Music Video Directors

Melina Matsoukas

Melina Matsoukas born January 14, 1981 is of Greek, Jewish, Jamaican and Cuban descent. Matsoukas graduated at American Film Institute and New York University where her graduate thesis was music videos. She first started out at Gorilla Flix film production company and is now currently a director at Prettybird. Her work is described as, "chalk full [sic] of bright colors or crisp black and white images, smooth spotlights, and tasteful retro video models." Matsoukas says that expensive equipment is not necessary for a quality video and one should never think that way: "A good video has the right visuals, a well conceptualised story and should be exciting and elicit reaction.“ In an interview for Venus Zine's Fall 2010 issue, she says about being part of the music video world, "I love it. The quick turnaround, the creativity.“ Regarding the concept of Solange Knowles' video "I Decided", Matsoukas stated: "This is her concept so I've definitely just developed it and put my mark on it

Examples

Ne-Yo wore a "gentleman-looking" suit dancing with a woman. Other shots also show him alone in the center of the spotlight being backed up with four dancers, or with a Matchless motorcycle. The video was nominated in the "Best Dancing In A Video" category at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, but it lost to Pussycat Dolls's "When I Grow Up" which would appear in Dance Dance Revolution a year later.

The music video for "We Found Love" was shot in late September 2011, in County Down, Northern Ireland and the New Lodge area of North Belfast. The video generated controversy for its depiction of violence and drug use, as well as for Rihanna's removal of her clothes during filming however won Music Video of the year at MTV’s Music Awards 2012.

Gil Green

Gil Green is a music video, commercial, and film director raised in Miami, Florida. Gils first glimpse into the music industry was when Underground hip hop world as a DJ and sold mix tapes and CDs. Gils passion for music and videos first evolved when he submitted short films, engaging his classmates as his audience. He continued to go onto to graduate in film at New York University. His hip hop group, Backlive headlined the video gaining national media recognition on music television channels such as MTV and BET. With over 100 videos shot Gil has expanded his musical genres to cover pop, Latin and the European market. His clients include multi platinum artists John Legend, Usher, Timberland, Diddy, Natasha Beddingfield, Akon, R Kelly, Kayne West, Drake etc.

Examples

Gil green was first recognised for directing Lil Jon’s “I Don’t Give A..” in the 2003 source awards where the music video won “The Best Music Video”

Gil Green continued to expand his directing skills to different mediums. He went onto film the official Pepsi commercial ad and music video for the 2010 World Cup official song, ‘Oh Africa’ featuring famous football stars and Akon singing.

Dugan O’NealJesse Dylan born January 6, 1966 is an American

film director, and the founder, CEOand creative director of the media production company Wondros. Dylan was born in New York City and the eldest son of musician Bob Dylan. Dylan is now married to Susan Traylor and have two children together. Dylan’s work in music videos won him a 2012 MVPA Best Alternative Video Award for his music video “Lonely Boy,” by the Black Keys. In 2008, he directed the Will I Am Emmy award winning music video “Yes we can” inspired by Barrack Obama’s campaign for president. The music video was created in three days featuring over 30 celebrities. Originally posted on Youtube the song received over 26 million views just days after the release.

Examples

Natasha PincusNatasha Pincus graduated in 2002 with first class honours degrees in Law and

Science. She practiced entertainment law at a top-tier Melbourne law firm until 2004, before focusing on her writing and directing career. Natasha started writing and directing music videos in 2007. She directed a controversial video for Paul Kelly’s GOD TOLD ME TO which won the 2007 Inside Film award for Best Music Video. She has since directed music clips for a number of Australia’s favourite musicians, including Powderfinger, Gotye, Kasey Chambers, Pete Murray, Lior and Sarah Blasko

Interview• Q. What inspired you or your idea for the video?• The song itself has always been the primary source of inspiration for any music video I’ve ever created. In a sense, music video is a

process of ‘adapting for the screen’ so it holds all the answers, all the truth.• At a song’s core – and that might be revealed in a specific lyric, or its overall thematic - is generally where its best visual metaphor

lies. How a particular concept develops from there is then informed by the song’s music, its melodic progression, tempo, dynamic, and the emotions it evokes.

• Q. How were you approached for the job?• I was approached directly by Wally De Backer (the man behind Gotye) via his Manager at Eleven Music. Eleven were a wonderful

label/management to work with, leaving me to my own devices and trusting me with the project.• Wally is an absolute marvel, so the very idea of working with him was an exciting prospect in itself. Then I heard the song and just fell

over.• Q. What were the limitations you faced with in the production?• There weren’t so many limitations so much as practical challenges thrown up by the extremely ambitious concept itself. The project

brought together various professionals across several different media. • I had to facilitate the collaboration of various 2D artists – a graphic artist’s work painted as a mural by a different scenic artist whose

own work was to blend with a body painter’s paintings across two performers. • The artists all had their own methods and needs to achieve their work so negotiating those, while also subjecting them to the

tedious, stop-start nature of stop motion photography, was tricky. We were also integrating stop motion and live action photography, which provided technical and creative challenges. And the video had to be shot entirely out of order because of the timings of the various paintings/reveals, which was difficult both logistically and hard on the singers in terms of performance.

• They were also exhausted - the body painting took 7 hours per person, so we could only start some parts of the performance work 14 hours into the a day’s shoot...so human fatigue was a limitation! A 26 hour day is grueling, no matter how much you prepare and train for it.

• Q. Was there much experimentation/tests done before the shoot?• Plenty, particularly focused on ensuring that the split screen would work. The concept involved stop motion proceeding on the RHS

of screen, with live action continuing on the LHS. We had to make sure it would look perfectly seamless.

Q. Who were your key collaborators?• The video’s DOP was the amazing Warwick Field, who I have worked with on almost all my music videos. Music videos are a

great medium for a DOP to have the opportunity to play in their art. In my view, they are the most crucial collaborator in your team and so it is well worth spending the time and energy and bucks to ensure you are working with the best.

• Emma Hack is a world-renowned body artist and she did both the body art and hair and makeup for Kimbra. Howard Clark is a genius scenic artist who painted our background mural. As is always the case with music videos, the clip was made by a tiny team, very carefully selected.

Q. Had you worked with anyone else previously?• Warwick is my constant collaborator. Howard Clark had also worked as a scenic artist on our clip for Sarah Blasko’s “We Won’t

Run” where he painted a 30ft mural across both a wall and floor in such a way that when the camera moved out the surfaces ‘flattened’ to create the optical illusion of a single, straight image.

• The small production team on this video was mostly made up of usual collaborators – we even brought a musician from another band we did a video for to help out as a camera assistant! Music video is always a ‘family’ production. It’s incredibly hard work and you have to be surrounded by people you completely trust and enjoy being around. You all end up putting everything you’ve got into pushing the project over the line.

Q. What was the turnaround?• The video took a few months of preparation. That’s a key benefit of a musician-driven clip - you are working towards the

common goal of making the best video you can, rather than being forced to make decisions driven by an imaginary deadline made up by a business person you never even meet in the flesh. I edited the video myself over a couple of weeks.

• There were a lot of different ways to tell this story and it was important that the two ‘characters’ came across certain ways at certain times, and the right way on balance. We shot many different performance versions for each mini scene and because Wally and Kimbra gave such wonderful performances, I was spoiled for choice.

Q. Do you feel that the client understands the production process?• Very rarely. That was one of the nicest elements about working with Eleven Music. They really get it – what you need as a

filmmaker, what it takes to make good work. Most of the time a record label will get you to liaise with random marketing people who have no idea what is actually involved in the filmmaking process, and how much it all costs.

Q. What did you shoot on?• Canon 5D. It’s great low budget camera for many kinds of video projects, but certainly not the right camera for others. It was the

perfect choice for the video because we had the rare need of using both its video and stills capacities (the latter for the stop motion sequences). The camera position and lighting design was crucial in order to achieve the visual effect of the blend/camouflage in camera.

Q. Where did you shoot it?• Lot4 studio in Richmond.

Behind The Scenes