WHEN Steve Maingi Mugo is on set, nothing is left to chance.
Every few minutes, he calls for a change of scene or gives new instructions. The crew, actors and dancers swiftly respond; after all, the director is perfection personified.
According to Mugo, every second of filming is high stakes. A tiny mistake could translate to unending repeat shots. But every second of filming is also an opportunity to showcase Africa.
“African directors are really doing a good job, and we have very beautiful colours in our videos, we have beautiful people in our videos. We are showing the natural African resources that we have, which some of the countries don’t have. so the African directors are able to show our culture in a very beautiful way.”
This dedication, focus, and strong work ethic has made the award-winning director a popular choice for top musicians in East Africa.
“Rich Mavoko, Whozu, Nyashinski, Khaligraph, King Kaka, Femi One, Kambua, Joyce Omondi, Moji Shortbaba, and so many others,” Mugo said, listing some of the region’s top artists.
Mugo’s path to becoming a video producer began in his teenage years in Kayole, Nairobi, where he saw music videos being shot in his neighbourhood. The final output on TV, so starkly different from the original filming he witnessed, always fascinated him.
“As I started this journey, I knew that one day, probably I would start working with big artists. Its been one of my dreams to give them good visuals because most of them are really talented, and I would love to give them visuals that would push their audio,” he said.
In 2019, Mugo received the award for Video Director of the Year at the 14th edition of Groove Awards, and in 2020, Pulse Music Video Awards for Video Director of the Year. This is besides the several nominations he has received.
The 28-year-old Mugo uses high-quality equipment to provide cinematic visuals and creative colour grading (the process of manipulating film and video images to create creative, consistent colour tones throughout a motion picture).
“What I work towards is integrity and also having different fill in all my production, so in terms of colour grading, in terms of how we approach videos. We have the idea even before we shoot the video, we have the treatment.”
His grading skills can be seen in the banger “Hapo tu” by Nyashinski featuring Chris Kaiga, which currently has over 15 million views on YouTube.
Mugo, who looks up to Nigeria’s Director K and Meji Alabi, adds that his extensive knowledge of different cameras, which he uses to “bring about different outcomes depending on lighting and landscapes,” has also given him an edge in music video production.
