4music

4music is a music and entertainment channel based in the United Kingdom as part of the Box Television group that are also in charge of Kerrang and other channels like E4, Channel 4, film 4 and magic etc. As well as playing a huge variety of music videos, 4music is also used in the same way as MTV to show scripted television programmes aimed at young adults and teens such as 'Balls of steel', 'keeping up with the Kardashians' and '8 out of 10 cats' etc. 4music mainly plays popular music genres like pop, dance, hip-hop and rnb but they mainly play the charts daily which consists of charts like 'your official top 20' and 'UK hot 40' along with many others. You would usually see artists such as Rihanna, Drake, Beyonce, Carly rae Jepsen, Ed sheeran and many other famous popular artists on 4music.

Kerrang!

Kerrang is a digital television show dedicated to music videos of the many different rock genres around but this was only since 2005 that the whole channel was used for this one purpose only. The channels playlist is mainly for the genre of nu metal and pop/ punk rock though as well as playing all types of rock daily too, although many of Eminem's videos are also usually played on Kerrang, maybe to show off some diversity from just one genre. The bands that are usually featured on Kerrang are Green day, Panic at the disco, you me at six and Blink 182.

VH1

VH1 is another music video channel, obviously dedicated to music videos much like MTV but they would be similar VH1 is a sister channel of MTV. VH1 stands for Video Hits 1, they started off playing the adult top 40s which included artists and bands like Ace of Base, Sheryl Crow, Seal and many more, but artists like Elton John, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston etc had a heavy playlist too.

But since 2004 VH1's playlist has become more diverse as they taken a turn to hip-hop and rock genres and they have released further channels to different genres too for example soul, classical and country etc.

MTV (Music Television)

MTV that stands for Music Television is the most famous and worldwide known music video channel and its based in New York since the 1980s, to be precise August 1st 1981. As well as playing music videos almost non-stop they do show scripted tv shows aimed at young adults and teens for example 'Geordie shore' and 'The valleys' etc.

The first actual images on MTV were a montage of the Apollo 11 moon landing, but aside from that most of MTV's music videos are based on a single genre that being popular music, but since its launch it has gained huge success all over the world they have dedicated more MTV channels to different types of genres such as bass, dance, rock, classics and the main channel is used for top 40 chart hits.

Music video channels

Music videos have been a huge part of music since the 1980s, although at the time they were used as an experiment for popular songs and since they caught on with the public audience on channels like MTV and VH1, they are now used in almost all songs in almost all genres of music nowadays.

Back in the 1980s, music videos were more or less all the same, they consisted of sparkly backgrounds, funky costumes, strange dancing and disgraceful lip syncing. There are main music video channels that started out back in 1980s like MTV and VH1 and later on came channels like Kerrang for many different rock genres and 4Music for mainly pop and dance genres.

Alternative music

Alternative music is actually a mixture of Britpop and Grunge and used to be a sub-genre of rock but now has become so big it is it's own genre. Some alternative music can be considered as partially electronic, although the vast majority of alternative music is considered as Indie. Most alternative music videos are based on live performances or showcasing of the bands or artists, but you do get some with narrative based themes ( which are usually random, only occasionally you get a narrative based Alternative music video that perfectly reflects the lyrics or has anything at all to do with the song itself). There are many famous indie bands and artists around at the moment including Owl City, Bloc Party, Interpol, Alt-j, Foster the people etc.

Rock music

Rock music is a type of music that originated from 'rock and roll' in the 1950s and is part of the 'popular music' genre. Rock is mainly based around instruments like the electric guitar, bass guitar and drums. Rock music over the years has divided itself into many different sub-genres with some sub-genres becoming extremely diverse and difficult, meaning musical characteristics in songs cannot be identified as easily as they used to be and also the structure of some songs are really very different now.

The main sub-genres of Rock music is Heavy metal, Pop rock, Punk rock and many more. Most rock music videos are live performance based showing the bands at their live concerts because the atmosphere at them are usually amazing and that is perfect for a video.
The main rock bands now and in the past are Coldplay, Foo fighters, Blink 182, Guns n roses, Radiohead, Kasabian and many more.

Contemporary Rnb music

Contemporary Rnb is short for 'Rhythm and blues' which still exists but it has developed further into contemporary Rnb which is now known worldwide in songs and artists. These songs tend to have drums in it as a huge part along with saxophone sometimes to create a jazzy/ blues effect which also in turn emphasizes the lush style of vocals, which usually has a lot of fast note changes and vibrato to create the scene of the song. Music videos associated with contemporary Rnb are narrative based, as the songs are mostly about subjects like love and sex, meaning that the images shown on the video can't really be showcased (in a way with dancers but the artists can be showcased just singing) or spectacle, so the images reflect the lyrics in a story.

There are many Rnb artists around at the moment but the most famous and most commercially successful in the Rnb genre are artists such as Usher, Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey, Chris Brown, Ne-yo and Rihanna, who is also considered as a huge pop star too even though most modern Rnb music makes it into the 'popular' charts nowadays anyway.

Hip-hop music

Hip-hop is extremely famous all around the world in which its divided up into many similar but slightly different sub-genres like Grime, and many different types of Rap like Gangsta, Ghetto, Rap-rock etc.
Most hip-hop videos tend to showcase the artists with loads of attractive women standing around or dancing, although in some videos you get a storyline which reflects the lyrics or some show the rappers dancing or showing off the freestyle skills.

Famous hip-hop artists include Jay-Z, Dr dre, Eminem, Devlin, Skepta, Wretch 32, Tinchy Stryder, Drake, Kanye West, Chipmunk, 50 Cent and many more, the ones that i just mentioned are well known worldwide although there are many others that are very well known but in certain areas.

Dance Music

Dance music is very popular all around the world, especially the sub-genres like Dubstep and Drum n bass. Although not all countries know dubstep it is extremely popular in England especially London, the same applies to drum n bass, whereas other sub-genres like trance can be found in many clubs all around the world, in particular those in Amsterdam.
There are a number of famous Dubstep artists around like Gemini, Nero, Modestep, Doctor P, Skrillex, Flux Pavilion and many more, but the most mainstream Dubstep song at the moment is 'bangarang' by Skrillex. Dubstep is a form of experimental music although it has a strong beat to it and doesn't really change much apart from when the beat kicks in. There are however not a lot of Dubstep related music videos, but in the ones that do exist there's a narrative theme or just dancing shown, but strangely enough Dubstep artists don't really like to be shown in videos.

Again there's a vast range of famous Drum n bass artists too like Netsky, sub focus, Chase and status, Deadmau5 etc. Drum n bass is a song which has a fast drum beat and a heavy bassline, so more or less Dubstep without the drop and Dubstep sounds.

Pop music

Pop music is short for popular music of a specific time period, which originated in the 1950s from Rock and roll. The songs usually involved with this genre are very basic and consists of just verses and choruses with a standard bridge in the middle to liven things up. These songs are also usually put together by well known instruments like guitars, drums, keyboards etc unlike in other genres where artists like to experiment, Although most pop songs are starting to have more techno based sounds thereby using koass pads and synthesizers to create these specific sounds. Most pop music videos tend to have a bit of narrative but are mainly spectacles or showcases with a dancing element involved with many close ups and cuts.

At the moment there are a lot of famous pop artists around that are known worldwide like Rihanna, Justin bieber, Adele, Bruno Mars and many more, but the all time king of pop is the late Michael Jackson.

But at the time being, the most popular pop song is 'Gangnam style' by Psy which is number one in 14 countries and has reached over 340 million views on youtube which is absolutely incredible!

Genres of music

There's a massive range of main music genres and styles all over the world which then divide into hundreds of smaller divisions of sub-genres. The main and most popular genres of the modern day are:

• Pop (popular), 
• Dance,
• Hip-hop,
• Contemporary Rnb,
• Rock,
• Alternative and many more but less well known e.g Dubstep, Heavy Metal, Electronic etc

In the next couple of blogs I will be looking at the different genres in detail with examples of music videos and artists of the genre.

Richard Ayoade

Richard Ayoade is an English music video director who has starred in the channel 4 comedy I.T crowd so he strong acting career as well as a directing career. He uses both narrative and performance based styles in his videos, in which he tends to keep the camera still in one place for most videos meaning those are live performance based.

He has directed videos for bands not so well known like Super furry animals, The last shadow puppets, Yeah yeah yeahs. Although he has directed 'Florescent adolescence' by Artic Monkeys.

This is a very strange narrative based music video from Richard Ayoade, consisting of a clown and a normal man in a suit who grew up together but in the video end up fighting over some dispute and it ends in the clown blowing up his friend, which is in fact quite disturbing. It is a great video though as the images match the song but the lyrics don't match perfectly but do reflect the images.

Collin tilley

Collin Tilley is an American music video director, who likes to showcase the artists that he works with a lot and he has done just that in many of his music videos along with stunning backgrounds. He usually puts the artists in stunning places like a beach, or a desert or something animated to make the videos look amazing and allow the artists to stick out of the video, being the centre of attention. In some videos he also has a narrative effect maybe in the beginning, middle, end or throughout the whole video whilst fully showcasing the artist. He has worked with Chipmunk, Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, Tyga, 50 Cent, Chris Brown, JLS, Katy B, Labrinth, Jason Derulo, Tinie Tempah etc

This is a stunning video by Collin Tilley called 'last time' by Labrinth, which showcases him whilst having a narrative based effect throughout the entire video. The video uses a lot of special effects and it's even more special as apparently the video is based on a childhood dream that Labrinth had.

This is another great music video by Collin called 'Champion' by Chipmunk. The setting is almost perfect for the song choice as both Chipmunk and Chris Brown feature in a showcase based video in the dessert.

Ray Kay

Ray Kay is a Norwegian music video director, who has a very imaginative mind in terms of creating videos. His videos create his own fantasy land by using a green screen and this enables the audience watching to see a place they have never seen before and this draws them in.

He has worked with Tinchy Stryder, Cheryl Cole, Justin Bieber, Jessie J, LMFAO etc

This is 'Domino' by Jessie J, which is a great example of Ray Kay's work, as Ray likes to create imaginative backgrounds and scenes in his videos and in this particular one there are many great artistic and animated backgrounds whilst showcasing Jessie J in various outfits and costumes. This is a really good music video as the central attention is on Jessie J, which is the intention.

Again this is a very clever music video from Ray Kay called 'Fight for this love' by Cheryl Cole. Its a great video because it's very well worked out with the scenery and background, Cheryl herself is placed in central attention in a sexy soldier costume (as the main costume which reflects the lyrics and title of song 'fight for this love') with other dancers too. So not only is this video a showcase video but a spectacle too as it shows off Cheryl's fantastic dance moves. Also the background is very impressive as it has Cheryl's name written out in big behind her as she sings along with the main lyrics in a really cool format of writing.

Jake Nava

Jake Nava is an English music video director from Hackney, a place where many English people in the music industry come from. He tends to use a narrative based style for his music videos, in which he sets them in quite a dark scene. In most of his Rnb videos he takes sexy shots of the artists to start off. He also created an dance for Beyonce and two fellow dancers to do in her video 'single ladies( put a video on it)' which is now iconic and also extremely sexy. Especially in this video but others too he has voyeuristic treatment of the female body, but this view is changed in 'girls just want to have fun' by Cyndi Lauper as it shows that girls can be fun without being referred to as sexual objects.

He has worked with Beyonce, Usher, Leona Lewis, Kanye West, Pink, Shakira etc.
But he has directed some world famous songs too such as 'Milkshake' by Kelis, 'Run' by Snow Patrol and 'Someone like you' by Adele etc.

Jospeh Kahn

Joseph Kahn is an American music video director who actually begun his career by shooting skateboard videos of his mates whilst having many jobs at the same time to fund the projects.

Unlike most directors, Joseph is not assigned to just one genre although he has done a lot of work in the pop genre as appose to others.

He has directed some extremely successful songs such as 'Hero' by Enrique Inglesias, 'Knights of Cydonia' by Muse, 'Love game' by Lady Gaga, in which I found something quite funny in the video as there's a close up on Lady gaga's heels of the brand Channel which means she is advertising them for popularity which is all she is really about and that's why she wears loads of weird costumes just to be a centre of attraction.

This is a very impressive and emotional showcase/narrative based video, called 'hero' by Enrique Inglesias. Its about a man who promises to stand by his woman at all times no matter what happens and in the case of the video a mafia type gang beats him up and he still returns to his newly wedded wife to sing his final words.

This is 'knights of cydonia' by Muse, which is a very impressive narrative based music video by Joseph Kahn, although it is quite strange as it's about people in cowboy times, but there are futuristic props e.g holograms of moving images and cds. There are a lot of fades and overlaps throughout the video as well because there's a lot happening in the video.

Chris Applebaum

Chris Applebaum started off as one of the youngest music video directors, being offered a job in Mtv's production team when he was 19 but he rejected that and signed for Satellite films age 21. His name is becoming increasing famous in the music industry after working with  world famous mainstream star Rihanna on her hit single 'umbrella', he has now composed over 100 music videos.

He has worked with artists like Rihanna, Plan B, Mariah Carey, Pussycat Dolls, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Natasha Bedingfield. But apart from 'umbrella', the most famous song he has directed is 'Stacy's mum' by Fountains of Wayne.

On the right is a great example of Chris' work, of 'she said' by Plan B. Its a narrative based music video in which he tells the story of how he was accused of a crime that he didn't do simply because the girl didn't understand what love actually is and was a bit crazy. The video is very well worked though, with a lot of mid shots and angle looking up at him at the end which gives him power as he wins the court case, there are also minor things in the video which are quite impressive, for example the clicking and the tapping of pens to the beat of the song itself. In my opinion this is a fantastically worked video by Chris Applebaum. In 'umbrella' by Rihanna, he uses lots of special effects such as water, silver paint etc and props such as an unbrella to represent the song, but the main attraction is all of Rihanna's sexy outfits making her a sexual appeal to the audience, and this works in her favour greatly as its a showcase type of video.

Here is 'stacy's mum' by Fountain of Wayne which is a really famous song, and Chris has done a narrative/showcase type video. In which the mum is portrayed as better looking than the daughter and that's why the boy spends so much time at their house. The mum is shown in many different sexy scenes which catches male attention in audiences who watch the video e.g the massage, when she comes out of the pool, or when she dances on the table in a real sexy outfit.

Shane Drake

Shane Drake is another American music video director, who uses a narrative based style in his videos, although his work and himself are not too well known in the more famous side of the music industry although he has worked with a number of mainstream rock genre bands e.g Panic at the disco, Paramore, Fall out boy and The red jumpsuit apparatus etc. 

This is 'beat it' by Michael Jackson, one of the few pop genre music videos that Shane Drake has directed, although its a well choreographed showcase type video.

On the right is one of my favourite songs, 'I write sins not tragedies' by Panic at the disco. It has a great gothic wedding theme to it as it is narrative based and the faces of the wedding witnesses are painted on which emphasises the rock genre of the song, which could be referred to as Kiss' painted faces when they performed.

Another great showcase type video below is 'crushcrushcrush' by Paramore. The setting of this video is brilliant in the middle of a dessert which makes Paramore the main focus, although there are a lot of close ups of instruments, equipment, amps and members of the band.

Anthony Mandler

Anthony Mandler is an American music video director, who is known for using his photography skills to create emotion and tension in his videos, he uses a narrative based form for his videos but the stories within the videos are told in unclear manners which makes them feel incomplete and unclear.

He has worked with huge mainstream artists like 50 cent, Eminem, Rihanna, The killers, Fergie, Akon etc

This is 'away' by Enrique Inglesias ft Sean Garrett, a perfect example of a narrative based video with a slightly unclear ending but this is only because Enrique and Sean are in the same location singing whilst being in the accident too, which some viewers have claimed to be confusing.



On the left is 'boss' life' by Snoop Dog, the reason this is one of the example videos is because the props, lighting and clothing used for this video reflects the lyrics of the song perfectly.                                                                            

Jonas Akerlund

Jonas Akerlund is a Swedish music video director who mainly produces mainstream artists therefore suggesting that he is a rather famous director in high demand of mainstream stars. Most of his videos are in narrative form as a short film in a sort of mocking form, although some of his videos are jokey they are very stylistic.

Jonas tends to create a lot of controversy in his videos with inappropriate scenes e.g drugs, sex, abusive language e.g his highly controversial video 'Smack my bitch up' by The Prodigy which was actually banned on all music channels but despite all of this, it is now the known iconic work of Jonas Akerlund. Even though this video is of the negative talk it is very well done, Jonas puts the whole video in the point of view of the main character whilst he drinks, snorts, gropes, smokes, fights, has sex and drives. The angles of the video along with it all being in point of view is brilliant unfortunately this video was banned and has an age restriction of 18+ because of the scenes in it.

Even 'Hold it against me' by Britney Spears is highly controversial as half way through during the part dubstep section there's a very violent fight scene between the two Britneys, but this scenes involves punching, kicking, hair pulling, strangling, not a normal female fight scene. In this case the two Britney's are depicted as men in the way they are fighting each other.

Another controversial case involving Jonas is the Maroon 5 video he directed called 'moves like Jagger' as the video begins with an interview with Jagger, although this later became an issue as they never got permission to use to click or to involve Jagger in the song.

He has worked with mainstream artists like Lady gaga, Rihanna, Pink, U2, Robbie Williams, James blunt, Maroon 5, Madonna, David Guetta etc. But he also works with mainstream artists of other genres not just pop and chart but rock and metal too e.g Blink 182 and Metallica.

Above on the left 'beautiful' by Christina Aguilera another compelling and controversial video, which some viewers have found disturbing such as suicide, anorexia, transexuals, homosexuals, emo's, bullying (because of how one looks), insecurities and low self esteem. The scenes are very powerful and showcases Christina a lot.

On the left is 'American life' by Madonna, another banned music video by Jonas Akerlund that was controversial due to its strong use of sexual images (showing a bit too much skin in this one), violence, use of drugs, strong religious views and on top of that relating it all to the 'American way of life'.

Dave Meyers

Dave Meyers is an American music video director who has made over 200 music videos to this day, a truly impressive record along with being the first director to make a 3d music video in 2008 called ‘ching a ling’ by Missy Elliott which will be shown below. Dave is not just associated with one genre but quite a few including the obvious mainstream genres like pop, rap, rock etc but he has also done videos for heavy metal bands like Slipknot too.

He likes to use a lot of bright colours in order to makes the scenes look perfect with a Hollywood kind of style, although he does make a lot with darker colours to emphasise the mood of the song. He has created music videos for many mainstream artists like Shakira, Kelly Clarkson, Jay-z, Britney Spears, Pink, Katy Perry, Dido and David guetta.

This is 'Alice' by Avril Lavigne. This is a great showcase type video with some Intertextual references to 'Alice in Wonderland', the whole video uses dim lighting, aerial shots and panning. This music video is very expressive as Avril sings about Alices escape from the wonderland and these expressions can be seen especially when Avril falls down the hole.

On the left is 'blow me one last kiss' by Pink, which is a really good narrative based music video directed by Dave. It uses a lot of dim lighting and mid shots as the characters in the video tend to move around a lot. Even though the scene of the video is old-fashioned Pink still wears skimpy clothing to identify herself as a sexual object to the audience.

On the left is 'Ching-a-Ling' by Missy Elliott, which is a really good example of a showcase type music video with intertextual references to step up 2 and also the imagery reflects the words 'Money Maker' that Missy says during her song as it shows of her bling around her neck and many people wearing golden suits, which obviously represents money.

On the right is 'evolution' by Korn which is a very well done narrative based music video that uses animation for part of the story then real actors for the remainder. The lighting is very bright in this especially in the animation section. The video itself is about a decrease in IQ which leads the scientists in the video to believe that humans are reverting back to monkeys. This video in my opinion is a must watch as it portrays the comic side of the evolution matter too.

On the right is 'Where them girls at' by David Guetta, Nicki Minaj and Flo Rida. This is a very impressive narrative based music video, about giant bubbles floating through the city making the girls go crazy and into a random dance. The lighting in this video is very bright causing the 'Hollywood' type of style. It also begins with an aerial shot above the city and the buildings looking down at the first bubble. 

Chris Cunningham

Chris Cunningham is an English music video director from Reading, He didn’t begin his career as a music video director, in fact he was directing and creating animation and artwork for movies like Judge dredd and Alien. He has also done a number of impressive adverts for Gucci, Playstation, Nissan and Orange. Although he hasn’t done many music videos yet only a couple but his style is quite dark and strange, he uses some scary and disturbing animation and in most videos he uses dim lighting to create a kind of gothic theme for example in ‘Frozen’ by Madonna which he directed.

I have seen that in most videos he tends to use a fair range of shots including establishing, high angle, pull focus, over shoulder shots and he uses a stedicam and 3d and 2d composing elements throughout ‘all is full of love’ by Bjork, which is quite a passionate video about the two human like robots and after reading many comments on youtube, I can see that this particular video made many viewers cry. Even more impressive is that this song came out in 1999 and yet its extremely modern. Chris doesn’t use many colours its always either black or white or a plain colour throughout. In ‘Windowlicker’ by Aphex Twin he cuts to the beat a lot whilst using dance moves to emphasise the beats. This video has a really strange theme to it where the women keep their bodies but their faces turn manly and monster like, actually very scary, but obviously for a song with no actual words I'm sure Chris was aiming for a weird effect. These two videos can be seen on the side, the top is 'windowlicker' by Aphex twin and the bottom one is 'all full of love' by Bjork.

Michael gondry

Michael Gondry is a French music video director who funnily enough made his first music video for a French band called Oui Oui which he was the drummer for and this caught the attention of Bjork propelling his career towards being a music video director.

Michael usually plans out all of his music videos by drawing it out using symbols with dashes (representing beats) then later he adds in valid objects, this enables him to create entertaining visuals for the audiences watching.

Michael has produced music videos for a number of modern mainstream and past mainstream artists including Paul McCartney, Radiohead, Daft punk, Kylie Minogue, The White Stripes, Kanye West, Foo Fighters and Gary Jules.

To the left is 'Everlong' by the Foo Fighters this is a great example of Michael's work as it is a narrative-based music video along with a bit of showcasing at the end, of the bands. It begins with an establishing shots to show the location of the video. Since the video is fairly scary and horror like, it uses dark lighting to emphasise this.

To the right is 'knives out' by Radiohead, which is a rather strange video as it contains a massive operation table in the form of the game operation with a person in it, but every object in the imagery is significant and reflects the words of the song. There were even moments when I felt real emotions and this is obviously what's Michael was hoping to achieve in the audience watching, as it is possible that the words 'he's not coming back' draws out some personal emotions.

Spike Jonze

Spike Jonze has been an American music video director and producer since 1992, also being involved in other forms of media such as film, television and advertisements too. He tends to do his own thing and not stick to the genre of the songs, that's why some of his videos are quite unusual.

Spike uses a narrative theme for his videos with partial intertextual references although he has done some live performance based videos but not many as he's more well known for narrative based music videos. An example of a video involving an intertextual reference is 'weapon of choice' by Fat Boy Slim, where Spike uses the flying scene that refers to the Matrix therefore suggesting to the audience that the ability to fly is his weapon of choice.

Spike works with various artists and genres, he doesn't just stick to one like most directors do and he has worked with the likes of huge mainstream artists like Kanye West and  Ludacris and the well known group from the movie Tenacious D. His first ever video was 'high in high school' by Chainsaw kittens.

Here are some examples of his work:

This is 'Island in the sun' by Weezer, this is a great example of a narrative/ showcase type music video because it shows off the band whilst having a storyline of a wedding in the background. Sam consider aspects of the video to be a spectacle as well as a showcase because it shows off the members of the band's other talents like playing the guitar all drums.






                                                                                                                             
                                                                                 On the left is 'Da funk' by Daft punk, this is a great example of a narrative-based music video. It is about a dog called Charles that wears human clothes, walks like a human and talks and acts like one too in a new city. He buys book entitled to big-city nights which is supposed to be the title of the short film even though its music video about 'Da funk' which is played throughout on the Charles' boombox.

Marc Klasfeld

Marc Klasfeld is the next music video director that we'll be looking at in my blog. He is an American music director who is also the owner and founder of the company 'Rockhard' which is a music video production company including directors like 'Ray Kay, Sanaa Hamri, Sarah Chatfield, Mikey finnegan, Mark Staubach, Steve Jocz etc.

He tends to create performance based music videos, showing the instruments played and the singers performing although he does make some narrative based videos. He uses quite a few close up shots to create emotion and meaning within the video as you can see expressions on the artists faces and the power in the playing of instruments.

He has done music videos with many big mainstream artists such as Jay-Z, Katy Perry, The script, Far east movement, Michael Jackson and Avril Lavinge etc. He also directed the music video of the  world famous song 'A thousand miles' by Vanessa Carlton, which is of course a highly impressive song although the video is mainly a showcase video, although some consider it as partial narrative because of the line 'making my way down town' and the video shows her playing the moving piano through the town. He directed 'smooth criminal' by Michael Jackson which again is more showcase  and spectacle based as the whole video is of Michael singing, acting and dancing along with other professionals in a well choreographed piece.

Just to the right is 'Girls girls girls' by Jay-Z which is a great example of Klasfeld's work as it is narrative in the way the story line fits with most of  the lyrics but at the same time it shows Jay-Z himself rapping along in order to showcase him to the audience as well.






To the right is a fabulous example of a narrative based music video by Marc, it may be just over eight minutes long but this video tells a whole short story of how a girl goes from unpopular nerd to a cool stunning girl in one friday night in which she impresses the coolest guy at the party but then she wakes up again in the morning unable to remember a single thing. The video starts with a bit of story line and the end involves some cast shots and outtakes as a most real movies do which gives it the short film feel. This video also uses a huge range of bright vibrant colours which makes it easier for those watching and take in.

On the right is another great narrative based music video by Marc Klasfeld which is what he specialises in, although this particular video is showcase based as well as the story keeps cutting to scenes of The Script performing, but this shows the emotion on their main singer's (Danny O'Donughue) face. This video is about a man (Danny O'Donughue) that is waiting for his girlfriend to change her mind about him and if she does he is certain that she will return to this spot in which he has based himself and doesn't move from in the video. This video is very powerful and can actually get the audience to have sympathetic feelings towards Danny.

Sophie Muller

Sophie Muller is an English music video director based in London, she has a certain style in her music videos in which she uses more performance based videos than narrative but she places the artists/ bands in a focused dim lighted room to create a sense of ambience within the video.

Her first video was 'the walk' by Eurythmics as shown below. This video contained the dim lighting which seems to be her signature and this creates an odd sense and scenery for the song.

She has worked with Beyonce, Shakira, Coldplay, The Killers, Kings of Leon, Cheryl Cole, Cher, Maroon 5 etc

So she has a vast range of genres that she works with and some major hit songs too like 'fix you' by Coldplay, 'Deja vu' by Beyonce in which she showcases Beyonce and the video also becomes a spectacle as she shows off her appealing sexy dance moves, 'sex on fire' and 'use somebody' by Kings of Leon, 'This love' by Maroon 5 and 'Mr Brightside' by The Killers.

 To the right is 'fix you' by Coldplay, which is a great live performance/showcased type of video. It begins with Coldplay's lead singer just walking through the Kings Cross area singing the first few verses and choruses until the instrumental section where he starts running into the arena and that's when the live section of the video begins. I think its a really great video because of the amazing atmosphere caused by the crowd at the live performance as they sing the words along with Coldplay is fantastic.

Again this is another great example of Sophie Muller's work as she uses the same showcasing and close ups on the mouth of the lead singer with perfect lip syncing which is impressive then as the song starts to build up, the video cuts to the live performance with the atmosphere of the audience making the video memorable. But throughout the video also has some imagery which reflects the lyrics such as two people in bed, during the 'use somebody' and a man doing pressups during 'im ready now', so there's a bit of a narrative theme in some scenes too as well as the video being classed as a showcase/live performance type video.

Hype Williams

Hype Williams is the first of quite a few music video directors that I will be looking at throughout my blog. He is an American music video and film director, he started off of course small and built himself up through the media world by presenting his work on local billboards, storefronts and playgrounds using the name 'HYPE' as a graffiti tag. 

A fair amount of his work includes shots like the aerial shot and tracking shots and his work is usually showcase/ performance based to set the audiences eyes on the artist as seen in 'Rock the boat' by Aaliyah or 'Only you' by Ashanti as seen above and below.

Hypes signature technique for music videos is said to be the fish eye lens which distorts the camera around the central focus e.g the artists, this is a good way of attracting the audience to the artist which is the main intention from the labels point of view anyway, helping the viewers to keep that certain image in their minds so sales in turn rises up. This can be seen in 'Gimme some more' by Busta Rhymes and in 'The rain' by Missy Elliott as seen above.

Hypes genre of music video tends to be based around the rap and rnb genres as he has made videos for the likes of artists such as Jay-Z, Kanye West, Nicki Minaj and Beyonce, although he has done videos for Coldplay and Christina Aguilera too. Below I will show the best videos that Hype has created for the mainstream artists. 

The first example of Hypes work is 'Big Pimpin' by Jay-Z which is a great example of showcasing as they use attractive women as sexual attractions to the audience.

 This is 'Golddigger' by Kanye West which could be considered as showcase and narrative at the same time as most of the lyrics do actually match the images shown.

 Finally this is 'Stupid hoe' by Nicki Minaj , not much can be said about this one although Hype has clearly stamped his name on the begginning of this video, from what I can see its a showcase video as it couldn't be a narrative as the images and the lyrics don't really make much sense, in my opinion this video would be classed under Hype's limitations.