Emil Nava

Emil Nava is a famous director who directs music videos and commercials. He started his career working for a range of film production companies as a runner. During his time at Blink productions he worked his way up the company and eventually became an assistant director of a music video shoot. After this he then joined Academy production company which is one of the biggest music video production companies in the world. Today he does the majority of his work freelancing for OB management and working for the company Pulse.

Emil Nava's 1st music video was to for the artist Kid British to his song "Our House is Dadless". This video had a low budget of £20,000 and was produced on a very tight time scale. Pre production took about 10 days, filming had to be finished in 1 day and the editing process took about 2/3 days. As the video was low budget, it meant that extravagant props and settings could not be used. Instead Emil filmed this video in a local street in Manchester and filmed it using local people who lived there. This was a smart idea as it meant that the location and the extras were of minimal cost to the budget. This music video shows Emil Nava's skill of being able to work under strict time scales which shows his ability to work well in a short amount of time. It also demonstrates the tight time scales involved with filming a music video. 

One of Emil's most famous videos is one he made for Sony. This video was to the song "Picking up the pieces" by Paloma Faith. The production to this video was very different from his first music video mainly because the budget as he had a budget of £80,000 which was 4x more the budget he had for his first video. With this bigger budget, he was able to make a video with a lot more high production values. More noticeably, the picture quality is much better in the new video. Also, the location is at a very posh house/palace place and the whole setup is designed to make the video just look very posh, and this is achieved by all of the high production values.

At his busiest Emil produced 24 music videos in one year. When he began shooting videos for independent labels the budget would be as low as £5,000 to £10,000. His most expensive video to date has been for Jessie J and the budget was £160,000 

He has now begun to make adverts, which generally have a far higher budget and production values but allow less creative freedom. An example of an advert Emil created is the L'Oreal Feria 2012 - Dare To Be Different advert.

Emil has also produced two of Ed Sheeran's most successful videos!

Ed Sheeran 'Lego House'

Client Atlantic - Director Emil Nava

Ed Sheeran 'You Need Me'

Client Atlantic - Director Emil Nava

Cost - £35,000

Emil’s Tips

Use Extreme Close Up on faces wherever possible

Do not shoot whole of video in medium shot/long shot

Some of the Production Companies that OB work with are:

Pulse Films

Rocket

Agile Films

Friends

Wonda

Some of the Production Companies that OB work with are:

Pulse Films

Rocket

Agile Films

Friends

Wonda

OB Management work as agents for music video directors. They describe themselves as, “ three straight up dudes who work out of Denmark Street London”.

Their aim is to:

Nurture talent 

Work with production companies

Work with record labels

Match the right director to the right artists