Music Video Director Research…

Jonas AkerlundBy Amy Harriss

Jonas Akerlund…

• Jonas Akerlund is a Swedish international director. His work covers music videos, commercials, documentary’s and short films. He has worked with artists such as Madonna, Rihanna, Metallica and Pink. He is most recently known for directing Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce’s music video for “Telephone”.

Visual Style…

• Jonas’ style of music video is renowned as being very stylistic. He is well known for creating music videos that are almost mock forms of short films. An example of this is shown using a narrative throughout his music video for “Telephone”. Some stills below of the video show this stylistic effect he uses.

Visual style continued…• Jonas does not focus on a particular genre of artist or band for his videos as some

directors may. Each video is different depending on the band or artist he is working with. He has worked with such a large range of genres which makes his music video portfolio enhanced and shows his abilities in working with a wide range of artists.

• He produces mainly mainstream work but also some music videos for underground, less heard of bands.

• Each video is different in their own ways from live performance music videos such as Hollywood Undead to narrative videos such as lady gaga.

• He has also been known to include some controversial topics in his videos which can be seen as quite dark or disturbing. For example, this can be seen in his video for Christina Aguilera's Beautiful with the use of anorexia, homosexuals and transvestites. Another video which has been criticized is his video for Prodigy- Smack my bitch up, this was banned from television because of accusations of it encouraging violence against women.

Editing style…

• I like the way Jonas use’s editing to enhance his videos. The editing in “paparazzi” makes you follow the narrative more with pre production items such as newspapers flashing up to show what is happening in the story. The black and white spiral when Lady Gaga is falling gives a stylistic attractive effect.

Artists & Bands he has worked with…• Jonas has directed music videos for many artists and bands with different genres and

styles. An artist he has worked with on numerous music videos is Madonna. He has also worked with bands and artists such as:

• Rhianna• Lady Gaga• Pink• U2• Robbie Williams• Ozzy Osbourne • James Blunt• Hollywood Undead • Blink 182 • Christina Aguilera • Metallica • Rolling Stones• Jennifer Lopez• Maroon 5

Lady Gaga – Paparazzi…• This music video directed my Jonas follows a narrative storyline where lady

gaga is attempted to be murdered by her boyfriend but gets her revenge on him by poisoning him. This video is highly stylised and focuses on the artist a lot.

I really like this music video because of the use of narrative throughout. Jonas has a great idea for a storyline which has worked well with the artist and song. He uses links between the music video and lyrics to emphasise the song. The main focus is the artist and he has ensured this with using close ups a lot throughout. I really like the use of pre production editing to add the newspaper articles, enhancing the story and the black and white spiral effect towards the start.

The costumes and style of the video goes with the artist and it is clear he has had a lot of input from the artist also. Items with the artists initials and name on are placed within the video to enhance star iconography e.g Money.

Why I like his work…• The reason I chose to do Jonas Akerlund was because I

was originally impressed with his work with Lady Gaga with both song “Telephone” and “Paparazzi”. I really enjoy throughout those videos the use of narrative to create a story for the audience to follow. The way he has tied this in with his stylistic influences and idea’s have created a great video for the artists promotion and is an art form in itself.

• I also really like the way he does not stick to one style and way of producing music videos. This shows he is capable of producing a wide range of styles for many artists.

Screenshots of some of his work…