Today we’d like to introduce you to Nico Navia.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I was raised in Bogotá, Colombia and the US in Miami, FL. My parents both worked in the audio/visual world so I’ve had a taste of the filmmaking process my entire life. Growing up, I was enamored with movies and television spending countless hours in front of a screen. I always knew I wanted to make films and for some reason, I was always attracted to the work being done behind the camera. By the time I graduated high school my brother was producing music videos and commercials in Miami so I started working as a production assistant for him. I started learning the ropes of all departments on set, taking any job I could. From my experience on those sets, I knew I wanted to be a film director so I applied to the Tisch School of the Arts at NYU and to my surprise, I was lucky enough to get accepted. In my first class there, we were tasked with making five, three-minute films on 16mm black and white reversal film. After I screened my first project, everybody started asking me to shoot their films. I’m not sure if they were aware that I had no idea what I was doing as I’d really never been interested in photography. Up to that point, I didn’t even know what a Director of Photography was but I ended up shooting about 25 of these little shorts. Needless to say, I fell in love with the craft of Cinematography and never looked back.
Please tell us about your art.
I’m a Director of Photography in the film and entertainment industry. My primary job is to support the vision of the director and translate her or his ideas on to the screen. My work varies from narrative features and short films to commercials and music videos with a few documentary projects peppered in here and there.
I love the dichotomy between the art and the technical aspect of my job. There are some DP’s that are more technical and some that are more artistic, I like to think I fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. Knowing the tools and techniques available to me is just as valuable as knowing how to translate the emotion of a scene onto the screen. Understanding the story, the characters and their arcs is the most important part of my job. With the collaboration of my colleagues, the ultimate goal is to try to tell a story that an audience can feel an emotional connection to. If someone is moved and changed even by the smallest margin by the story we put on screen, then we’ve all done our job.
What do you think about conditions for artists today? Has life become easier or harder for artists in recent years? What can cities like ours do to encourage and help art and artists thrive?
To put things into perspective, we are executing this interview during quarantine because of the Covid-19 virus so I think that conditions for any artist whether in film or other disciplines is difficult right now. Let’s hypothetically take the virus out of the equation and I would say it’s a great time to be a filmmaker. The ability to make a film with few resources is easier than ever. The quality of the work might not be impeccable but the idea, if original, can go a long way. I think if you have a burning desire to express your ideas, there’s really not much holding you back. We all have cameras in our pockets and computers powerful enough to edit those images and a multitude of platforms exist that can exhibit the content to a wider audience. Life has become both easier and more difficult for artists in recent years. There are a huge number of avenues in which all artists can present their work and as aforementioned, the ability to produce work is substantially easier than it was for our predecessors. Unfortunately, there’s too much content that I think makes it difficult to stand out and good work can easily get lost in the shuffle.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
Currently, people can see my work on my website www.niconavia.com and follow me on my social media pages for updates on premieres and future festival runs.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.niconavia.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @naviadp
Image Credit:
Carlos Ariel Lopez @carlosariellopez / Charlie Murphy @still_charlie
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