The Creative Role of the Director

Task: Read the information below and add some of these quotes to your own posts. Which music video directors do you admire and why? Do you intend that their style should influence your own idea and if so how? Embed some of their videos to your post.

John Stewart of the music production company Oil Factory, suggests that increasingly music videos reflect the desire of a director to demonstrate their power. The work of Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze and Chris Cunningham (see me if you want to borrow any of these directors showreels) is perhaps the most striking example of authorial voice and demonstrates the potential of the medium to reach a mass audience with unusual and experimental work.

The famous music director Jonas Akerland commented that “Music videos aren’t meant to be more than eye candy, not supposed to live long, only supposed to be lifting up the musicand make the artist look good. Not supposed to be an art piece lasting for years.”

Jonathan Glazer the director for Radiohead’s ‘Street Spirit’ video (1996) said “Your images may be the thing that defines the sound… it’s a really strange 3 minute period where you have to hook the audience visually.”

Spike Jonze said in 2000 “I look at short videos as short films, I always make sure they have a beginning, middle and end”.

David Fincher who directed features such as Seven and Fight Club after his success in making music videos commented that “Video is truly abstract, you have complete carte blanche in terms of what it can show”.

So, as you can see the directors have very different views and approaches to making promos.