schedule the night before, and it was really surreal. I’d wake up or go to sleep and I’d get a schedule maybe at 10 p.m. for the next day to start at 9 a.m. for a meeting with someone like Spike Jonze, for example. That was surreal. I would drive probably four hours round trip every day in my car with air conditioning that was broken. It felt very much like a Fear and Loathing-type drive to Calabasas. What was the pay? I was never on the payroll. I was never assigned to work for hire. I had to take out loans and make money in other ways in order to support myself. There was always an understanding that I would make this documentary and that would be the career that I needed to create for myself. Let me make sure I understand this correct, you didn’t get paid at all from him over eight years? And you had to take out loans in order to support yourself? Correct. Then AMSI Entertainment came in and supported it afterward. But ultimately, what it was for me in the beginning, was something that was once really structured and almost clinical as a way to film. Very clean, locked off shots. Then suddenly, he put the Trump hat on and everything started to have more movement. Following him around became like a dance. I remember getting used to that aspect of a documentary rather than this more observational-type filming. It was always observational but then it became much more run-and-gun. Suddenly, little by little, the schedule completely went away, obviously. There were three months or so when it was all around these albums he was making. There was a purpose. I followed the story of him making the Ye album. Then he made the Kids See Ghost album, the [Teyana Taylor] album, the Pusha T album and a Nas album. I felt like there was a through line there. But then he would come and ask for design help with Yeezy’s school uniforms or for Photoshop help since I had recently been in high school. I always said no because I wanted to stay in my lane, basically. There were always so many storylines to juggle. I had so much gratitude to even learn and observe what was happening with the albums or with Yeezy, just in terms of how he moved culture. I also was fascinated by the body language and seeing how people like Elon or Spike connected with someone like Kanye, looking at it almost through a diplomatic lens. It fascinated me. He went on vacation after the albums came out and I thought we could continue in a certain way but then I got a call, “Hey, I’m back in the office every day, pull up.” That was August 2018 and within a week, we were on jets almost every single day. Chicago, New York, Colombia. West and Musk Courtesy of AMSI Entertainment That must’ve felt like a big energy shift? It was. I remember around that time we were staying in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He was working on albums, and it was the first time I even attempted to toy with the idea of an edit. I was experimenting with verité for the first time, and tried to recreate onscreen the experience I felt that I was having, which was a golden ticket. I felt like I was inside Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory or Andy Warhol’s Silver Factory. I was learning how the chocolate bar was made or how the pop culture icon was shaped. I made my first edits looking to provide value to other creative kids, offering intellect and wisdom. You were approaching it more as a cultural piece? Correct. But it became something else the more you filmed? Yes. I remember being on the phone with my manager, Nick, who is still my manager today. I was telling him that it could be something great but that I was no longer in the office at 9 a.m. or even 11 a.m., and done by five or six. I’m filming so much that I’m only getting three to four hours of sleep every night because I had to get home, eat, take a shower and go to bed after a long day, and get back up and do it all over again. I was reflecting on how I had to stay and stick through it. I had heard that Virgil Abloh worked with Kanye for eight years, or a timeframe like it, and I thought if I stayed for eight years, I would be 26. And that is what I am now. Looking back on it now, that felt like a profound moment because Kanye was sketching on notepads and he would draw me, post it on Instagram and it said “Nico” with a camera on it. It was an aha moment for me. It felt like destiny. I knew I had to see this project through. It was a real call to action or a moment that made me realize not to turn my back on it. It was a lot of hours. But the truth is, no matter how hard it was, or how many times I fell asleep while holding the camera, I would prop myself up in a way that the camera didn’t fall. Keep recording. You recorded thousands of hours, and some intense moments. What was most memorable? The earliest days. I remember the Pharrell meeting because of how profound it was. Seeing how these two people communicated, in some ways so ethereally, but also commercially, by mixing art and commerce. They were able to have these far out conversations but then managed to distill it into a record. I remember leaving that day, and I went to my friend’s house in Whittier. I tried to explain the conversation I recorded but I was unable to. That’s when I realized that this film would have to explain things that I couldn’t. Ballesteros, bottom right, holds an iPhone pointed towards West. Courtesy of Subject You also filmed some intimate moments with the Kardashian family. They are obviously used to having cameras around all the time but you captured some moments that they had not released, like Kim and Kanye’s vow renewal and the explosive fight with Kris Jenner in the kitchen. Can you share what it was like to document those moments? I’ve always felt so much respect from them. I also learned a lot from them, too, because there were times where their crew would be around and I would have lovely conversations with their producers and cameramen, and they kind of also provided certain tips and tricks and wisdom just in an early formative sense when I was 18, 19. They were always just very sweet to me. I can’t speak for them but I think that no one expected me to see this thing through. How many times do you see a young person filming a famous person or taking photos behind the scenes? The fact that this moment or these moments in history are preserved and there will be a body of text underneath these headlines that are printed, I think is something people will appreciate because it provides context. Was there a time when you thought you might quit? It seems like a huge personal sacrifice at your own financial expense. Well, no, but I had to take a step out of culture in order to see it through. When you’re around so many great commercial artists and architects talking about beauty and art, image and meaning, you learn about what’s commercially viable. Whereas with a project like this, I had to unlearn so many aesthetic laws and relearn objectivity in a lot of ways. That’s why I moved to Costa Rica. Permanently? No, I went for a year to watch the thousands of hours of footage that I had recorded before I started the edit. Talking about not potentially seeing it through, I needed to look at everything. It was always me thinking that I knew what the story was by pulling from my lived experiences and my memory bank rather than dealing with the source material. I believe this film is cinema verité, an observational documentary. It was very important for me not to insert a point of view via talking heads, narration, title or text cards. Ultimately, the story truthfully revealed itself to me in the edit through a process of removing everything to just reveal the final sculpture. I started with 3,000 hours and eventually I combed through that and then I got to a hundred hours. The process from a hundred to 10 hours was done through transcribing everything — action, dialogue, notes, cinematography, tags, etc. — and we printed it out on 9,000 strips of paper. We individually printed them and put it all on bulletin boards. That resulted in a series of timelines. The moment got everything on a one timeline, it was a big moment. In what way? I brought in my friend, Justin Staple, to edit with me. He was someone I grew up on because he worked at Vice. A lot of what I learned about the culture came through things he worked on, like The Therapist. He was the voice that I wanted in the room with me. We made our first vomit drop which was six hours. We watched the film every day, sometimes multiple times a day. It was a really lived experience with me and my brothers that I made it with. I found it revealing itself to the point where it felt like a Rorschach test, a mirror to society. That’s where the title came from, In Whose Name? It’s confronting the human beneath the idol, and speaks to idolatry in general. What was hardest to lose in the editing process? Some of the meetings that I thought were going to provide cultural codes or artistic codes, but ultimately fell flat in the sense that it told a story that was too niche. Maybe a Balenciaga meeting in Paris with Demna or a recording session with Rick Rubin. Those things were diamonds but didn’t add to the story. What’s fascinating is how you had a front row seat to see the incredible heights of Kanye’s career followed by experiencing the fall as he lost so much of his professional life and personal relationships as a result of his mental illness and the casualties associated with that. What is your takeaway from witnessing the dramatic crash? Empathy, a lot of empathy. It’s the human beneath the idol. As a journalist, that’s what I started to really understand as I was coming of age, to know my role. There was a natural boundary there with the camera, even when he would ask me what I thought of certain situations but we still had a lens between us. I knew that I was there to document it, and I stayed in that mindset. It was the respectable thing to do. West in In Whose Name?. Courtesy of AMSI Entertainment There will be people who may address the ethical concerns of filming someone during an extended breakdown. Did you consider that? He always would usually emphasize the importance of continuing to record. I can’t speak for him, I don’t want to quote him, but we had a lot of those kinds of conversations, which ended with “keep recording.” One time he went to the dentist to get his teeth cleaned in 2018. I sat in the car assuming that’s where I should stay but security came and got me to say, “Hey, unless I tell you, keep rolling.” He would even joke, “Nico’s camera stays on.” It is what was asked of me. Did anyone ever say turn it off? You can see one in the film. Right, Lindsay Shookus, a producer on Saturday Night Live, told you to turn it off backstage after his appearance. That moment will probably capture a lot of people’s attention because it features a candid moment that ultimately is very intense because he went on a MAGA rant during the show. Can you talk about what you remember from that night? I always just felt like I had a spiritual higher calling to do my job to the fullest extent. I mean, out of respect as you can you see, I put the camera down. But obviously that moment came and went. She walked down the hall and he walked in the elevator and it was just him and I again, and security and Kim. So I kept recording. Did you have any difficulty getting clearances to feature any of those people? That’s more a question for [producer Simran A. Singh]. I feel like a lot of people are going to be impressed by Michael Che. He doesn’t back down and immediately confronts Kanye for what he said during the rant. Why was that scene important? It’s important creatively to show the balance of support and to have another voice. In celebrity culture, there are a lot of “yes” men and “yes” women. Any time there is a voice of opposition, I was really listening closely in the edit to see how it could balance out the equation. I was thinking about the audience and their experience in wanting to provide a full picture of the psychology of the situation. What’s your relationship with Kanye today? What did he say after he saw the film? It was really deep because he told me it was like looking back on his life as if he were dead. We kind reminisced a lot, honestly, about it all because I think people were surprised I saw it through. Because I was off the grid editing for so long, we didn’t speak or connect for quite some time. How long? A little over a year. Then I organically ran into him here at the Chateau. We both happened to be here, and I told him that I had a cut I wanted to show him. I played it for him and that’s what he told me. Then I showed him a few other cuts after that. Every time, it was a profound experience. I mean, it was beautiful. It meant a lot to sit with someone like him. He’s someone that I learned a lot from, creatively, through the years. Did he give you notes? No. He always understood that I was telling a story objectively. There will be parts of the film that will be hard for people to watch, especially the antisemitic scenes near the end when he wore the “White Lives Matter” sweatshirt, which pre-dated the Super Bowl stunt. You witnessed it first hand. What’s your take? My take is that I don’t support those perspectives and that he, as a subject, and me, as a documentary filmmaker, have different views. I knew that it was important to include. I couldn’t exclude it. It was a part of the years that I had documented, and it was a part of that story. Did he say anything about those scenes? I can’t really speak for him but he didn’t single anything out. There are so many people who appear in the film. Did you have any surprises? When I was a really young kid, I loved construction and architects. Some kids were obsessed with dinosaurs or outer space but for me, it was construction. Being around architects, those meetings were most fascinating to me. It was also very special to be with people like James Turrell and Axel Vervoordt. We went to Axel’s castle in Belgium, and his offices near Antwerp in Kanaal. Those are the moments that throughout the years meant the most to me. More than music, more than the fashion world, being around these prominent figures in art and architecture meant a lot. Will you do an extended cut? I don’t know. I haven’t put my mind there yet. I do feel like this is what has to exist out there in the ether. I have a lot of faith that this is the film. What’s your hope for how it’s received? It’s very important to me that it’s in theaters. I cut a film for the theatrical experience, not for anything else. I edited the film in a theater. The fact that it’s getting a wide release and not something that’s limited or only available for a weekend already, is something that I’m so grateful for. That alone really is the world to me, honestly. You say that the film is about idols, about fame. What do you know about fame now? The film is not just about Kanye’s fame, but about other idols, too. In Whose Name? was a question I kept asking through the years. Is it a story about Virgil? Is it a story about Trump? Is it a story about Kim? About the Gap? Adidas? It could be brand names, people’s names. There’s the Christian religion in it. Fame is something I want to continue to study and observe. It’s a phenomenon. It’s why the film kind of ends with a black hole, because what’s on the other side of all this from a societal lens? We don’t know. Where do you go from here? I’m writing a screenplay now. I’m going into scripted, but I definitely want to keep innovating in the documentary space. I want to find new formats, new mediums. I want to push the boundaries of documentary filmmaking, for sure, and experiment a lot. Right now, I’m meeting with studios and streamers about scripted projects. Where does Kanye go from here? I can’t speak for him. What’s your hope for him? He’s a human being. I pray that healing comes for him. Interview edited for length and clarity. Ballesteros Courtesy of Subject

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