Meet The Director Claiming He’s Behind Frank Ocean’s Video Art Project
Francisco Soriano previously shot Ocean’s “Lost” video in 2013.
It was still just about July 31 when Frank Ocean launched something new on his website. While it was not the album that some fans were hoping for, a video stream of black and white footage of a nondescript room appeared on boysdontcry.co early on Monday morning. Director and Ocean collaborator Francico Soriano claimed credit for the work in a now-deleted Instagram post shortly after the footage went live. He described the work as a "video art project" and added the hashtag #Endless, which is also what Ocean’s site calls it.
The video itself appeared to show a large room, possibly a warehouse of some description, filled with two desks and possible lighting equipment. Ambient sounds played in the background of the footage, which has played uninterrupted since around 3:30am EST. Shortly after 9:30am EST the footage switched and a man, possibly Ocean, appeared in the room. The sound of drilling could be heard before giving way to a recording of a string-section. For a while, the camera focused on a unidentified man doing some sort of woodworking.
New York-based Soriano has worked with Frank Ocean in the past, most notably directing the video for Channel Orange single "Lost" in 2013. That video was removed from Vimeo in September 2015 and is currently unavailable to watch online. However, screenshots from the video can still be seen below.
In addition to directing "Lost," Soriano has also directed videos for K'Naan and Mobroder. IMVDB lists him as the director of photography on Duck Sauce's "Barbra Streisand."
As well as working on music videos, Soriano is also a photographer and has posted many images of Ocean on Instagram in recent years. The most recent picture came in June 2015.
There was also this one of Ocean and Rick Rubin from October 2013.
Others date back to as early as 2012.
More recently he has photographed London musician Jesse James Solomon.
The FADER has reached out to Francisco Soriano about his work with Frank Ocean but did not immediately hear back. Learn more about the director on his personal website.