Music Video Directors

Michael Bay

Michael Bay attended Wesleyan University. After finishing university he spent the majority of his 20's working on advertisement and music video productions. After finishing film school he went into the music video business, he created music videos for the likes of Tina Turner, Lionel Ritchie and many more. His work was one of the best within the industry, he was awarded with a number of MTV award nominations. In 1995 he was awarded by the Directors of Guild of America as commercial director of the year award.

Hiro Muari

Hiro Muari is an incredibly talented director, he has a very high level background in illustration and visual effects. Within the videos he has created he adds very subtle tricks and motifs that forces the audiences eyes into every part of the screen. Muari made people within the music video industry that videos do not need to have excess special effects to create something visually engaging.

'DANIELS'

Daniels is the name given to the famous directing duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert. The two create music videos that use incredile body or work that combines both physical comedy, bizarre performances and immature charm!

Andrew Goodwin Theory and Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory

Andrew Goodwin

Andrew Goodwin was the creator of the Theory of Music Videos. Goodwin claimed that there are five main aspects of a music video that viewers focus on whilst watching them. These are essentially the main areas that music producers focus on when creating a music video as it will increase the chance of the music video being popular. The areas that the producer will focus on are;

• Technical aspects of the music video
• Relationship of visuals to the song
• Star Image
• Narrative and Performance
• Thought beats - seeing the sound/beat in your mind

Technical Aspects hold the music video together (these include camera angles, shots, movement, mise-en-scene, editing, sound and special effects)

The use of camera covers a lot of areas within the music video, this includes the speed at which the camera moves, the way in which the camera moves (camera movement) editing, cutting and also post production are all forms of camera use.

The mise-en-scene is the setting, this is key to producing a good music video. Having a music video that is created with huge amounts of editing and looks entirely fake is going to put the viewer off watching or listening to more of the artists music. Videos need to look realistic this is why mise-en-scene is so important within creating a music video.

Laura Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory

Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory is about the visual pleasure and narrative cinema. The theory was created in 1975 and then went on to become a very famous theory within the music video industry. The male gaze theory is essentially when the audience is put into perspective of a hetrosexual man. For example a scene within a music video may focus on the curves of a womans body, putting the audience in perspective of the mans view. The male gaze theory is only put into place if the correct conventions are used such as deliberate camera movements, cuts away and slow motion. The theory that Laura Mulvey created suggests that women are objects to admire for their physical appearance.

http://www.slideshare.net/guestc6d43a4a/andrew-goodwins-theory

Generic Conventions Of A Music Video

What Are The Generic Conventions Of A Music Video?

Music is split into different different kinds of genres. A music genre is defined as a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Here below is a list of music genres

• POP 
• Dance 
• R & B 
• Hip Hop/Rap 
• Rock 
• Punk 
• Country 
• Folk 
• Jazz 
• Electric 

and many more...

Characters

Characters within music videos are often a good indicator as to what type of genre the music is. Within pop songs the characters are often happy, doing stupid immature stuff that links to the lyrics of the song. Your stereotypical Rock video will see a crowd at a concert acting crazy and going wild.

Lighting

Lighting in the music videos is another great way of drawing the viewers in. The lighting will either be low, high or natural. Each of these types of lighting will create a different atmosphere/environment within the video. For example a natural light may be used within a video where the artists are in a natural environment such as a beach or the city. A type of music video where there would be low lighting is a rock band or heavy metal group performing at a concert for instance.

Camera

Camera shots within a music video usually jump a lot from shot to shot, to make it have more of an impact on the viewer the camera shots normally range from long shot, close ups and extreme close ups. An example of when these types of shots are used are when the artist or band is shown on screen a close up is usually used. An example of when an extreme close up is used is when someone within the video is lip synching the lyrics. Different camera movements are also used within music videos, from fast track shots to overhead shots to follow the performers or artist whilst they are dancing or moving around.

Editing

Editing is seen as both an artistic and technical process. The artistic part of creating a music video is the selection of what parts of the music video are going to be kept as well as how they are going to fit together. The technical aspect of creating a music video is the editing and copying all of the clips into one single video tape. 

There are two main types of video editing that can be used when creating a music video. These are 'Linear Editing' and 'Non-Linear Editing'. Linear editing is when the producer creates a video in one cut at a time or a series of clips put together to create the final product.