Images courtesy of Instagram and YouTube
When you think about influential people in hip hop and rap in the last decade, highly rising music videographer and director Kelly Butts-Spirito needs to be included into the conversation. Butts-Spirito has found a way to be part of something much bigger than his name alone and he did so in a highly unconventional way. The hardships he endured in his life helped him form a community that is making a positive impact. His journey can be viewed in the film, “Love, Kelly: Putting Vermont on the Map,” which is available on YouTube.
The short documentary is directed by Owen Hammel and Sam Snowden, and was shot in both Vermont and New York City. The movie premiered in Soho, NYC, in partnership with Create More Studios.
This documentary takes you through Butts-Spirito’s entire life and demonstrates the bridge between music, fashion, videography, and other industries. Our theme this month for Fashion Reverie focuses on the intersection between fashion and music, and how their worlds are often intrinsically linked.
“Love, Kelly: Putting Vermont on the Map” engages the audience because it goes beyond a rags-to-riches story. It doesn’t just show how Butts-Spirito overcame his personal trials of battling addiction and going to a group home in Montana, but how he is “paying it forward” and helping others jumpstart their careers. We see how he shines a spotlight on someone if he sees something in them—a trait not typically associated with highly recognized musicians. In doing so, he’s unified people under one brand, which also happens to be his own event promotion, talent marketing and production company, lovekellyllc (@lovekellyllc on Instagram). His real love for everyone who supports what he does is the reason why he’s been able to impact his hometown of Burlington, VT, to such a high degree.
Image courtesy of Love, Kelly
The film goes into Butts-Spirito being a role model figure for the youth of Vermont who are growing up in his hometown. It also explores how he is proving wrong the people who picked on him or tried to write him off when he was growing up. He wants to show kids that they can rewrite their scripts all while being a little like him when it comes to resilience and perseverance.
Butts-Spirito connects to his audience throughoutLove, Kelly: Putting Vermont on the Map by humanizing creative people who don’t typically get support in their youth. He worked hard year in and year out by setting short-term goals as much as having long-term goals. His mindset is something people can appreciate because he stands for that dream of being on a big stage and going against the norms of society.
The film itself included a lot of themes that were important to capture when diving into the life of Butts-Spirito. The biggest theme was that of a sense of community for his fans and followers. The film dives into what is possible for someone who felt like nobody at times in his life, only to turn around and create sold-out shows and music festivals, something no one from Vermont had ever done to the scale he did.
Image courtesy of Love, Kelly
“I just feel like sometimes we don’t understand the power of following through on certain things,” Butts-Spirito told fashionreverie.com. “I think that a lot of times it can be seen as both negative and positive.
“I definitely think that something that we really like, pride ourselves on is not having limitation around what we’re capable of,” he continues. “I feel like that’s always been something that I’ve tried to carry over when we’re having conversations about events or about the goals. There’s not a lot of talk about, ‘Oh, well this is too ambitious.’ I look back on things in retrospect and I can’t believe we did a storefront in Soho with hundreds of people on Mother’s Day. That’s just kind of crazy. But in the moment, I feel like it was a lot of us coming together for one specific thing and one specific moment. So, of course you want to do it in a storefront because we want to do it the best way we can.”
Hammel, the movie’s co-director, began his film career in college, and has roots in Vermont. The film’s other co-director, Sam Snowden, is a freelance filmmaker based in New York City.
Hammel had the original idea to make a short film on Butts-Spirito. He wanted to draw the audience in with the story of how Butts-Spirito’s Vermont show and festival was shut down by the city. But then he wanted the story to evolve from there.
“We came to Kelly about doing a video about him,” Snowden told fashionreverie.com. “It was great to capture a bunch of footage of Kelly. I think when you’re capturing someone like this you try not to think about what’s going to happen next. What they’re going to be like. Just (have to) focus on what’s possible and I think Kelly is really good at that.”
The film shows Butts-Spirito as an innovator who has both honed the ability to use his strengths while championing a new wave of creatives taking over social and digital media. “Obviously he’s a director, but what he does is more than just being known as a guy who makes cool videos,” said Hammel. “He’s essentially the backbone of this whole wave coming out of Vermont. And not to discredit anyone else, but without him, everything that’s happened to Vermont would not be at such a level that it’s at right now.”
Image courtesy of Love, Kelly
“I think when Butts-Spirito was first doing the house parties where there’s iconic moments like the OG ‘Eastside’ music video from North Ave Jax (Rapper from Vermont),” Hammel went on to tell fashionreverie.com. “That was happening before I was even aware of what was going on. Something like what Kelly was doing for the music scenes, specifically hip-hop rap and to help pioneer its development in Vermont of all places? That fast? I know all the people and I’ve become a part of it. But even still, I sometimes sit back and I’m like what the hell just happened. Who would have ever thought that there would be a rap scene in Vermont?”
You can view the film at Create More Studios YouTube page.
—Ryan Salfino
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