Video Chats: Kyle Padilla on 'Like Home' Nicky Romero Feat. NERVO

"Like Home" by Nicky Romero and NERVO is Kyle Padilla's first video as a solo director, and an ambitious one. It includes motorcycle stunts, an artist's first attempt at music video lip syncing, and, of course, directing an actor acting as a director. We talked to Kyle about writing personal stories about people you don't know, the logistics of shooting a production within a production, and being mentored by Ace Norton.

Doug: What was the process like coming up with the concept of this video?

Kyle: Well, I’ve worked closely with a lot of DJs and I’ve always been amazed by the pace of their lifestyles. Even though on the surface they appear to be living the dream, traveling and partying, the truth is that they do oftentimes miss home and their loved ones, which is what this video is about. It’s about the hectic lives of three touring, superstar DJs (Nicky, Mim, and Liv) who cope with being away from their significant others by finding solace in the presence of their fans. Another thing that influenced the process was that there was never a time where Nicky and Nervo could be scheduled to shoot on the same day, so I had to come up with something where they could have significant roles despite their restrictions with availability.

Doug: Did some of the stuff that plays out within those relationships come first hand from the artist? Did they tell you how they interact with their loved ones in those ways, or did you just make assumptions and write that into the treatment yourself?

Kyle: It’s funny, back when I was writing the treatment, I actually didn’t know Mim and Liv (NERVO) as well as I do now so I hit up my friend Ariel, who was friends with NERVO, and asked her a bunch of questions about the girls. Since I was writing about their personal lives in a way, I wanted to know as much about them as possible. Once they read the treatment, they loved it and said that it was like I somehow “knew everything about them.” I guess I should say "thanks Ariel!" From there, the girls both had a few changes they wanted to implement. Mim and Liv are great to work with because they are very hands-on with their careers and always have cool ideas. Nicky was easy, he just wanted to look like a stud, which is how I wrote for him anyways. I didn’t know this when I wrote the treatment, but on set he was telling me how he has a motorcycle license and owns two of the fastest bikes in the Netherlands. We had a stuntman, but Nicky insisted on doing his own stunts, so that is really him you see on the bike.

Doug: And you’ve worked with NERVO in the past. You’ve co-directed another video for them. Do you think that previous relationship had an influence on this video, you either getting to work on it or just how the relationship works?

Kyle: Yeah, definitely. I established a good relationship with NERVO on “Reason” so they offered me this video. I had to write a treatment obviously, but they were really rooting for me to win the job, which was commissioned by Nicky Romero’s label. Once I was granted the video, it became evident that my prior collaboration with them was key because I had really gained their trust. This video involved a lot of aspects such as lip-syncing and just all these different elements that NERVO had never done in a video before so they were really nervous but excited to try. When it came time to shoot it, the girls were super attentive, their eyes never left mine and they took in everything I was telling them. Once they saw that they looked awesome on the monitors they were really excited, as was their management. It was a really fun day and a huge relief! By the end they were super happy and kept requesting that that I add in more shots of them singing and doing all of the things that they were initially freaked out to even try. They loved it. I’m going to keep working with them and will hopefully do a couple of projects with them soon down the line.

Doug: What’s the process like when you have a music video within a music video? Are you essentially filming your own equipment and using it on set? Or do you have "stage make up" and "stage cameras" that aren’t really used for any technical purposes?

Kyle: On a video without a huge budget like this one, we ended up just using a lot of the actual crew. For the shots we just had everybody jump off of whatever they were working on and be in the shots. The same thing goes with the equipment. We rented a camera - the extra little film camera that you see in the video - but most the equipment and everything and the locations was just stuff that we were using to shoot the actual video and we’d just flip the camera around on what we were actually doing. We did cast a couple of characters; the fake director was cast.

Doug: What was your goal when casting a fake director? Was it based on anyone or anything? Or was it like some form of a director that you think the general public envisions? And what's it like directing a fake director?

Kyle: Well, he wasn’t based on me as much as much as I would have liked to have based him on me, but I’m not that eccentric of a guy on set. People always ask me why I didn’t just do a cameo, but this was my first video as a solo director so I wanted to just stay focused. I really wanted to cast somebody who could be this sort of like a very cliché, eccentric, over the top, takes himself really seriously director. He was a mutual friend whose photo I saw on Facebook and he was wearing that exact outfit and I asked my friend to give me his contact and said, "Dude you have to wear that exact outfit." I worked with him on set and just prepped him, but he was a natural. He’s a DJ, too, so he kind of understood what we were going for. I actually almost used Trevor aka DJ Skeet Skeet as the director character at one point, but we used him as Mim’s boyfriend instead.

Doug: You said you were looking for a director that would be over the top. Now, you’ve worked under a lot of very established directors. Ace Norton is your mentor, but you’ve also interned for Dave Myers and Chris Milk. Was there any influence from them in that character?

Kyle: I don’t think so. None of those guys are really too over the top, they are all actually pretty humble and down to earth. I think Ace probably influenced the character the most. Just his whole persona is really just what I think of when I think of a director, but that might just be me since I came up working for him.

Doug: Is there anything that you’ve taken kind of from learning from Ace that you would say that you apply directly to this video?

Kyle: Man that’s a tough one. It’s a tough one because I’ve learnt so much from Ace. A lot of what I’ve learned from Ace has influenced my whole style as a filmmaker not only creatively but also because working with Ace I did a lot of producing. Through that I just learned the ropes of producing and I now sort hold my own producers to a high standard. I know that a lot of it on a low budget video just comes down to how much you want to hustle. I actually used two first time producers on this video. CJ is my buddy from high school, and David was referred by a mutual friend. Both guys are hustlers and they did a great job. I could really relate to a lot of what they were going through as first time producers because I could recall my first time producing. I was a sophomore at USC producing my first video for Steve Aoki, directed by Ace Norton, and it was like it was just sort of trial by fire and it was definitely the same for CJ and David. Sort of how Ace was there to help me with my first producer gig, I was there to help them when they needed it. So, to answer the question, I guess my time with Ace really taught me a lot about just how to get a music video done by using what is available to you, although I don’t want to marginalize what Ace has taught me. He really gave me the credibility and momentum that I needed to go after artists like NERVO and Nicky Romero.