Auteur TheoryHype Williams

The Auteur TheoryThis suggests that a director can use

the commercial apparatus of a film making in the same way that a writer uses a pen or a painter uses a paintbrush and paint.

The medium for the personal artistic expression of the director.

Music Video directors can be an auteur.

Example: Chris CunnighamThe director Chris Cunningham has

worked with a variety of artist such as Aphex twin in “Come to Daddy”, Portishead “Only You”, Madonna “Frozen” and many others.

His auteur themes include a dark narrative which incorporates elements of a gothic genre and many shadowed visuals.

Hype Williams

Hype Williams is another auteur director who has worked with a number of musicians specifically from the R’n’B/Hip Hop genre of music.

Hype was born in 1970’s in Queens, New York and is an music video and film director.

Kanye West: All of the Lights

The song “All of the Lights” is by American hip hop recording artist Kanye West. The accompanying music video for this song was directed by Hype Williams and features strobe-lit images of Rihanna and West, as well as Kid Cudi. The beginning of the video has a black and white filter over the introduction narrative before the actual song starts. When the song starts brightly colored, large font titles are used to introduce the artist, director and the name of the song. The video is fast paced to match the pace of the song. This video was given a warning by Epilepsy Action, stating that the video "potentially triggers seizures for people with photosensitive epilepsy". A hybrid of video narrative’s are used in this video, it starts off as narrative and turns into performance.

TLC: No ScrubsHype Williams also directed the video for TLC hit single “No Scrubs”. The video is themed around the group in futuristic, space setting with a dominant white background through out. The artists are all dressed in black or white with colorization being seen through their make up. High key lighting helps to emphasize their beauty and make up.

2Pac: California LoveThe late hip hop rapper 2Pac’s “California Love” song music video was also directed by Hype Williams. The video was as inspired by the film “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” and was set in the year 2095. An introduction in the video is used before the music starts. The colors through out the video are shades of black and browns which relates back to the theme and desert setting of the music video. A narrative theme is used in this video. High key lighting is used to high light the artist 2Pac as the main focus. A narrative theme is used in this video.

Hype Williams The AuteurWe can see that these are all Hype Williams directed videos as they all incorporate a

futuristic theme. The setting for TLC “No Scrubs” seems to be in a space station, 2Pac’s “California Love” is set in the year 2095 as it says at the beginning of the video and although Kanye West’s video is set in the present day, the elements with in the video such as the flashing fonts and flashing lighting around the artists give off a futuristic feel to the video.

Hype Williams The AuteurHype Williams also use’s colorization in his video’s. In the 2Pac video there is a

consistent color theme used of browns and darker colors to help enhance the setting of being in the wilderness. Kanye West’s video use filters of one dominant colour with any props or characters being in black. Multi-colored flashing is also used in this video. Unlike the others, the TLC music video incorporates colour through makeup. Since the background color‘s are either white of light blue’s, the artists wear contrasting costumes of black and bright colored make up of reds and blues.

Hype Williams The AuteurAlthough this particular feature may not be one of the reason’s why Hype Williams can be

classified as an auteur, through out his video’s he makes his artists stand out by using high key lighting (spot light) to only focus on them against a darker background.