Emil Nava Case Study

Emil Nava

Emil Nava is a very successful British music video director. He has directed many videos for artists such as Ed Sheeran, Jessie J and Calvin Harris. He began as a runner for film production companies and he worked for Blink Productions, however he now freelances for OB management. After working as a runner, Nava graduated to Assistant Director where he would manage the shoots. He signed to Academy, the biggest music video production company.

Our House

Emil Nava's first budget was for the band Kid British and the track Our House. With a budget of £20,000 Nava shot in Manchester and used local people for the cast. This video had a very tight time scale for Nava had 1 day filming, 2-3 days for editing and 10 days for pre-production. This video conforms to Andrew Goodwin's theory on key music video traits as it has an illustrative narrative: the lyrics of the song connect with the narrative happening in the video. It presents a problem that occurs very often in life as the singers are "dad-less." This allows the audience to connect and relate to the artists, helping the success of the video. However, instead of conforming to the stereotype of living with just one parent, Nava and the artist make the situation more optimistic, saying it isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is, and nobody should judge them for they don't know the background, as the video tells. 

You Need Me, I Dont Need You

Emil Nava's music video for Ed Sheeran's "You Need Me, I Dont Need You" was very powerful and original. In black and white colours, it presents the perfect outlines of the actors involved. This video had a budget of £35,000 and the client was Atlantic. Nava used many techniques throughout this video conforming to Andrew Goodwin's key features of music videos as it contained many close ups of the actors face and it had amplifying shots of Ed Sheeran playing guitar. What really stands out about this video and makes it one of a kind is that the main actor is dancing whilst also signing the lyrics to the song. This presents awareness of people who are deaf or hard of hearing, and no other music videos are like this. Another powerful trait of this video is that we never properly see Ed throughout the video until the end when it finishes on a subtle tilt of him.

Picking Up The Pieces

This video made for Paloma Faith's song "Picking Up The Pieces" was one of Emil Nava's most famous music videos. He made it for the client Sony, and had a much higher budget than Ed Sheeran's "You Need Me, I Dont Need You," and Kid British "Our House," with a budget of £80,000. With this bigger budget, he was able to make a much higher quality video than that of "Our House," which is very noticeable in comparison for this video has a variety of expensive equipment and props, such as the fancy car used and the posh house. There are many amplified shots throughout this video, of Paloma sitting on the bench singing and in the car singing, and the her expressions throughout the video are sullen and unhappy, which connects to the mood of the song.

Lego House

Emil Nava made a very successful video for Ed Sheeran's "Lego House" and for the client Atlantic. It has a very famous actor in the video, Rupert Grint, which would attract a big audience for the video. In the video, Grint is shown to be obsessed with Ed, and he aims to be him in every aspect, with the clothes he wears, the way he styles his hair and he even hangs a portrait of Ed in his house. Grint pretends to be Ed, which is amplified through the video, as he goes on stage as Ed, and then gets dragged off by security. However at the end, we see Ed walking out of the elevator as Grint is being escorted out into the elevator, in which Grint has a surprised expression on his face as he just came face to face with his idol. This video has a tone of subtle humour throughout, as Grint comes across as humorous whilst aiming to be Ed, finishing with him listening to one of Ed's songs, whilst hugging a home-made plush with Ed's clothes on it and a picture of Ed's face on it. 

At his busiest, Emil Nava has created 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. 

Emil has now begun to make adverts, which generally have a much higher budget and production values but allow for less creative freedom. 

Emil's Top Tips

Use extreme close up's of faces wherever possible. 

Do not shoot whole video in Medium shot/ Long shot

Examples of this are Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares to U" and Godley and Creme "Cry."

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. 

Group Meeting 2!

Group Meeting!

We had our first full group meeting in our new group, in which we discussed ideas over how we could all have roles which will benefit the group. This meeting was to explain all of the groups ideas and try to come up with the best possible decision on how our new group will work.

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson was an American singer, songwriter, record producer, dancer and actor. He was nicknamed the King of Pop, and his contributions to music and dance, along with his publicized personal life, made him a global figure in pop culture for over four decades. Jackson's album, Thriller, in 1982 was the best selling album of all time. Jackson also popularized a number of complicated dance moves, such as the robot and the moonwalk. 

Rockin' Robin

Rockin' Robin (1971) was just a basic music video aiming to promote the song. It contains slow motion shots  throughout, which is present throughout many scenes, such as the band dancing all together. This video also contains limited sophistication, as the editing is not very professional; it does not edit to the beat of the song. However, it does conform to a few of Andrew Goodwin's characteristics of a music video for it has a dance routine for the band, and it has an amplifying relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, for many of the scenes are repeated throughout the video. This video also has an unprofessional tone for the lip-syncing in the video is not synced with the singing at any time.

Rock With You

Rock With You (1979) had better editing and lighting than Rockin' Robin, and it was slightly more professional. The video presents a silhouette of a man just dancing, with a green light behind him, and as soon as the music starts, the light shines on Michael Jackson, and he starts to sing. The green light is present throughout the entire video, and it is always behind Jackson, which makes him the centre of attention. Jackson is the only person present in the video, and it conforms to Goodwin's theory for the narrative is amplifying, as there is repetition of another clip of Jackson dancing behind the centre Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson is always in view in every single shot, even when there is a shot of Michael's legs dancing, a small clip of Michael is in between the legs. In this video, Michael's costume consists of sparkly diamonds, which shows that he is dressed up for the video, and shows the professional side of the video for Michael's costume matched the genre of the song. 

Billy Jean

Billy Jean (1982) is Michael Jackson's first interesting pop video which tells a story, and it does more than just lip-syncing. It starts off in black and white, whilst there is just the beat of the song. However, when Michael Jackson appears in the video, it turns to colour, which presents Michael as the important person in the video. Another way to make Michael Jackson the significant person in this video was because of the timing of the electronic floor lighting. Whenever Jackson walks, the floor lights up, which puts him in the centre of attention and it is just as effective as having a light shining on him. This video tells a story in a very interesting and professional way. There is a man in a trench coat who is seen to be following Jackson around, and in the end, the man in the trench coat, who is presented as a form of paparazzi for he is photographing Jackson, gets arrested after he attempts to follow Michael and take photos of him, and then Michael disappears, leaving only the man in the trench coat. However, in the end scene of the video, the man in the trench coat is seen dragged off by police, and there is just a light on the floor, like how Jackson's footprints would be, following the police and the man. This video is a very interesting way to tell a story, and it will intrigue the audience into wanting to watch more of his videos. 

Beat It

Beat It (1983) tells a very interesting story, however, it is different to how Billy Jean's story was presented. In this video, unlike jackson's others, Michael was not present until the third line of the song. The other characters in the narrative were seen to be walking around with a strut, with a determined look on their faces. When Michael Jackson first appeared, he was seen lying on his bed wearing, what the audience assumes, his pyjamas. In the narrative of the video, there are two different groups presented which are opposing each other in what seems to be a fight, for they both have a weapon, however, they are dancing throughout the fight, which makes it seem less serious and more of an interesting way to present a fight in a music video. In Michael's next appearance in this video, he is seen to be wearing a bright orange jacket which makes him still the centre of attention, even though he is not shown in the video as often as the other characters. At the very end of the video, Michael comes between the fight and stops it, and then all of the characters start to dance. The ending presents an elaborately choreographed dance which makes the video very professional and it would impress the audience for there is a big group of people who had to learn a choreographed dance and make sure its perfect. 

Thriller

This music video is considered to be the most famous music video of all time. Thriller ( 1983) was a cultural milestone introducing: 

• Elaborate choreography
• Costumes and dancing
• The concept of the long-form music video, where a mini-movie was made for a song, then editing down for the short version. 

The long version of Thriller runs for nearly 14 minutes, but had remarkable longevity, easily racking up over 100 million views when it showed up on YouTube. MTV usually ran the short version, which ran for a little under 5 minutes, yet still contained about a minute of non-song content in a storyline that omits most of the movie that the couple are watching at the beginning. The video costed around $500,000, however, his record company had no intention of paying it, since the album was on the downswing and they had already financed videos for two of the album's songs. 

According to the director, John Landis, Jackson really wanted to turn into a monster, so he offered to pay for the clip himself. Landis took on the project for he saw it as a way to revive the short film genre, which he loved. 

Jackson didnt have to pay for the video out of his pocket for they made deals with Showtime and MTV to cover the costs. Showtime was allowed to air a one hour special with the "making of" documentary and the 14-minute film before it was broadcasted anywhere else.  When MTV heard about this, their executive, Bob Pittman decided that losing a Michael Jackson video to Showtime was unacceptable, and paid $250,000 for the exclusive broadcast rights once Showtime's window ended. MTV was founded on the principle of not paying for videos, so Pittman got around this by paying for the documentary, even though the money was really used to pay for the film. The video won for Best Performance Video, Best Choreography, and Viewers Choice at the first MTV Video Music Awards in 1984. With its famous graveyard dance, the video started the trend of group dance scenes in Pop videos. This video's inspiration was from Alice Cooper's 1975 movie based on the stage show for his Welcome To My Nightmare tour. Cooper's production was based on an entire album, but it also used a horror theme and was narrated by Vincent Price. Sales for the video was very well timed, for you could buy a VHS or beta copy of Jackson's Behind The Scenes and the actual video, and the tape became the best selling music video of all times, and was later certified by Guinness World Records for the best selling music video, moving 9million units. The timing of the video helped for it was released 3 weeks before christmas. 

Album Art Exercise

Album Art Exercise

In this exercise, we had to practise creating art for an album. In this, we chose a band title, album title and we chose a photo which we would alter it in some way to make it our own.

The first thing we had to do was find our band name, which was from generated from a random wikipedia page. I was given the name Gallium, which is a chemical element, and i thought it would be perfect for a practise of creating album art.

I then found a random quote, in which I had to pick four words from it and use it as my album name. I thought that this title for the album would be perfect because it would provide a variety of ways in which I could create successful album art.

I picked a photo from a website called Flickr, and it was randomly generated. I thought this would be a perfect picture to match my album name, for it was simple, yet eye-catching.

To make this picture my own, I added a few effects to it, which will make it look more aesthetic, which relates to the title of the album. I thought that having a simple, everyday life picture, along with some effects which bring out different colours into the photo and make it more pastel colours would really support the album name. Also, I slightly faded in the band name, Gallium, into the trees to make it look like nothing changed, yet it would look unique.

In this exercise, I learnt how to use photoshop and all the effects which would make my album more noticeable and impressive to my audience, and I learned how to edit pictures, put the text on pictures and create an image which will support my album's success.