STUDY OF STUDY OF A A

MUSIC MUSIC VIDEO VIDEO

DIRECTORDIRECTOR

WHY HYPE WILLIAMS?

• Busta Rhymes feat. Janet Jackson – What’s it Gonna Be?! (1999)

• The first time I was aware I was watching a Hype Williams music video.

WHY HYPE WILLIAMS?

• What’s it Gonna Be?! (1999), was one of the most expensive videos ever made, costing upwards of $2 million, and was big on special effects.

WHY HYPE WILLIAMS?

• I found the special effects really unique for a music video of this time. And It seemed to have intertextual references to the 1992 film The Lawnmower Man

WHY HYPE WILLIAMS?• According to Goodwin one of

the features of music video is a relationship between music and visuals

• This video is full of sexual innuendo, visually based on the song's wet dream and wetness imagery. Janet Jackson is shown in a tunnel made of liquid and Busta Rhymes turns into a sperm-like creature then he floats through into the tunnel.

HYPE WILLIAMS A LITTLE HISTORY

• Harold "Hype" Williams (born 1970; Queens, New York), earlier known as simply HYPE, is an American music video and film director of African-American and Honduran descent. Williams first displayed his work by tagging local billboards, storefronts, and playgrounds using HYPE as his graffiti tag. "That's probably what stimulated my interests in colour," he says.

HYPE WILLIAMS A LITTLE HISTORY

• This liking of the use of colour is evident in his early videos such as MissJones - "Where I Wanna Be Boy" (1994) through to Notorious BIG - Mo Money Mo Problems Feat. Puff Daddy, Mase (1998) and as recent as Beyoncé feat. Bun B and Slim Thug - Check On It (2006)

HYPE WILLIAMS – SIGNATURE STYLE

• A signature style used by Williams throughout the vast majority of his videos, shot mostly with cinematographer John Perez was the Fisheye lens which distorted the camera view around the central focus. This was used in "Gimme Some More" (1998) by Busta Rhymes and "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" (1997) by Missy Elliott; however, it was dropped by 2003, when he experienced his lowest level of production activity since the beginning of his career as a music video director.

HYPE WILLIAMS – SIGNATURE STYLE

• Another "signature style" involves placing shots in regular widescreen ratio, while a second shot is split and placed in the upper and lower bars. Videos that use this style include "Diamonds on my Neck" by Smitty, "So Sick" by Ne-Yo, "Check On It" by Beyoncé, "Snap Yo Fingers" by Lil Jon , “Wanna Love You Girl” by Robin Thicke feat. Pharrell - and many others.

HYPE WILLIAMS – SIGNATURE STYLE

• Since 2003, Williams has adopted a signature style combining a center camera focus on the artist or actor's body from the torso upward and a solid colour background with a soft different-colour light being shown in the center of the background, so as to give a sense of illumination of the background by the foreground subject. This has been displayed in “Breath” by Blu Cantrell feat. Sean Paul, "Gold Digger" by Kanye West, "Digital Girl" (Remix) by Jamie Foxx and Beyoncé's "Video Phone".

HYPE WILLIAMS – MUSIC GENRE

• From what I’ve presented here it would seem clear that Hype Williams chosen music genre is RnB and Hip-Hop. While researching his videography I came across some surprising artists that he has worked with.

HYPE WILLIAMS – CHANGING STYLE

• We’ve seen how Hype Williams changes his style and when he feels something isn’t working he adapts. He has also tried out using animation in Kanye West’s Heartless video.

SOME OF MY HYPE WILLIAMS FAVOURITES