For this research I have focused on the music video director, Hype Williams. He has worked with artists such as 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G and Jay-Z and has been working within the industry since 1991, also producing feature films. His work has been widely popular and been nominated for numerous ‘Best Director awards, including that of ‘Video Director of the Year’ at the BET Awards this year.
I have chosen to focus on the videos, ‘The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)’ by Missy Elliott, ‘Check on it’ by Beyonce and lastly, ‘Gold digger’ by Kanye West. These videos show the change in Hype’s style throughout his career and each one gives an example of the three styles he has differed between.
Missy Elliott’s video features the style of the fisheye lens, which distorted the camera view around the central character, giving them some sense of dominance over the rest of the video, as shown here in ‘The Rain’.
This visual image of the artist also links into point 4 of Goodwin’s Six Point Analysis, where the record label demand the director feature lots of close ups of the artist so that the audience can start to realise the artists motifs that can regularly start to occur over the range of the artist’s work. There is also a link between the lyrics and visuals as well as the music and visuals as stated in points two and three of Goodwin’s theory, where the distorting of the artists mouth is edited to the rhythm and beat of the music, as well as the rain above the dancers connecting to the obvious lyrics and name of the song.
Through the use of camerawork, performance, editing and some of her costumes, the video can be seen as a representation of black female power, which goes along with Missy’s image and the way she is perceived by her audience and fan base. This representation of women is also featured in her video ‘The Rain’ and linking into point five of Goodwin’s theory, places them in a bad light and treats them in a way voyeuristic way.
After using the fisheye lens for a few years in his work, Hype Williams moved on to using shots in the usual widescreen ratio, but placed a split, second shot, above and below the main focused shot. This is featured in the music video, ‘Check on it’ by Beyonce, originally recorded for the film, ‘The Pink Panther’ that Beyonce featured in.
Despite the original reason behind the song, there are no intertextual references to the film itself except for the vast use of the colour pink, for the mise en scene of the film, helping to distinguish the link between Beyonce, the song and the film of the Pink Panther.
As with many music videos and Missy Elliott’s above, there is the demand from the record label to show close-ups of the artist which is no different with Beyonce in this video; there are constant close ups of her performing the song. There is also reference to point 5 of the theory, around the way that women in the video are represented, as the dancers along with Beyonce herself, are dressed in very limited amounts of clothing and then close ups of different areas of their bodies are shown.
The only links between music and video in this particular one are that of the editing to the beat of the song at the beginning. As the beat of the music speeds up, before slowing down to allow the singing to start, quick cuts are made between different shots that are visually interesting and are therefore linking in to the music and beat of the song.
The final style that is distinctive of Hype Williams is having the artist or artists in the centre of the frame, using a medium shot of the torso upwards, with a solid colour background with a soft different-colour light being shown in the centre of the background, so as to give a sense of illumination of the background by the foreground subject. This is featured in the video ‘Gold Digger’ by Kanye West ft. Jamie Foxx.
Behind every shot is a coloured background, with a lighter colour in the middle to illuminate the artist or character within the frame. Featuring this style in this particular video also helps to add to the overall appearance of the video that makes it look slightly vintage and shows the girls as front pages of old magazines. Using this also helps to add close-ups of the artist that every other music video has been required to have, and is stated in Goodwin’s six point analysis, by the record label.
There is also the relationship between the lyrics and the visuals, and the music and visuals, stated in points 2 and 3 of Goodwin’s theory. The artists are dancing freely to the beat of the music, but stop when the beat stops and then start up again when the beat kicks back in. For example, in the lyric, ‘I aint saying she’s a gold digger’ *beat drops* ‘But she ain't messing.’ There is then the link between the actual lyrics and the visuals, where the lyrics say, ‘Get down girl, go 'head get down’ and the girls in the video dance as though they are ‘getting down’ as the lyrics suggest.
These same girls featured in the video are also shown in a different light to that of the men characters in the video and are dressed and placed in more suggestive ways. They are the main focus of attention to the men in the video and are either posing for them or dancing around them in a certain way.
As a director, Hype Williams doesn’t tend to stick to one main style for very long, but gets his styles featured in many music videos at the time that he is using it, as the music video examples above outline. However, he uses his work with more mainstream artists, such as Kanye West, to promote himself and get his work known.
In many of his mainstream videos, he tends to add in his name clearly on the screen so that the audience know who directed this and can tune in to his different styles. This is also a great way of promoting different artists and getting a wider fan base for different artists, as fans of say, Beyonce, can then listen to other artists by watching another music video by Hype. These examples are from Kanye West, ‘Gold Digger’ and Ne-Yo, ‘So Sick’, which also features the same style of music video that was used for Beyonce’s video, ‘Check on it’.
No comments:
Post a Comment