Omar Jones: Chasing the dream

How does it feel to be nominated by Danielle Hinde? 

It’s surreal. Danielle Hinde has been part of music videos that really shaped my taste, especially the work she did with Hiro Murai. That was the era where I started seeing music videos as more than just performance pieces. Never Catch Me is still one of my favourites, and This Is America is obviously all-time. 

So to be recognised by her means a lot. I’m grateful for it, but I’m also still very much in the middle of building. My background in editing, VFX and post has always shaped how I direct, so it’s cool that she saw that in the work. I’ve never really seen those things as separate lanes. They all feed the same instinct for me. 

Who or what has most influenced your career? Did you have any mentors? 

I never had a traditional mentor, but Shomi Patwary was the first person to really take me under his wing. He was making some of my favourite videos at the time and helping shape the visual language around artists in New York, especially A$AP Rocky and A$AP Ferg. I tracked him down and ended up working with him as an editor for a few years. 

He became the closest thing I had to a mentor early on. He put me onto a lot of his favourite videos from the ’90s and helped me understand how much your taste outside of work can shape the work itself. 

I’m still inspired by directors like Spike Jonze, Khalil Joseph, Mark Romanek, Hype Williams, Michel Gondry, Jonathan Glazer, and Chris Cunningham. Their work felt like a real marriage between the artist’s world, the song, and the director’s point of view. That’s always been important to me. The director should bring something strong to it, but it still has to feel connected to the artist and the culture around them. 

How much did your upbringing and early life shape your instincts as a creative? 

A lot. Moving from Queens to the Poconos taught me how to make my own motion. It was a complete 180 from New York. There wasn’t much of a scene, so I got into filming, snowboarding and making things with whatever was around. That probably shaped my instincts more than anything: figure it out, make it work, keep moving. 

 The Poconos wasn’t a creative hub, but that probably helped me. There wasn’t a real scene to join, so we had to make our own. I got a camera and started making music videos with people around me, while also doing random jobs and assistant editing on documentary projects. I was pretty all over the place, but it taught me how to adapt and make something out of whatever was available.   

I didn’t come in through one clean lane. I was editing, learning post, learning VFX, directing out of necessity, and building ideas with whatever resources I had. So, even now, I don’t really separate editing, VFX, directing and production in my head. It all feels like one process. 

What was a project from early on in your career that felt like a turning point? 

The real turning point was the run from the early $NOT videos into working with [record label executive] Moosa Tiffith at Top Dawg Entertainment. Some of the first videos I did that made any kind of splash were with Jake Markow and his artist $NOT. Then I met Moosa, who was president of TDE, and he trusted me with a lot of videos while I was still figuring out exactly who I was as a director. 

That was the first time I had real structure around me without losing room to experiment.

That was the first time I had real structure around me without losing room to experiment. Before that, I was really just making things project by project. That period stopped me from chasing everything and pushed me toward building an actual body of work. 

It gave me pressure, trust and room to sharpen my voice. I’m still grateful to work with them now, and I think it matters to lock in with people who are willing to go the distance. 

What’s your favourite piece from your body of work? 

If I had to pick one right now, it’s probably the KidSuper film with Vincent Cassel. Vincent understood the tone immediately, and the piece felt like more than runway content. It became part of what the show was saying. 

We were still finishing the cut minutes before it screened, so the whole thing felt kind of insane, but also kind of magic. 

AMIRA is the one that feels closest to where I want to go. It’s a micro short and a proof of concept for something longer, and it pulls together the mix of live-action, animation, VFX and storytelling that feels most natural to me. 

Other pieces I’m proud of: Ab-Soul - Do Better, Pusha T - Diet Coke, Jay Rock - Eastside, Doechii - Alter Ego with JT, and ScHoolboy Q - THank God 4 Me.

Directing, editing or VFX: which one gives you the most satisfaction? 

Probably directing, but only because it lets me use everything else. I direct to edit, and my VFX background changes how I imagine a frame before we even shoot it. Even when I’m not doing every part myself, I’m thinking about the whole chain. 

Editing is probably the hardest part of my process, but also one of the most rewarding. Especially with music videos, it’s mostly a feeling thing. If it doesn’t hit, I’ll start over. A bad cut can throw off the whole flow. 

With VFX, I don’t only think of it as CG or big effects. I think of it more as another way to bend the idea visually. Even when I’m not doing the VFX myself, having that background helps me ask what else something could become, how it could move differently, or how far I can push it without losing the feeling. 

I also like finding tools early, before they’re polished or obvious. Sometimes that’s where the fun stuff comes from. You try something strange, it breaks in an interesting way, and then that accident becomes part of the idea 

You try something strange, it breaks in an interesting way, and then that accident becomes part of the idea.

What do you think the industry is getting right and wrong at the moment? 

With music, I don’t really expect the machine to care about much beyond what makes money. What’s more interesting is that artists don’t need to wait for the machine the same way anymore. The audience is already there. 

The artist is the network now. If you already have the audience, the music, the mythology, taste and the fanbase, you don’t have to wait for some old system to tell you what the next format is. You can build your own: short films, micro shows, characters, games, weird recurring formats, all of that. Not just promo. Actual programming. 

I think the industry is good at making fragments right now: clips, teasers, vertical edits, BTS, rollout pieces, lyric videos, Instagram accounts. But fragments don’t automatically add up to a world. That’s the part people still miss. 

What the industry gets wrong is how fast it judges everything and how little it reinvests back into the art. Some work takes time to hit. Some things don’t reveal their value the day they drop. But the industry can be impatient and political, and sometimes it feels more interested in creating another list, award or institution than actually backing new voices.