Meet Enos Olik, director of Jaguar's 'Kioo'

                   Enos Olik during a video shoot    Photo: Courtesy

Few video directors have had a more varied and unpredictable career than Enos Olik.

He started out as a musician, then photographer until he discovered where his heart lay – music video production.

It was natural for him as he always had a taste for music.

The 25-year-old working under the Main Switch Entertainment label enjoys assembling different shots to create an off the wall music video.  

Jaguar’s latest video

Enos currently has two of his productions listed as video of the week in most of the television music shows, one titled Paid My Dues by Anto Neosoul and the flamboyant singer Jaguar’s latest video to the song Kioo.

Tracing his journey into music video production, Enos, a Commerce graduate from The University of Nairobi who also has a certificate in 3D animation, says his entry into the video production has been a gradual, starting with producing You Tube slide shows for artistes at no cost. “I started off as a professional photographer and took photos for artistes during stage performances and live studio recordings; photos of which I would edit and produce slide shows and give the artistes free of charge,” he recalls. Earning the trust of most of these artistes in the local entertainment scene was not an uphill task for Enos, as he was once a musician and a member of the Azizi music band.

Post-production stages

A few months into photography, his close friend Chris Adwar of the Villagers Band encouraged him to try his hand in music videos.  

 “It was Chris Adwar who offered me my first job as music video director. Soon after the success of my inaugural job, I knew I had found a new passion which would go well with my skills in 3D animation, graphics and video editing,” he said.

 Enos says music video production just like in film production, involves a lot of planning in both pre-production and post-production stages.

“The stages of producing the video involve listening to the song, probing the client ideas, location scouting and the budget estimations,” he explains.

He adds, “Most of the videos we do locally are shot within a day mainly due to limited budget by some of the artistes.  The clips later undergo post-production stages, which involve editing, colouring and mastering,”

Concepts from old school

In his third year in the music video production, Enos says he has produced nearly 40 music videos both locally and in Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda.

Enos further says that music video production requires originality, all the reason he prefers concepts from old school music videos.

He says his secret to producing quality music video has been: taking time to learn from the best, being open to criticism and being able to work with the entire production team as a single entity.

Enos commends the City Council for awarding music film producers fair licensing rates of about Sh2,600. With this he says one can shoot just about everywhere in the city.

His tools of trade include Red camera, Nikon 7Ds, Sony S3 and HMI and 2K lights.

Having worked in a few television productions, Enos says he is now venturing into advertising, film and documentary productions.