Lawrence Lamont graduates from ‘Big Sean’ to big screen

It’s just one of them days for Lawrence Lamont — the good kind, it turns out. It’s Wednesday afternoon and reviews for the Detroit director’s debut film, “One of Them Days,” have just hit the web. “We’re 100% on Rotten Tomatoes!” says a beaming Lamont, inside a seventh-floor suite at the Shinola Hotel in downtown Detroit, his phone in his hand, scrolling through reviews of his movie. It’s great news to receive for Lamont’s Los Angeles-set day-in-the-life comedy, which stars Keke Palmer and SZA and opened in theatres nationwide on Friday. And he got to celebrate it in his hometown, where Lamont’s filmmaking journey began. The previous night, he hosted friends and family at a screening of the film at Emagine Royal Oak, and he was so happy to be home — he now lives in L.A. — that he wasn’t even bothered by the frigid January temperatures.

“I loooove it,” said Lamont of the frosty weather, his eyes wide behind his Cartier wood frame eyeglasses.

They’re a sign that you can take Lamont out of Detroit, but you can’t take the Detroit out of Lamont. Before making his feature film debut, Lamont cut his teeth making music videos, including clips for Big Sean (“IDFWU”) and J. Cole (“G.M.O.D.”).

His first music video was in 2008 for Detroit rapper Earlly Mac’s “House Party,” which has the grainy look and feel of ‘70s Italian horror film. “When you watch it, you can see some of the budding genius of Lawrence Lamont,” says Mac, who was there at Tuesday’s screening rooting on his friend, whom he calls “L. Boogie” for short.

Mac, who says Lamont is a “fifth-dimensional thinker,” always knew Lamont was talented. But he says he became a different person when it was time to go to work. “Once he’s in that arena, there’s a switch,” says Mac. “You get your friend when you’re just sitting around — he’s like 20% hardcore visionary director and 80% friend — but once he’s on set, he’s 80% hardcore director, 20% friend. He’ll give you that look, and then he’ll get right back to it. It’s master level, it’s impressive. It’s like, ‘Who is this guy?’”

Lamont was still a teenager at the time he made the “House Party” video, but he remembers feeling like he had found his calling. “I felt like I knew what I was doing,” says Lamont, now 35. “Obviously I didn’t know what I was doing, but I had confidence and awareness and I knew, ‘This is special, I love doing this.’ It felt like my sacred sword, my destiny.”

That destiny started when Lamont was a child, growing up in the McDonald Square apartments and in the Ralph Bunche Co-Op on Detroit’s East side. He remembers watching dubbed videocassettes of movies at his aunt’s house, at 7 Mile and Prairie, and oftentimes their endings would be cut off by the beginning of another movie. He’d have to finish the stories his own way, in his head, which jump-started his creativity and his love of world-building at an early age, he says.

He stumbled onto films like “Taxi Driver” and “A Clockwork Orange,” ‘70s masterworks he was too young to see or fully comprehend, but which made a lasting impression on him. Spike Lee’s “Crooklyn” was also an early eye-opener, he says. By high school he was a burgeoning film buff, taking in screenings at Star Southfield, sometimes by himself, the true mark of movie obsessive. He remembers being so in love with “Superbad” that as soon as it ended, he wanted to turn around and see it again.

He credits his drama teacher at Southfield High School, the late Brenda Perryman, with opening his eyes to the craft of film and the process of how movies come together.

“She made a point of excellence, and needing to know your history,” Lamont says. “I think that’s when I really started paying more attention to positions in a film crew, especially the director.” By the time he picked up a camera in late high school, he was bursting with creative inspiration and ready to define his own style.

Tribune News Service