Tyler (Ty Bru) Brueilly has been professionally active in the international independent music scene (IMA album of the year 2016 at the Lincoln Center, NYC) for a decade and a half and has taken a headfirst dive into photography and film. As an expatriate in Asia for nearly five total years, Bru used that opportunity as a catalyst for his artistic growth, pushing him to the new avenues and outlets he is exploring today.
Now he produced and directed A Night In Charlotte With Sweeney Ty, an horror and experimental film that thins the boundary with the music video.
A Night In Charlotte With Sweeney Ty: Asheboro, NC area artist Ty Bru combines authentic era hip hop with the world of broadway plays and musical films with this unique adaptation of a classic tale.
Who is Sweeney Ty? Is there a connection with Sweeney Todd?
Ty Brueilly
Yes there certainly is a connection. Sweeney Ty is a hybrid. One part character of Sweeney Todd from the Tim Burton musical along with one part Sweeney Todd from the 1982 stage play, mixed finally with one part of my own self and lifestyle, which is Tyler “Ty Bru” Brueilly.
How did the idea for this project come about? Tell me about your creative process.
Ty Brueilly
This project began many years ago. Christmas time 2007 to be exact. I had just watched the Tim Burton musical and fell in love with it. Prior to that I never had that desire or appreciation for that genre of film-making, but wow, how things changed and very rapidly. I took a deep dive into the story and the music, and immediately wanted to create my own version of the tale. I used samples from the film and the stage play to create and compose really authentic era hip hop beats, and while i was creating them, I just starting writing to them. So with each line or bar, you get various levels of the hybrid. Sometimes you get full Ty Bru, other times you get foggy London-town and Sweeney Todd. Most of the time it criss-crosses all over the places intertwining my life and the fictional characters in the most unique and creative ways. By Valentines day I had recorded the audio for the whole project. It wasn’t until nearly a decade later when I decided it needed a very particular visual supplement to this. And this is where we arrive at the current product that is A Night In Charlotte With Sweeney Ty. Which we decided to make as true to the music scene in North Carolina and expand the way I intertwined the stories from the very beginning.
What do you see as cinematic in the way this film was made? How cinematic is hip-hop?
Ty Brueilly
There are some very cinematic shots of our performance, but not a whole lot. This was an expirimental joint in it’s purest form. It’s not meant to be super cinematic, we initially wanted it to be a one take, but after consideration we had three different angles from one performance and one angle for the second performance. So what the viewer gets is something pretty raw. We didn’t stop in between things, there were no options for a “cut! take two” or whatever. And those two performances in that one night are still all that we have ever done with performing this project.
Hip hop is superemely cinematic. There is so much story telling in hip hop, especially from 1980s-2000s. You can almost direct your own video in your mind while listening to the words, it’s so vivid and vibrant at times. Directors like Hype Williams and Antoine Fuqua really made sure the world knew how important this art form is by supplementing an artists song with something so beautifully cinematic that it cannot be denied to this day.
Where is the real boundary between music and film? Between music video and short film?
Ty Brueilly
As we all know art is subjective, so in all fairness there shouldn’t be any boundaries with that. The moment boundaries are set is the moment art fails. However, when it comes to my personal creations and what I produce, I certainly set my own boundaries.
Do you think hip-hop can speak to contemporaneity and talk about contemporaneity?
Ty Brueilly
Of course, especially when the motive for the creation is to make timeless pieces. There are a few genres that don’t really last as fads or trends very long, but hip hop has a super rare ability to feel current even when a song is thirty years old and I think in thirty years it will be the same way. Hip hop has graduated from a trend or a fad and has become a staple in our lives, and I’m talking globally, not just in one country.
6) What are your next projects?
Ty Brueilly
Film wise I am working on the next installment of a the ‘Shucks Cinematic Universe” that I created back in 2015. It’s currently in the final stages of production and will be called 7eventh 7irkle, based around addictions and influenced by Dante’s Divine Comedy, it’s a dark and gritty visual rollercoaster. Music wise I am 1/3 of the way finished with my next album, The Hollywood diares, which was written from the moment I knew A Night In Charlotte With Sweeney Ty was going to be shown at the Tcl chinese theatre in Hollywood in February 2023.
