Music Video Directors

A music video director is driven by a given music track.
I have research some different video directors from different countries to see what they have come up with and to see why. - The source of this information was http://wapedia.mobi/en/Music_video_director.

• Chris Cunningham – English
• Hype Williams – American
• Michel Gondry – French

Chris Cunningham

Chris is an English music video and film director and video artist. He has close ties with Wrap Records since his first production of the music video for Autechre. His best known videos are ‘Come to Daddy’ and ‘Windowlicker’ for the Alpex Twins. His video for Björk's "All Is Full of Love" won multiple awards, including an MTV music video award for breakthrough video and was nominated for a Grammy (an award presented yearly for outstanding acheivments in the music industry) for Best Short Form Music Video. It was also the first ever music video to win a Gold Pencil at the D&AD Awards. It can still be seen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His video for Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" was nominated for the "Best Video" award at the Brit Awards 2000. He also directed Madonna's "Frozen" video.

Chris Cunninghams’s best known video ‘Windowlicker’

Hype Williams

Harold 'Hype' Williams is an American music video and film director of African-American descent. Williams first displayed his work by tagging local billboards, storefronts, and playgrounds using HYPE as his graffiti tag. Williams is notable for creating a number of music videos for hip hop and R&B artists such as  Missy Elliott "The Rain [Supa Dupa Fly]" and also worked with non-hip hop artists such as Coldplay "Viva La Vida".
In 1998, he directed his first feature film, Belly.
Awards Williams has received for his video work include the Billboard Music Video Award for Best Director of the Year (1996), the Jackson Limo Award for Best Rap Video of the Year (1996) for Busta Rhymes' "Woo Hah," the NAACP Image Award (1997), the 8th annual MVPA Award for Black Music Achievement (1997), MTV Video Music Award in the Best Rap Video (1998) category for Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It," MTV Video Music Award for Best Group Video (1999) for TLC's "No Scrubs", and the BET Award for Best Director (2006) for Kanye West's “Gold Digger”.

Will Smith's 'Gettin' Jiggy Wit It'



This was one of his earlier works, it doesn't incorporate many effects but shows off the artists dancing skills and also backup dancers. It has abstract backgrounds and colourful clothing, he switches between scenes of artist singing and a group dance.

And more recently:

Kayne West's 'Gold Digger'



This one is more typical of his work he uses a cinematic long screen and he also often puts different shot in the gaps above and below the main video. In this he makes it look like a magazine shoot for the girls with an effect, this time though he uses simplistic backgrounds with just one main colour.
He also alternates between the artist miming and random shots of women.

Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry is a French film, commercial and music video director and an Academy Award-winning screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise en scène.

His career began with creating music videos for the French band Oui Oui, in which he also served as a drummer. The style of his videos for Oui Oui caught the attention of music artist Bjork, who asked him to direct the video for her song "Human Behaviour". The collaboration lasted, with Gondry directing seven music videos for Björk.

Gondry has collaborated with Daft Punk, The White Stripes, The Chemical Brothers, The Vines, Steriogram, Radiohead, and Beck.

An Old example of his work:

Gary Jules's 'Mad World'

 


This is very simplistic, with the effectiveness of just one shot and scene and fits the slow and relaxing tone of the song.
It is also very unusual, by using children to create shapes, its abstract and artistic.

A more recent example:

Björk - Declare Independence



This is similar to the above music video in that there is not much invoved in the music video and it is fairly sinple and abstract in the way that the same scene has been used for the video and also the 'system' shown is connected together.