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.