Chances are, you haven't yet heard of Isaac Deitz. He hasn't released an album. He doesn't have a record deal or an EP, and isn't even a one-hit wonder. 

 

But if you're a Christian music fan, you're well aware of his work. The 26-year-old director and filmmaker has worked with the likes of tobyMac and Lecrae, among others, and quickly is making a name for himself with his entertaining, out-of-the-box music videos. He's most known for his trilogy of Family Force 5 music videos, including "Wobble", "Cray Button" and "Zombie."

 

NRT Founder Kevin McNeese had to get Isaac on the phone as soon as he saw the latest Lecrae video, "Fakin'." 

 

 

I appreciate all of that support.

 

 

I actually started videoing when I was 10 years old. I bought a little Tyco video camera that you had to plug into your VCR. I put it on layaway and it took me about three months to pay it off, and once I did I had friends come over and make skits. That's when it all started. I was a huge fan of film since making skits with friends and stuff.

 

Then around 16 or 17 I made this website called tubopopcorn.com and I started doing videos for live bands that came to Syracuse, New York, where I'm from and I started doing live videos for them. One or two cameras and then put it online. Mind you this was before YouTube came out so there was no competition for live videos by this point.

 

Eventually bands like Christian bands contacted me and said, "We want you to do our video." One of them was House of Heroes. I ended up doing stuff for their enhanced CD. Then eventually when YouTube came out I said to them, "I think video blogs are the next big thing. I think a weekly video documentary thing could be great." They were like, "Yeah."

 

They took me on tour and that was the tour Family Force 5 was headlining. I'd never heard of them before, but I met them through the tour and then I said, "We should talk. We should do videos."

 

Then I remember Solomon said to me the last day of the tour, "We were thinking about bringing you on the tobyMac tour in a couple of weeks." I was 20 by this point, but I'm like, "What? TobyMac? Yes!" 

 

At that point we did the first really real show, which was their weekly video blog that we've done. We've done around 30 of them and it became a cult classic. It put me on the map for a lot of people, too, because I worked myself into the videos as well. A lot of their fans started knowing me and it grew from there. A really interesting ride for sure.

 

 

I'm 26.

 

 

Mm-hmm.

 

 

I still work with them a lot. Basically the best way to answer that is I'm a freelancer and I've always been and Family Force 5 did hire me a lot, but I do a lot of videos for a lot of different bands. I did travel with them a lot, but now it'll be like a tour a year.

 

 

Right.

 

 

Yeah. I love this story. This is one of my favorite things with how God worked in this. When I was a kid I got my first Newsboys cassette tape and I loved it. I never liked music until I heard the Take Me to Your Leader cassette and I was like, "Oh my gosh. This is awesome." I became a music fan that night. 

 

Since then I started collecting all their tapes before that and I got all their stuff. I got Bleach and dcTalk and all these different things. Then I bought that camera I told you about--which was like $50 by the way; I should mention that. When I wanted to buy that camera, I literally sold all those cassette tapes to the local Christian bookstore. They gave me like $2 apiece for them, but it helped pay off the camera.

 

I went to my first concert ever, which happened to be Bleach, and I went up to them after, the lead singer Davy, and I told him the whole story. "I sold your cassettes so I could buy my camera and I'm making films now. I love it. I'm excited." He's like, "Oh cool." Then he grabbed me a CD and he gave it to me.

 

I was like, "Wow. This is awesome." He gave me that CD, which was my first CD I ever owned. I didn't even have a CD player to put it in and he said, "I want to see your work one of these days." I was like, "Cool." I was about 12 then. A couple of years later I'd see him at a festival and I told him who I was and he's like, "I want to see your work. You going to bring it to me?"

 

Four months ago Tim Skipper, the lead singer of the House of Heroes, he got married to Stephanie Smith and a lot of industry people were there at the wedding. It was a celebrity wedding type thing. All these people were walking around and I saw Davy from Bleach. I was like, "Oh my gosh."

 

I walked up to him and I said, "Sorry if this is weird, but I've just got to tell you this story." I told him what I just told you and he's like, "That's cool." Then I said, "I'm working with Family Force 5 and tobyMac and all these bands, Kenny Loggins and whatnot." He's like, "That's cool. What did you do for Family Force 5?" 

 

I'm like, "I did a lot of their video blogs and I did "Cray Button" and "Wobble" and Zombie." He's like, "You did Cray Button?" He was really excited. He's like, "Let me shake your hand again." 

 

Of course the little kid inside me was like, "Yeah!" It went totally full circle. I feel like God totally used that for me to say, "Look where I brought you." That was the coolest thing to have Davy go, "Let me get your number. Let's talk."

 

Of course I kept my composure and I acted like it wasn't the biggest deal in the world, but it was so cool to see he did finally watch my stuff.

Click here for Part 2 of the Isaac Deitz interview, where Isaac talks about his first foray into music videos, which included projects with tobyMac, House of Heroes and Family Force 5.