Hype Williams

Hype Williams

Harold ‘Hype’ Williams is an American music video and film director.The auteur theory comes into action with Hype Williams with many signature styles that he has.

A signature style used by Williams throughout the vast majority of his videos was the fish eye lens which distorted the camera view around the central focus. This was used in "Gimme Some More” by Busta Rhymes and “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" by Missy Eliott.

 Another "signature style" involves placing shots in regular widescreen ratio, while a second shot is split and placed in the upper and lower bars which are called banners. Videos that use this style include "Diamonds On My Neck" by Smitty, "So Sick" by Ne-Yo. "Check On It" by Beyonce and many others. In addition to this, he frequently uses aerial and tracking shots which often move backwards or forwards which can often be seen in "She's A Bitch" by Missy Elliott, "Not Myself Tonight" by Christina Aguilera and "Only U" by Ashanti.

Since 2003, Williams has adopted a signature style combining a centre 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 centre of the background,. This has been displayed in "Gold Digger" by Kanye West, "Digital Girl" (Remix) by Jamie Foxx and Beyoncé's "Video Phone".

Other signature styles that Hype Williams has are the use of quick/flash cuts for example at the beginning of  Gold Digger and throughout Nicki Minaj's song Stupid Hoe. He also uses a lot of bold backdrops, again shown in Gold Digger. And as I have mentioned before, like in many R&B videos Hype Williams uses a lot of dancing girls, in videos such as TLC's- No scrubs and in Will Smiths song, get Jiggy With It.

Case study of Goodwin's theory on Gold Digger

 

 Goodwin's Theory On Kanye West Video-

Gold Digger

In Goodwin's theory there are 6 different

perspectives. Each of which I have looked at and found in Gold Digger

 Lyrics and Visuals

 

The message of the song is portrayed through

 many different themes such as the lyrics. 

On some occasions when Kanye says a line, a word is shown to represent it. For example when Kanye says ‘we want pre nupt, we want pre nupt’ a picture of a girl with the headline ‘pre nupt’ appears on the cover of a magazine. The mise en scene in the video is the use of loads of different beautiful girls who are obviously what Kanye West is referring to. The girls are all dressed quite provocatively which makes it obvious that the video is aimed at a male audience. 

                                                                                    Sound and Visuals

During the 20^th-23^rd second there is very quick cut editing of a woman in a shaky motion.  Each cut flashes to the sound of a drum beat. There are several images that the audience’s attention is drawn to in this editing which are the woman’s eyes, lips and body  which all looking very enticing for a male audience. 

 Genre characteristics 

Gold digger is clearly an R&B song and you can tell this in the music video through the video revolving around women who are wearing very seductive clothing. The dancing is also a clear convention of an R&B song as the music is upbeat adding to the clubbing feel.

 

                                                      

                                                       Demands of the record label

The demands of the record label are promoted on a couple of occasion during gold digger. For example Kanye’s known for starting the ‘shirt half tucked in half tucked out’ trend which he does in the video and many others. Also another that could be mentioned would be when Kanye is teaching one of the women his signature dance. There are a few close ups high lighting Kanye although it is usually expected that there would be more to help promote a set image of the singer.

 

 

 Emphasis on the look

As I have mentioned before, there is a lot of emphasis on women, with very few men in the video. There are loads of close ups of female body parts and women dancing and posing which supports the male gaze. The women are often looking straight forward into the camera connecting the audience with them

 Intertexual reference

 

 Intertexual references in the video are from the beginning where the signs ‘Beware’ and ‘Gold Digger’ are shown making it look as if it is a film. Throughout the video you see women on spread sheets of magazines making them look like models. 

 

Auteur theory

What is the Auteur theory?

Auteur Theory suggests that a director can use the commercial apparatus of film-making in the same way that a writer uses a pen or a painter uses paint and a paintbrush. Auteur Theory suggests that the best films will include the directors ‘signature’.  Which may show itself as the stamp of his or her individual personality or perhaps even focus on recurring themes within the body of work. 

Alfred Hitchcock plays this idea up in most of his movies where he makes sure that he appears on screen in a brief cameo spot. This became a game that viewers would engage in, waiting to find out when he would appear.

When auteur theory was being developed, Alfred Hitchcock was frequentlyacknowledged as a main example, and his name comes to mind as soon as the theory is mentioned in terms of themes and techniques. Known as the master of mystery and suspense, Hitchcock plays with the audience's nerves, sexually or tabooed areas assume central or implicit places in his work (the latent homosexuality of strangers on a train, the parody of an Oedipus complex in psycho and the traumatic remembrance of repressed memories of Marnie)

There is a persistent element of black comedy, and frequent eccentric characterisations. Hitchcock was influenced by the German Expressionists, and admired their ability "to express ideas in purely visual terms". It is this visual expression of thought and psychology that Hitchcock achieves throughout his films. Hitchcock's films are marked by his mastery of cinematic technique which is exemplified in his use of camera viewpoints, elaborate editing and soundtrack to build suspense. 

Hitchcock appeared to be in love with Grace Kelly, 
the American beauty of her era which explains why
she was used in many of his films

3 music videos that I love

 3 music videos that I love/Inspire me

The first video that I have picked is Beyonce’s video to ‘Love On Top’. I like the idea of putting clips of her other music videos and songs all into one song. Although there isn’t an actual narrative you can clearly tell what the song is about through the video. It subliminally makes you want to listen to more Beyonce songs and it may bring back memories especially if you have been a fan of the singer for a while. The video also sort of uses intertextual referencing by the video looking like it’s on a slide show. The editing is effective and quite unique from other music videos I have seen. The sound and visuals are good and go together as the song itself is upbeat and goes well with the videos  fun-loving, relaxed feel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzzq4XQinb4

The second video I have chosen is The Fray- How To Save A Life. The video for this song is very emotional and a very strong message is put across. What I like about the video is that it is simple, just a white setting yet the video is still so powerful with the use of many people being in the video showing the emotion on their faces. The use of many people being in the video helps me and would help other people to relate to the video and would help some people understand that they are not alone as many people use music to get over problems so I think this is a perfect example.  The text shown on the screen is shown when certain lines are sung such as the lyrics “he will admit to everything” as this is sung the word ‘accept’ appears. Just like many other words shown on the video, it helps the audience to understand what the video is about. You can tell the band is an indie-rock band as you see the band performing which is effective. I also like the fact that the story is being told throughout by the lead singer playing the guitar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjVQ36NhbMk&feature=related

The last music video I have chosen that I like is Gotye- Somebody that I used to know. This video is also simple, although it still goes with the beat of the song which reminds me of clockwork. The video is very creative using a body art on the singers bodies to match the background to blend the singer into the setting even though I do not fully understand why they do this i still think it is very effective and works well with the song. The editing also stands out to me as it cuts quite fast but is still quite unnoticeable. One of my favourite parts of the video is when the video sort of ‘rewinds’ on the girls side of the story. Taking the paint off of her body to make it look like she is over the boy as the song is clearly about a break up between two people showing the man not being over the woman.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY

Music Video timeline

Music video timeline

'

'Song Of The Cabin Boy'

1895- ‘The Dickson experimental sound’

‘Song of the cabin boy’ video includes two men dancing, employees at editon’s studios.

The video is very old fashioned, slightly fuzzy.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

1930-

Musical films- ‘Diamonds Are A Girls Best Friend’ with Marilyn Monroe

Screen songs- cartoon films used this to get audiences to sing along by using a bouncy ball

 

Louis Armstong- Dina

 1940- 

Arrival of promotional clips, short films of many famous jazz artists with their band.

Louis Armstrong- Dinah, uses his band in the video alongside himself performing

 Jailhouse Rock 1957

1950-

Elvis! Jailhouse rock, the video is from the film ‘Jailhouse rock’

Colour starts being used more in TV and Music videos

Strawberry Fields Forever

 1960-

The Beatles, 8 years after Elvis, some believe ‘Strawberry Fields Forever was in fact the first proper music video as Jailhouse Rock was from 

the film itself.

1970-

Swedish pop band, ABBA broke out.

Won the Eurovision contest with 'Waterloo' and then went on to make a music video for the song.

1980-

MTV introduced in 1981.The one hit wonder band, The Buggles- Video Killed The Radio Star first song to be played on the channel, ironic? 

Thriller by Michael Jackon- most influential music video to this day.VH1 also announced in 1985

1990-

Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson release 'Scream' The most expensive music video to produce ever, costing 7 million.

 

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