Jason Pires brought his background in graphic arts to bear on rapper Jae-P’s music video “Vecino” (“Neighbor” in Spanish), which quickly became a huge hit on Hispanic music channels in the U.S. The controversial song, which comes from Jae-P’s newest album “Pa Mi Raza,” deals with immigration issues that have roiled communities around the country. Even if you can’t understand the lyrics, the images make the message known – Pires' skill as a graphic artist creates a moving and powerful counterpoint to the words.

Pires summarizes the lyrics to “Vecino”: To my dear neighbor, we’ve come here to work and make a living just like you and your ancestors. We’re not here to take anything away from you. We’re not here to beg. We’re here to build a life for ourselves and to help continue to build this great nation.”

“It’s a plea for understanding,” he says. “It’s a conversation.”

Pires, who is of Brazilian, Spanish and Italian heritage, gravitated to servicing the booming Spanish-language music market with a combination of computer graphic and entrepreneurial skills. He worked for a commercial photographer, including portraiture and art for catalogues, while he attended Pasadena Art Center part-time, studying design and multimedia. After seeing a lot of photography go out the door to fill badly designed catalogues, he convinced the company to let him open a graphic design division. “I saw the future, where you have the tools that let you apply your creativity across media,” he says. “It isn’t an ordinary career path, and that’s what excited me.”

Pires opened his own company, Modern Visual Communications (Chatsworth, CA), and began working for Spanish-language media giant Univision, creating promotional material, merchandising and design, including artist photography. That relationship won Pires his first music video, for Jessie Morales, a popular regional Mexican musician. “What they liked about it was our conceptual thinking,” Pires says. “We also understand both the American and the Latin markets, and we fuse those things together.”

Pires also saw an opportunity. As a graphic designer, he was bothered by the fact that there was often no continuity in the branding and packaging for Latino artists. “One person will design the album and that person typically doesn’t communicate with the photographer, and when someone else does a music video again, it loses another step,” he says.

For Jae-P, a well-known musician in the Latin-American community, Pires was determined to create that continuity between album artwork and music video. “I had created his album artwork before,” he says, “and developed a relationship with the artist himself, his manager and the label. It was a natural progression for us to do the music video.”

Graphic design plays a big role in “Vecino,” in which Jae-P walks the streets of his neighborhood. The environment is almost entirely created in green screen. “We didn’t have a budget to go to 3D,” says Pires. “But we worked with 2D graphics to create an almost 3D dimensional feel, not only designing what you’d see on the screen but figuring out how to bring it to life.”

Pires' company created an elaborate paper-and-pen storyboard, which broke down the action into five-second increments. Pires says he followed the storyboard closely in directing the live action, which was shot with Super 16mm, because he knew how complex the digital imagery would be. “Jae-P isn’t an exhibitionist,” he explains. “It’s his style to be quiet. He has a more poetic, observational style. By putting him in this other-worldly environment, we made him seem a little larger than life.” The film was telecined at Rednavel Flmworx (www.rednavel.com) in Los Angeles.

The music video was offlined on Final Cut Pro, using After Effects for all the keying and animation. Photoshop was the most important tool in creating the music video’s many graphic elements. At the music video’s opening, Jae-P is holding a notebook filled with his lyrics and thoughts, a real prop that was tweaked physically and digitally. “We designed it, we handwrote the text, we threw water on it, scratched it to make it weathered, and then scanned it in and composited it with other artwork,” he says. “We bought a blank notebook and pasted the print-out on it.” The weathered look, he continues, was important to create a sense of separation between the artist and the lyrics. “There should be a feeling that you’re looking at art,” Pires says.

In another scene, Jae-P walks past a series of colorful murals, which were entirely designed and created in the computer. “That’s where we were able to bring in an additional layer, another level,” he says. “If details like that weren’t there, you would really notice it. It adds a richness.” In another scene, Jae-P walks over a hill and sees, below him, Mexico, which quickly transitions to a series of American landmarks. “We had to figure out how it would work in five seconds and transition to the next scene,” says Pires. “It was very layered and very dimensional.”

“Vecino” has been airing on MTV2, Mundos (a Latino music channel), and HTV (Hispanic TV), among other broadcast outlets. Pires wants to continue his dual career as graphic artist and director, with an entrepreneurial spirit aimed at crossing disciplines and markets. “Music is big, very important to me,” he says. “But I’m trying to build multi-disciplinary businesses that serve not just the music industry but other industries with corporate branding and brand development. As long as I can do it, and people want it, I’ll continue to design and direct.”