Auteur Theory Applied: music video directors
Auteur theory suggests that an author of a media text has a certain visual/auditory/etc path which is always identified in all of their work. This theory reflects on a director's technical competence, characteristics as well as interior meaning and how it's constructed. For instance, Anthony Mandler, a music video director, is an auteur in a way that his music videos have the feeling of the auteur's contribution in them because they're mostly voyeristic and highly concentrated on the artist's representation. I often recognise his videos through the cinematograhpy and camera work which is used. Some examples are shown below:
 Come And Get It |  Belong To The World |  Man Down |
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 Come And Get It |  I Knew You Were Trouble |  Man Down |
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 Diamonds |  Man Down |  Come And Get It |
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Anthony Mandler:
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American photographer, music video/film/commercial director
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Most frequenly collaborates with Rihanna (sixteen music videos)
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In terms of commercials, Mandler has worked with Nike, Motorola, Duracell etc
We can see how a number of his videos have similar camera shots/angles as well as locations/settings. I particularly enjoy his way of using lighting and body, it perfectly compliments the music/dialogue which is potrayed in the video, creating a dreamy/out of space atmosphere and really attracting the vewier into the concept. Since creative use of lighting is one of my favourite things to find in music videos, I am definitely going to use that in my own music video promotion.
Anthony often uses naturalistic settings and I have shown how water is frequently used in his work, often with the artists being in the water themselves. The use of setting is helpful in terms of cinematography because it's very aesthetically pleasing. Me and my group have filmed some taster shots of Meg in a naturalistic setting - it immediately feels organic and immensly more satisfaying to watch than the videos filmed inside which immediately require editing of saturation, colour etc.
Jake Nava
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English music video/film director
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Most often collaborator: Beyonce (9 music video collaborations)
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Worked with campaigns such as Armani, Puma, Bacardi etc
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Single Ladies (directed by Nava) has been placed third in the list of '25 most influential videos of all time'
 Partition |  Single Ladies |  Crazy In Love |
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This auter is dearly beloved by Beyonce and most of his work contains some sort of dancing which is quite an important hip-hop/r&b/dance music video convention.
However, in his recent music videos such as Shades of Cool and Holy Grail there's a sense of change in terms of cinematography and visual aesthetic in general - his videos have become more voyeristic. Nava's technical competence is of high skill and any artist who turns to Nava is always left with a high end product.
 Holy Grail |  Arabella |  Shades of Cool |
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Hype Williams
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American-originated music video director
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Most frequent collaborator: Kanye West (twenty collaborations)
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Fish-eye lens was a famous technique of Williams; however it was dropped after he experienced the lowest rate of productivity in 2003.
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Hype was awarded an award for Best Music Director of the Year in 1996
The interior meaning is something that is felt when watching some of Hype's videos, it can be recognised in the way the artist is portrayed in the video as well as how the lyrics have affected how the auteur visualises the song. "People wonder why nothing is interesting, it's because they try to get a answer to it, to everything. There are things you can't articulate. There's that 'thing' in the world – music has it, every kind of art has it. And people talking about it can destroy it." I think this sums up Hype's attitude towards interior meaning perfectly - it should be recognised but not discussed about to the bare bone.
 Va Va Voom |  All of the Lights |  All of the Lights |
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