Each Migo and Yachty had a lot of jewelry with them.
Which was amazing to see.
They put their own rigs on the ice and their own stuff around them.
All I know is don't go near anything.
If you fucking break it, then you have to pay for a new one.
And I cannot afford to buy any of this, so I'm not gonna fucking touch it.
The idea for “Ice Tray” came about really from Quavo I think, because we were directing
this together.
In the morning he came in super early, a lot earlier than the other Migos, because he said
"I am Corporate Quavo today."
We discussed what we were gonna do, and I went through the looks, and I said
"This video actually is gonna be kind of dark."
I didn't want to make something that felt really clinical and clean and white and bright.
I wanted it to be dark and moody, and a bit aggressive.
He just said, "Look, we need it to be an ice world."
"We need it to be cold, and we need to be wearing furs."
Oh, and the whole Joe Budden skit as well, obviously.
I was presented with, “We need to do a kind of 'fuck you, Joe Budden' moment."
I have no problem with Quavious.
Come on Quavious.
Like, he’s gonna mumble every damn thing and then wanna sound like fucking Mr. College Harvard
Lil Pump Professor Man?
We had a casting consultant person that we put in charge of trying to find each character.
Yes, something was "leaked online," which is annoying, but I mean, I kind of think that
helps to build the hype of the video.
We just wanted to make it not so serious.
Still a bit "Fuck you Joe," because he's a knob, but not so serious.
With the guy who played Joe Budden.
He came on set and he had a fade.
Instantly Quavo was like, “No. This is fucking bullshit. You can’t have a fade."
"Go shave your head. Right now.”
Bald head!
Joe Budden! We going Joe Budden!
The way we scripted it was very in the moment.
Instantly, Akademiks was amazing.
Nadeska was great.
It was actually quite hard to cast people because physically, to me they looked like
the characters.
But they don't necessarily move like them or they don't sound like them.
That was a bit of a challenge, but it's okay.
We overcame it I think, in the end.
It was really important to everybody to have all of the Migos together for this video.
I know that Offset and Takeoff didn't necessarily have a verse in this, but together they are
the Migos, so I think whatever they do separately still carries on with each other.
These ice blocks are actual ice.
I'd never worked with big ice blocks before, so I was really scared, stupidly, that they
were all gonna melt into a million pieces, and we wouldn't be able to use any ice.
We had these sitting outside for six to seven hours before we actually used them.
And nothing happened.
So these watches here, these are the ones that I foolishly tried to pick up and move
and they melted into the ice, so you have to crack them out a little bit.
So that was really fuckin' scary.
But sometimes you would have to move the face of the watch or move it a certain angle so
the light would catch it, and then we can see how sparkly and lovely it is.
Yachty was really good about moving them and making sure that they looked perfect.
And then we have under here, the big spinny QC chain.
So the guys at Icebox, it's a jewelry store.
And there's a guy called Moe that works there.
I think it's his store, and he was telling me Quavo ordered a big QC jewelry piece.
And then Moe said, "Okay, it's ready. Have a look."
But then Quavo said, "Actually, I'd like all these big fucking diamonds all the way around it."
And then, second round Quavo said, "Okay. Actually, I want the inside of it to spin."
So Moe said that he basically cried inside, because he'd never made a spinny necklace
before, and how the fuck is he gonna do this?
So lo and behold, he completes the challenge of making this QC spinny necklace and I see
it everywhere.
But it's because it's so amazing.
So I wanted to make it have special moments throughout the video.
Just because it's so cool.
This guy's called Johnny Dang.
I turned up and I didn't know who Johnny Dang was, but bless him.
He's an angel.
I told him at first he was gonna wear full scrubs, he was gonna wear gloves, he was gonna
wear a mask, he was gonna wear a little hat or whatever, a little surgeon's hat.
He was really cool, and he didn't really care.
He was like, "Whatever you think, it's fine."
"If you think it's gonna be better like this, then I'll do it."
But obviously, it's better that we didn't hide his mouth, because he the craziest grills
I've ever seen.
And I wanted all of his jewelry to be out, as well.
I didn't want to hide that.
So we just settled on the lab coat, which was fine.
It was cool.
So, we had this really talented makeup artist on the shoot, and she also was really well-versed
in prosthetics.
She put some ice flakes in his beard.
And then we put some in his eyebrows and on his nose, and then Quavo said
"Okay, we need to dust some on his ears and on his shoulders."
And then my favorite bit was on his big bald head, being dusted on top of his head.
This was Quavo's idea.
He wanted to have at the very end of the video Joe Budden turn to ice, and his reference
was Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’ when he's just frozen at the very end.
We want to visualize the song.
We hear something amazing, and then we want to see what that artist is trying to say.
I really enjoy doing that, and going through the whole process, and trying to elevate those
ideas for artists, and making it come to life.
Don’t take that bit, me saying he's a sweetheart, 'cause rappers are probably like
"I ain’t no fuckin' sweetheart."
But he was a sweetheart.
He was so nice.