Artist & Director Research: Music Video Conventions

Me and Kirsty are working together in our project to create a music video. We haven’t yet decided on the song we are going to create the video for, however we do know we would like to do either a Lana Del Rey song or a Delilah song. Therefore, we have researched into some of their videos and then looked at the directors of their videos to gain inspiration and see the conventions of their music videos instead of looking at a specific genre. This is because the genre for these artists is varied in how it is classified, some calling it indie pop others chamber pop or pop, electronica or even ambient.

Lana Del Rey…

…is an American singer-songwriter known for the critical acclaim her debut album Born to Die received. She has released music videos for her tracks Born to Die, Video Games, Blue Jeans, Summertime Sadness, Carmen and is soon to be releasing the video for her new release National Anthem. She has described herself as "self-styled gangsta Nancy Sinatra".

Delilah…

…is a British singer-songwriter who is due to release her album From the Roots Up in the summer of 2012. She collaborated with Chase & Status for the track Time which had a very deep video showing domestic violence from the point-of-view of the teenage daughter of the couple. She has videos for songs Love You So, Go and Breathe.

Yoann Lemoine…

…is a French director who has directed many music videos, as well as being a musician himself. We discovered him by beginning looking at the Lana Del Rey video Born to Die which he directed. He also directed music videos for:

• Take Care – Drake ft Rihanna
• Blue Jeans – Lana Del Rey
• Mistake  – Moby
• National Anthem – Lana Del Rey
• Iron – Woodkind (the band he is a member of)

We will be analysing some of his videos in later blog entries to look at the codes & conventions of our music video and gaining inspiration.

Emil Nava…

...is also a music video director. While looking at interesting videos, we looked at Paloma Faith’s video for her new song Picking Up the Pieces which was directed by Nava. Also by Nava:

• Love You So – Delilah
• Do It Like A Dude – Jesse J
• Nobody’s Perfect – Jesse J
• Yeah Right – Dionne Bromfield
• Lego House – Ed Sheeran
• Finish Line – Yasmin
• Who’s Laughing Now – Jesse J
• You Need Me I Don’t Need You – Ed Sheeran

We will be analysing some of Nava’s music videos in later blog entries also.

These are going to be the two directors we focus on to gain the codes and conventions for our music video as well as looking at the style of the videos they create and gaining inspiration.

NOTE: you can type either directors name into Vimeo.com to gain access to their work if you would like to see any of these videos.