We are living in an audiovisual era and the way we consume music nowadays is also by illustrating it with images. It's hard to not think about a song without picturing its' music video. Youtube is one of the monstrously profound platforms for music consumption. If the first golden era of music videos was marked by the emergence of MTV, at the moment we are experiencing the second one. We are constantly being bombarded by images in every media and that's the main reason for a lot of musicians to consciously create their own narrative and aesthetics. Let's talk about great exponents of this art form/industry, that successfully avoid any labels and the literal illustration of a particular song in search for a more meaningful representation and a new interpretation of music through iconic and memorable images. The list follows an alphabetical order and includes the most awarded directors of the last decade:
Making atmospheric EDM, often with an emotional arc reflected in accompanying music videos, the Blaze is the duo of cousins: Guillaume and Jonathan Alric, based in Paris, France. The project began when Jonathan was enrolled in film school in Brussels and asked Guillaume, who was making electronic music under the moniker Mayd Hubb, to help with music for a video he was shooting. The cousins knew they had a kind of complimentary creative symmetry and they released their first official video as The Blaze in 2016. Filmed on a budget of next-to-nothing, “Virile” is a charming and almost romantic portrait of two men as they party in a high-rise flat. As the men break playfully into dance, a physical communication takes place, through stories their bodies tell. It’s as intimate as it feels real, a true fly on-the-wall scenario. “Virile” was followed up with “Territory”: a powerful illustration of an Algerian man’s homecoming. It caught the attention and praise of "Moonlight" director Barry Jenkins and also won a Grand Prix at Cannes, awarded for “its story celebrating the human condition”. Most recently the duo released “Heaven”, a visual allegory for utopia. His powerful-emotional music finds his visual-humanist correspondent every time in their collaboration.
PRODUCTION Director: The Blaze / Production company: Iconoclast
DOM & NIC are a film directing partnership of directors Nic Goffey and Dominic Hawley. After meeting at school as 16-year-olds, Nicholas Goffey and Dominic Hawley bonded over a love of film and music. They are quintessential all-rounders. Whether creating visually-innovative films that combine CGI and live-action, or getting performances from actors, animals or animations, their work is always engaging, captured with an eye for both humor and heart. They have been directing music videos and commercials since 1994, going on to shoot music videos for Supergrass, Oasis, David Bowie and more. They have won numerous awards for their work, including the Gold Lion at the 1999 Cannes International Advertising Festival for their Nike "What Are You Getting Ready For" commercials and have since gone on to create memorable and much-loved work for brands like Heathrow, Levi’s, Rightmove, Audi, O2, and HSBC. They also won a D&AD Yellow Pencil for The Chemical Brothers' "Wide Open" video in 2016.
PRODUCTION Director: Dom & Nic / Production Company: Outsider | AGENCY: The Mill
A director with fewer music videos but not less iconic ones. Son of the great militant guerrilla filmmaker Costa-Gavras, from he inherited the rebellious and combatant spirit. He has worked with musicians like The Last Shadow Puppets and M.I.A; but his music video for Gosh by Jamie XX is his most representative one. The film (that won at Cannes Lions) takes place in the Chinese pop-up town of Tianducheng, which features a 300-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower and Parisian-style architecture. Within the abandoned town, a man with albinism dressed in all white is celebrated by a massive clan of disciples. Another metaphoric celebration of diverse people that escape from the status quo and normality, in this case: albinos. Another visually powerful piece from this director; in which every image is in smooth synchronicity with the track, plus the in crescendo until the climax give you goose bumps. This work won a D&AD Yellow Pencil in 2017.
PRODUCTION Director: Romain Gavras / Production Company: Iconoclast
First we have Michel Gondry the French filmmaker behind the masterpiece of contemporary cinema: "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" and a longtime career in the music video industry with the likes of Radiohead, The White Stripes, Queens of The Stone Age, The Rolling Stones and Beck to name some of the most exciting artists he has worked with. Gondry is an artist as playful as a child and he is a meticulous craftsman of the stop motion and animation world. His trademarks: the combination of live-action and stop motion, the use of puppets and disguises and the use of background projection screenings. His naivety and sweetness connects us with our inner child in every picture he puts in front of our amazed eyes. Let's jump to 1997 to one of the most iconic music videos of history: Around the World by Daft Punk. If we think of the French Duo we immediately picture the anime videos in our mind but the most representative live-action video is for sure Around the world. Here again we can see Gondry's touch all over the place. There is one studio location illuminated by flashy primary colors and a whole dance choreography of cartoonish characters, smoothly synched with the beats.
PRODUCTION Director: Michel Gondry / Production Company: Partizan
Miles Jay, is a Canadian filmmaker with a rare, original and distinctive voice. His work evokes pure, genuine, human stories through a stunningly cinematic lens. A first-class visual storyteller with an unrivaled force, sensitive wisdom and a relentless focus on craft. His Leon Bridges' "River" music video was nominated for a Grammy Award and a Director's Guild of America Nomination for Best Commercial Director in 2016. Miles’s moving and provocative music video “Smile” for Jay-Z was universally lauded and honored at numerous award shows, taking home the Entertainment Grand Prix at Cannes Lions, Best Music Video Jury Award at SXSW, Gold in Music Video Direction at the Ciclope Festival, Best Music Video at the AICP Awards, and Best Individual Performance at The Webby Awards, among others.
PRODUCTION Director: Miles Jay / Production Company: Smuggler | CLIENT: S. Carter Enterprises
https://www.right.video/videos/s-carter-enterprises-jay-z-smile-ft
Another great filmmaker that is always flirting with the music video art form, he even started as a director of video clips. He's as playful and joyful as Gondry but a little bit more acid and dark in his sense of humor. At the beginning of his carrier he was a faithful representative of his time; aesthetically speaking, he condensed the whole MTV looks in his videos. Raw and direct footage (taken from skater's videos), a lot of fishbowl effect and the mix of color and black and white, like in his clip for the song 100% by Sonic Youth. Let's not forget the amazing music video for Weapon of choice by Fatboy Slim. An epic and iconic video with a majestic and charismatic Christopher Walken as the main character/dancer of this choreographed piece. How to not picture in your mind the lonely Walken dancing frenetically in an empty hotel being low-illuminated by the warm lamps from inside the building. A video that has a lot in common with his most recent one for KENZO.
PRODUCTION Director: Spike Jonze / Production Company: Satellite Films
Hiro Murai is a Tokyo-born filmmaker based out of Los Angeles. Together with exceptional videos for the likes of comedian-turned- hip-hop star Childish Gambino, veteran rockers Queens Of The Stone Age, Australian soulster Chet Faker and indie darlings Spoon, his Flying Lotus video sealed his position as one of the world’s top music video directors. He won the prestigious Best Director prize at the UK Music Video Awards in 2014. He's an all-time collaborator of Donald Glover A.K.A Childish Gambino. In 2013, he directed the short film "Clapping for the Wrong Reasons" a companion piece for the artist second studio album, Because the Internet, and its attached screenplay. In the same year, he created a multi-panel video set for Frank Ocean's performance at the Grammys. In 2016, he directed several episodes of the comedy-drama Atlanta. For his work on the show, he has received three nominations for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series. In the same year, he directed a Nike campaign starring Chance The Rapper. On February 10, 2019, the music video for Childish Gambino's "This Is America", directed by Murai, won the Grammy Award for Best Music Video and the Entertainment Grand Prix at Cannes Lions. His latest collaboration with Gambino is the musical-film Guava Island.
PRODUCTION Director: Hiro Murai / Production Company: Doomsday
Wilson is an English music video director and animator based in both Los Angeles and London. Wilson studied Illustration at Brighton University and did a foundation course in Art and Design at St. Martin's. He’s most well known for his music video work, but his output spans various mediums including commercials and installations. He is represented by the production company Riff Raff in the UK and The Directors Bureau in the U.S. He has directed music videos for Arcade Fire, The Maccabees, David Guetta, Arctic Monkeys and Tame Impala. He takes great enjoyment from crossing disciplines between animation and live action, often combining the two to create something totally unique. David was crowned Best Director at the UK Music Video Awards and had a Grammy Nomination in 2015 for his video for Arcade Fire, "We Exist". He also won a Yellow Pencil at the
PRODUCTION Director: David Wilson | Production Company: The Directors Bureau
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