Music Video Directors

Music Video Directors

Brief: This is an analysis of music video directors and their signature style found frequently in their works. This was done to develop an understanding of what previous directors have done, allowing me to reflect upon their works and decide the direction I wish to take.

Similarly to feature films, music video's employ directors to portray their own interpretation of what the visuals for the artist's song could look like. Different music video directors have different styles that are reoccurring in the videos they work with. Since I have acquired the role of lead director of our group music video, I have looked into the creative direction of other known directors have taken and how their styles differ.

Daniels

The Daniels are a directing duo made up of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.

• Directed for - Tenacious D, Foster The People, Passion Pit
• Style - The Daniels take their music videos in a comedic direction, using the visuals to create an abstract story/concept filled with slapstick humour.
• Positives - The amusing visuals are entertaining to the audience, allowing them to watch the entirety of the video without getting bored.
• Negatives - Over-abundance of humour can lead the visuals away from the songs underlying message.

Romain Gavras

• Directed for - Jay Z & Kanye West, DJ Medhi, M.I.A
• Style - Gavras uses dark themes of realism in his videos. Gritty, low saturation, long shots - but with a lot of energy, his style portrays a more violent and pessimistic mood.
• Positives - His style is beneficial when the themes of the song are less pleasant and the artists wants to portray them in a negative or realistic light
• Negatives - The dark tone of his videos can take away enjoyment from some audience members as they do not provide them with the escape from realism some seek with music videos.

Tom Scharpling

• Directed for - Real Estate, Monster Magnet, Aimee Mann
• Style - Scharpling, Spin Magazine's Music Video Director of the Year 2012, focuses much more on portraying the tone of a music video through the media language, rather than simply illustrating the lyrics of the video. To do this he displays abstract narratives that don't fully make sense but express a concept/mood. He also incorporates comical elements to his music videos, similarly to The Daniels.
• Positives - The fact that he doesn't simply visualise the lyrics gives the song another perspective for the audience, giving them a reason to watch the artist's music video as well as just use it as a means to listen to the song.
• Negatives - This style might confuse a number of audience members as the videos are not just basic illustration videos.

I have decided then when directing our group music video - I will be more influenced and draw ideas and inspiration from Scharpling as I find his style to be a lot more creative and thought provoking than that of other directors.