Video production in Switzerland and BiH - young artists can succeed
Haris Dubica is the director of video spots for Dino Merlin, one of the most famous pop singers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, with whom he has been cooperating for 10 years. Haris Dubica, whose parents are from Sanski Most, was born in Lucerne, where he still lives with his wife and two-year old daughter.
You have been directing videos for Swiss musicians and bands, and actors or some other collaborators in these videos are from Bosnia and Herzegovina? How does such cooperation take place?
I have dual citizenship, Swiss and Bosnian one, and I usually spend two months per year in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I like to bring people together and I like to help people if I see that they are talented or have an interesting project, and in such cases I hire people from both countries. I was born in Lucerne, but when it comes to Bosnia and Herzegovina, I feel as if I had been born there. Persons in the Balkans work very well and I like working with them. I live in Switzerland, but work in Bosnia, so I am some sort of reverse Gastarbeiter (laughing)… I am very satisfied with the fact that I have the possibility to travel a lot for work, so that I have great friendships both in Bosnia and Herzegovina and throughout the Balkans and the world. You know, if an alien came, you can imagine how important it would be for him where a person was born, because we all would be people for him, and in my opinion that is the most important thing.
What does this coupling of two mentalities and two cultures look like when you work with artists from Switzerland and Bosnia and Herzegovina? How does that function in your work?
It is functioning very well! It is very important to choose a good team, and the key thing for me is that all collaborators are doing their best in order for everything to turn out well in the end. For me, only work matters, meaning that people know how to do their work and to be professional. We, people from the Balkans, are good at that, because when we familiarise ourselves with a profession or get acquainted with another culture and see that work is very much appreciated, we can truly do our best and be successful. There are many successful Bosnians and Herzegovinians in Switzerland, too, who have good jobs.
How did it all start and how did you start working in video production?
Completely by chance. I was a DJ and I was playing records and beats to a rapper called Benny, who was actually from Tuzla. He needed a video clip, so we gathered some friends of ours to do that and I offered him to direct the video spot, so that is how the cooperation started and how I made my first video spot. Back then I worked at an electronic equipment shop, but I soon left that job in order to fully dedicate myself to video production.
How did your parents react? Did they support you?
I had strong support from my parents and I am very grateful for it. At the beginning, they did not really believe that it would all work out and that one could live on it, because I am from a working-class family, where there is this notion that one has to do ''normal'' jobs in order to be secure and successful. They thought that it was unusual, but when I showed them the first results, they started trusting me and today they are happy with me and what I do.
The Best Swiss Video Award, the Swiss award for the music spot of the year, is a very important and prestigious award, and you received it three times. Is one of these spots for you maybe more important than the rest?
For me personally, the best video is the one in case of which I received the 2016 award, and I made it for the Swiss pop musician Baschi and his song Hashtag. He gave me plenty of rope as to what to do regarding the idea and video production, and we really worked a lot on everything, starting from the preparation of masks used in the spot to the selection of locations for the scenes. That is one of the most important videos in my career so far, and I have made more than 120 music videos.
What is your video production stile? How would you present your way of work?
If a text is interesting, the most important thing for me is to show what the song is about, and if a text does not inspire me, I try to create interesting scenes for the music. What is important is the fact that I do not repeat myself in terms of creativeness, and this is the reason why I like to experiment. I like to use animations, good costumes and to hire a bigger number of actors. I do not wish to be boring as a result of using the same ideas, because I have been doing this for more than 10 years, so that I am trying to implement all of my ideas in a good and creative manner. My goal is to visually show the main emotion in a song, and I think that my best videos are ballads.
How did your cooperation with Dino Merlin start?
I am a great fan of Dino Merlin and I really wanted to do video spots for him. He gave me an opportunity to propose him a scenario for a song of his and since he liked it, he gave me a chance to make a video spot for that song. He was very satisfied and we have been cooperating for ten years, and we are also planning new projects.
Who have you cooperated with in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the region?
I made music clips for Zabranjeno pušenje, Emina Jahović, Saša Kovačević, Massimo Savić, Dženan Lončarević and many more.
You have already received many awards for your work. What are the most important awards that you have received so far?
I received around 15 awards, and my favourite is the 2015 culture award of my municipality, Emmen. It is a large municipality with more than 30,000 inhabitants, and I am the first person from the Balkans who received such an award and that really meant a lot for me. Dino Merlin also attended the award ceremony, and he held a speech and spoke about me. It was such a beautiful event that gathered my family, friends and many interesting faces from the sector of culture of the Canton of Lucerne and I can say that it was my favourite moment in my career.
What are other important awards that you received?
I managed to receive the video of the year award in Switzerland for three consecutive times, and nobody else ever managed to do that, not even twice, and especially not three times. This opened a lot of doors for me in the Swiss market and it is truly important for me. Last year, in 2016, I managed to receive the best video award in three different countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Switzerland.
You are also preparing a feature film, which will connect the two cultures, the Swiss one and the Bosnian one?
The topic of this film is integration, it is some sort of Romeo and Juliet story about a Bosnian guy, a refugee, who falls in love with a Swiss woman, whereas the parents of both of them are against this relationship. I want to make a comedy, a bridge between the two cultures, I want to play with clichés and to make something that will have a strong message. I have already also spoken with potential actors, but there is a lot to be done before we come to hiring actors. Emir Hadžihafizbegović is giving me great support in this project and he is interested in acting in the film, and I hope that it will happen. Ademir Kenović from Sarajevo will most probably be the producer, and he is also great support, because he is very experienced, and he is in a way also a role model for me in this profession. Now I am working on another scenario version.
You are a great football fan and are following the representation of Bosnia and Herzegovina during their matches?
Sport is the greatest ambassador and I am a huge fan of football and representation of Bosnia and Herzegovina! I was at more than 40 of their meetings, I followed them to Brazil during the World Championship, to the USA during the friendly match against Mexico and to all places where they played in Europe. I also have a collection of more than 140 different football jerseys.
Have you ever maybe had any problems with licenses and the local administration when you do projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina? Have you faced any obstacles in the implementation of your projects?
No, I really have not. Everything has always been fine. Bosnia and Herzegovina is a beautiful country for me, with a lot of artists, and we, younger artists, always have opportunities to work.
Do you have any advice or message for young people entering the world of art and starting to work in the field of video and music production in Bosnia and Herzegovina?
I would advise them to be persistent! Persistence is the most important thing! My greatest fear is to look back one day as a pensioner at what I did and say that I did not try hard enough. That is my greatest fear. Even if I do not achieve my goals, I want to be able to say that I did my best. Young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, those of you dealing with art – do your best, be persistent, positive and believe in yourselves!
Links:
Video Hashtag
Video Du bisch willkomme
Haris Dubica in the media:
https://www.srf.ch/radio-srf-virus/aktuell/haris-dubica-der-knallharte-regisseur-geht-neue-wege