AGENCY STRAY ANGEL

BEHIND THE MIND:

SHIRAZ HIGGINS

DIRECTOR

I am a director and insane person from Canada. In 2011, I threw my law school ambitions to the side after having my life changed by seeing Jackass 3D in theatres. I realized life is too short not to do what you love, and that if Johnny Knoxville and the boys can make a living kicking eachother in the balls, I don’t need to be a damn lawyer. Now my life is making visual spectacles with musicians and brands who want elevated humour and aesthetics.

Some of my work includes developing bbno$’s visual brand over the past 6 years, launching YouTube channels like “Ghost Town Living” and “The Daily Stoic,” and working with a wide range of musicians (Juelz, Divine, Diplo, Rebecca Black, Yung Gravy) and best-selling authors (Tony Robbins, Robert Greene, Ryan Holiday, Neil Pasricha and Tim Ferriss).

My first commercial campaign was directing the visual creative on a BMO x bbno$ campaign, a highly successful FCB initiative. My work thus far has typically resonated heavily with young audiences, my love of the bright, colourful, tongue in cheek, and surprising is shared with the youth.

One of the projects that best demonstrates this is my music video for “two” by bbno$. Having just released “It Boy,” a video that changed scenes every two seconds, rarely showed a shot twice, and made the song viral on YouTube while also driving hugely viral TikTok momentum, I needed to figure out how to top it. With “two” I took what I learned about how to maintain viewer retention in bbno$’ largely young male demographic, and turned it up to ten. The video changes shots every 2 seconds or less and barely ever returns to a scene or location, so the viewer never knows what is coming next. The thing that set this apart from “It Boy” is that I levelled up the art direction and styling (all my own work) and brought in Blake Davey to shoot it, resulting in a video that I would happily print any frame from and hang on my wall.  Although, I might take some of them down if company was coming over.  🙂

Make cool shit, have fun, that’s it.