Director analysis - Shane Drake

Shane Drake is an American director who has directed more than 50 music videos and co-produced 3 films. He owns Red Van Pictures, a Los Angeles-based production company. He directs a mix of different genres of music videos, some of the artists he has worked with are:

- Avril Lavigne
- The Wanted
- Lawson
- Paramore
- Panic! At The Disco
- Dappy
- Fall Out Boy
- Gym Class Heroes
- Flo Rida
- Kelly Clarkson
These are all pretty different people to be working with but i would say he mostly directs indie/rock/alternative music videos.

Creativity is...

One example of defining creativity is... 'To create something, by taking inspiration from your surroundings, your past experiences, your friends and family and your emotions. Creative instincts and impulses play a large part in how creative and original you can be. Creativity is a means of outputting and representing yourself, especially if you find it difficult to communicate who you really are'.

We did an activity in the lesson where we had to write in no more than 50 words what creativity was. We then put all our definitions around the table and we all walked around the table to read the definitions. We then all sat down and disscused the definitions that everybody had wrote. We decided that we couldn't critisise anyones definitions because they were indivisually created.

Synaesthesia

Synaesthesia is the process of picturing sounds in the minds eye. This could also be known as 'thought beats' or 'seeing sounds in your head'. In our last lesson we got a big bit of paper and put it in the middle of the table and we all sat around the table with a felt tip. We played two different songs and on separate pieces of paper we drew to the beat of the music. The result of this was 2 big pieces of paper with lots of scribbles on it. However we could tell what the different genres of music were because of the way people drew. One of them was slower and has more emotion in it and one was more upbeat and had more jagged edges.

A. Goodwin's (1993) quote says that Synaesthesia is 'A clip that responds to the pleasures of music, and in which that music is made visual, either in new ways or in ways that accentuate existing visual associations'.

Steve Archer stated in the February 2004 edition of 'MediaMagazine' that with the process of Synaesthesia you need to start with the music. To begin, the lyrics don't need to be analysed word for word but the main lyrics that pop up in the chorus for example, create a sense of subject matter. So these key words and phrases will have a part to play in the kind of visuals associated with the song. The other thing he says is that if songs are stories, then the singer is the storyteller and this obviously makes music videos stand out , as they feature a first person mode of address rather than the invisible 'fourth wall' of television narration. He says that the music or arrangements of the song, including instrumentation, the mix and effects, including samples generally works with the lyrics and grain of voice. He gives an example of how instruments can create visual associations, the slow twang of the steel guitar could create geographically based visual associations from the deep south of the US - a desert plain, a small town,one road out or men chewing tobacco. He says that everyone shares some of the same visualisations of what the music fits too.

The visualisations can be created in the format of a music video by using camera, colour, editing and mise en scene. For example, when you have an up beat pop song you would expect to see bright colours, fast choppy editing, modern clothing and a range of camera shots.

Director analysis - Director X

Director X is a Canadian director and has been working in the music video industry for 15 years. He started his career by directing the music video 'Richter Scale' by EPMD and the most recent song he has directed is 'Twerk It' by Busta Rhymes. He has worked with some very famous acts including:

- Drake
- R. Kelly
- The Wanted
- Justin Bieber
- Nicki Minaj
- Sean Kingston
- David Guetta
- Ludacris
- Rihanna
- Usher
- Jay-Z
- Alicia Keys
His music videos are all of a similar genre of POP/R&B therefore the music videos are all similar in what conventions they have. They all include the actual artist and they are usually the main feature of the video and the main focus.

Director analysis - Emil Nava

Emil Nava is an ... director who works with lots of well known artists such as:
- Jessie J
- Rita Ora
- Ed Sheeran
- Paloma Faith
- Katy B
- Calvin Harris & Ellie Goulding
He is in the UK urban pop industry for music video directing. Since going into the music video industry, he has recently directed adverts as well such as the L'Oreal adverts with Cheryl Cole in them and the vitamin water one featuring Jessie J. He has had a great success with Jessie J and her video for Price Tag received over 180 million views on YouTube and was the #1 viewed video in the UK. Emil Nava also won best video for Jessie J 'Do It Like A Dude' at the 2011 Q Awards.

His music videos are all narrative based and they have an edgy, fast cutting style which grabs audience attention. They all have the key conventions for the genres that the music videos are and so they all work. They are all quite predictable videos and they are what you expect to see when you hear the music before. They are not unusual videos they are just high budget and very well directed.

Director analysis - David Fincher

David Fincher was born August 28th 1962. He is an American film director and music video director and is very well known for his music video work with artists such as:
- Madonna
- The Rolling Stones
- George Michael
- Michael Jackson
- Justin Timberlake
This is a very big range of different types of music artists and they all have different genres of music. All of the music videos he made for these artists (and many more) were all big budget videos. He is an extremely successful film maker and director as well as being a very successful music video director. The music videos got him well known and on the radar and he then  started to direct films as well.

A lot of his videos have performance in them and show the artist all the way through such as Justin Timberlakes 'Suit and Tie', Madonnas 'Vogue' and The Rolling Stones 'Love is Strong'. 'Suit and Tie' and 'Vogue' are both done in black and white even though 'Suit and Tie is very recent and could have been done in colour. These two videos are also very glamorous and you can tell there was a big budget for them. You would expect them to be very glamorous though because they are big well known artists. This is also the case for Michael Jacksons 'Who is it' and George Michaels 'Freedom'. From 1984-2013 he has been making music videos and you can see the similarities between all the videos and you can see David Finchers style of music video which is that they are very big budget and mostly very glamorous.





I do like his style of video but I think i prefer the more unusual ones that make you want to keep on watching and that make you really interested. I think he has got away with the general music video style because he has starred the well known musicians in the video and that's who he is working for. I think the Rolling Stones video for 'Love is Strong' is better and more interesting because it has an unusual concept. However i do still like the music videos for the other songs.

Textual analysis of Ed Sheeran - You Need Me, I Don't Need You

Introduction
- The genre for this music video is alternative hip hop
- The video is very simple and there is not a different setting

What is the relationship between lyrics and visuals?
- Throughout the whole video there are links between the lyrics and the visuals
- The boy that is the focus of the video is using sign language and acting out the lyrics
- There are also points like when he sings 'Vo5 wax for my ginger hair' where the boy runs his hands through his hair which shows what he's singing about
- When he sings 'I say the words that make you blush' the boy puts his hands to his cheeks and does a small smile to emphasise this lyric
- He then sings 'When a young fella filmed me' and a camera on a tripod comes into the picture so he starts to use props. He also does this with the 'brit school' lyric and the 'couch' lyric
- A bit further on he sings the lyrics 'Watch how I step on the track without a loop pedal' at which point you see Ed Sheeran's foot step on a loop pedal
- He sings 'I'm still a choir boy' and at this point a choir boy is shown on screen

What is the relationship between music and visuals?
- The beat and the visuals fit very well together as it is a very fast paced song all along and the shots are edited together closely so they make the video choppy and fast
- Towards the end they add in shots of Ed Sheeran playing the guitar to show it is him doing all the instrumental as well

Are there close ups of the artist and star image motifs?
- There is a few close ups of Ed Sheeran's hands playing the guitar and there is one long shot of him at the very end but he is in a dark light so you cannot see him properly
- In the middle of the video a very quick shot of the plus sign of his album that comes up

Is there reference to the notion of looking?
- You could say that when the dancers come in there is reference to the notion of looking
- There is one point when the male dancer is standing there with his shirt off and there are also shots of the female dancers body parts
- There is voyeurism used in this video but it's done subtly

Is the music video performance based, narrative based or concept based?
- This music video i would say is performance based because they guy doing the sign language is performing the song and i don't think there is any narrative in this video

Conclusion
- I really like this video because it is simple and done in one studio but it is so effective and interesting
- I like the fact that you only get a glimpse of Ed Sheeran because it gives that sense of enigma