Weird Metaphors and Buried Trauma: King She on Shaping Symbolic Meaning for Yamê
Within a year of their industry debut, King She were awarded AICP Best New Director, Ad Campaign's 2023 Top 10 Directors List, and were finalists in Ad Age's 2024 Creativity Awards Directors to Watch. This year they were named to both Eyecandy’s and Ad Campaigns Top 10 Directors.
Partners in life and art, Radha Ganti and Robert Lopuski are the husband and wife team behind King She. They are known for revitalizing standard narrative constructs through breakthrough multifaceted techniques in photography, editorial, and music. Creativity, imagination, and a drive for innovation is the basis for every project they do.
The duo made waves globally with their bold approach to storytelling in Rare: The Boy Who Cried Swag. Premiering on Nowness in September 2022, the breakthrough short film won three Young Director Awards in Cannes as well as numerous other accolades. Their work on Apple Music & Rihanna's Super Bowl 2023 Halftime show won a Cannes Gold and Silver Lion and received over 10 million social impressions in its debut week. Recently they were awarded a 2024 Cannes Bronze Lion for Excellence in Music Video for their biopunk music video spectacle Tanto. They've amassed over 50+ awards for their other spotwork including eBay, Spotify, and Karcher.
King She is based in Brooklyn. They host a Podcast Series about creativity and mentorship. Shots Magazine calls it 'a deep and entertaining dive into the mindsets and experiences of both rising and established filmmakers. For these two creative souls, there are never enough projects to feed their inventiveness.
LBB> What excites you in the music video industry right now? Any trends?
King She> We were really excited when Yamê asked us to make the video, stills and record art for Shoot. It's not just about making a solo video anymore - it's the stills, the IG reels, the BTS TikToks. The entire artist mythology is on the table these days. It’s prime territory for any directors with control issues, which is definitely not us.
LBB> What kind of concepts get you hyped to shoot a music video?
King She> Weird metaphors, buried trauma, a shape with symbolic meaning. Shoot was built around a spiral. Tanto was rooted in real identity work. If it touches personal truth and gives us a shot at visual poetry, we’re there with a 100 camera angles and a smoke machine.
LBB> How do you create a treatment?
King She> Step 1: Overthink everything.
Step 2: Obsessively research the lyrics, artist’s background, and full astrological chart.
Step 3: Pretend money doesn’t matter – but don’t get delusional. Dream with a plan.
LBB> Most important working relationship on an MV?
King She> Our producers and DPs are our ride-or-dies. We’ve shot two music videos so far – YamêShoot and Cassie Marin Tanto. If you don’t have a producer who’s sweet talking a French art school to let you shoot at their brutalist fortress, or a DP willing to jump into every aspect of the problem solving – do you even get to make the thing? Also major shout out to our post partners on both those videos - Jamm VFX and Monumental FX - who both went into full patron-of-the-arts mode. Legends.
LBB> What kind of work are you most passionate about?
King She> Anything with a beat. Robert may have missed his true calling as Timbaland 2.0, and we both treat every edit like a record. We love rap, gabba, femme pop stars, and anything that lets us blend music, emotion, and cinematic dreamscapes.
LBB> What’s the biggest misconception about your work?
King She> That we’re 'transition directors.' We love a good whip-pan and match cut as much as the next filmmaker. But we’re storytellers first. It’s important that the soul and ideas in our work resonate.
LBB> Craziest production problem and how you solved it?
King She> We wrote a whole concept around a metaphorical puzzle house for Yamê’s Shoot. Then couldn’t find the right location. Just when we were about to throw in the towel and shoot in a garden maze outside Paris, our producer discovered Villa Arson - a French art school that’s never hosted a commercial shoot. Boom. It was the location of our dreams. Miracles are really music video producers in disguise.
LBB> Diversity and mentorship on set – thoughts?
King She> We stepped into the industry as directors post-pandemic, and the support’s been unreal. The generosity we’ve felt across our industry, in so many different areas, has been both surprising and deeply motivating. On set, there’s a certain level of built-in mentorship across departments - 1sts, 2nds, trainees. But directors are a department of one. So apprenticeship matters. We make it a point to bring people in, sit them by the monitor, and talk them through everything - from lens choices to how we’re faking a moco shot.
LBB> What’s your relationship with new tech?
King She> VFX has always been part of our filmmaking approach. We made our first short film together three years ago – Rare: The Boy Who Cried Swag. It had a GIANT MAN walking through LA. We got calls about how we pulled that off for a long time. We enjoy technical problem solving. AI is still an unruly tool, but we’ve incorporated it here and there for testing out concepts in the post pipeline.
LBB> Which pieces best show off what you do?
King She> Apple Music Rihanna 'Diamonds'
Our first brand film. About jeweller Asap Eva making a custom necklace for Rihanna’s Superbowl moment. We told the story from the POV of a diamond.
Cassie Marin – 'Tanto'
Our first music video. Deeply personal and visually experimental. We wanted it to feel like a 2 minute voice note to a therapist.
Kärcher – 'Beautiful Insanity'
A vacuum cleaner becomes a couple’s total adversary. Humour, chaos, choreography, and a touch of madness. Basically us in ad form.
Lancôme – 'Idôle' Olivia Rodrigo
To mark Olivia Rodrigo’s global debut as Lancôme’s brand ambassador, we needed to craft a film that merged classic fragrance codes with gen z cool. We tried to make something sleek, cinematic, and subtly subversive - much like Olivia herself.
