Video director Jason Koenig bounces back from a ‘creatively insecure’ year with Macklemore’s ‘Glorious’
Seattle’s Jason Koenig, who has carved out a tremendously successful career as a music video director — which includes the video for the new Macklemore single, “Glorious,” released this week — can hardly believe his good fortune.
A Grammy-nominated and MTV Video Music Award-winning director, Koenig has played a lead role in the production of the Macklemore & Ryan Lewis videos for, among others, “Can’t Hold Us” and “Downtown,” which, combined, have earned some 700 million plays on YouTube. But after “Can’t Hold Us,” the second major single off the rap album “The Heist,” Koenig said he went through the darkest creative year of his career.
Koenig, 33, had trained as a photographer but fell into video after hanging out and working with Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. After the runaway success of “Can’t Hold Us,” “I had the most creatively insecure year of my life,” he says. “I thought I would most likely never get back. I thought I peaked at 28.”