Daniel Askill is an Australian music video director born in 1977 who has directed 4 videos for artist Sia, including "Chandelier" and "Elastic Heart". He favors a natural, minimalist style with dull lighting and minimal editing to create meaningful videos featuring panning shots of the dancers. While simplistic in style, his videos still manage to have a major impact and leave viewers feeling emotional.
3. SIA - ELASTIC HEART
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWZGAExj-es
4. BIO
Daniel Askill was born in 1977 in Sydney. He progressed
from studying visual communication, to directing popular
music videos.
Askill has worked with artist Sia, directing 4 of her Music
Videos, 3 of which have been very recent. ‘Elastic Heart’ is
one of these three which has gained a lot of attention due to
the mystery behind the video.
5. STYLE
The style of the three recent music videos Askill has
directed for Sia has all been the same. Very natural, dull
lighting and minimal editing to create a very real and
meaningful feel to the video. They feature a lot of panning
shots to show the dancer(s) from different angles and to
follow them as they move. ‘Big Girls Cry’, the most recent of
the three, featured very minimal camera movement as the
whole video was a midshot of the young actress dancing
with her hands and face.
6. PERSONAL RESPONSE
I admire Daniel Askill’s work very much as he uses a very
simplistic style to create Sia’s music videos and has very
little editing and natural lighting. These videos still manage
to create a massive impact and leave the audience feeling a
mixture of emotions as the dancing and style of the videos
are so meaningful. I like the idea that something so
simplistic can have such a huge impact on a person.
