2. Hiro Murai
Hiro Murai originates from Tokyo, Japan. Since then he has based himself in LA. His most
notable works include music videos for internationally successful artists such as Childish
Gambino. Earl Sweatshirt, Chet Faker, David Guetta and the Fray.
Hiro moved to LA when he was 9 years old; he then graduated from the UCS school of
cinematic arts.
After graduation Murai turned to freelance work where he was the Director of Photography
for a lot of music videos as well as VFX and work and storyboarding. After some time,
Murai began to direct low budget films.
3. Breakthrough and awards
Hiro Murai had his first breakthrough in 2012, when he won the MVPA best music video for ‘heartless’ by
the Fray, under 25K.
Since then he has gone onto win multiple awards such as :
(2013) MVPA Award for Best Electronic Video for She Wolf.
(2014) UKMVA Director of the Year / Best Rock / Indie Video International QOTSA for Smooth Sailing.
(2014) Best Music Videos Lists: The Verge, Pitchfork, IMVDB, Stereogum
(2013) MVPA Best Electronic Video: David Guetta – She wolf
(2012) Best Music Video Lists
(2009) MVPA Award for Best Video under $25K. The Fray "Heartless"
4. Partnership with Childish
Hiro Muria has closely worked with artists like Childish Gambino (Donald Glover) he has
done multiple music videos for him for his hit songs like Sober and sweatpants. Since then
he has gone onto start directing low budget TV series and films. For example he recently
co-directed Donald Glover’s new TV series, Atlanta. Which has gone onto win awards such
as Globe best comedy series.
5. Style
Hiro Muria tends to colour grade his music videos to and extend where they look bland
without any exotic/ bright colours, everything looks fairly dull.
He also uses long (duration shots) in most of his shots that continue through the story of
the clip, he especially does this for establishing and opening shots.
6. Hiro Murai also like to use very flowing editing, for example here in his
production of never catch me buy flying lotus.
Here we can see that Hiro uses his iconic style of having a long duration
opening shot, the next few shots then flow very smoothly into each other,
therefore they seem like one shot so seem even longer.
Style
7. Key successes
One of Hiro Murai’s best success in his careers was when he directed the
music video, she wolf ( David Guetta) This won him the award of best
electronic music video of 2013.
Another of Hiro Murai’s big successes was being a co-director in ‘Atlanta’ this I
because it means that he has started evolving into film. This TV series then
went on to win multiple awards.
8. Sober – Childish Gambino
The music video Sober, directed by Hiro, features David Glover, as the
protagonist, who is drunk in a take out. He is trying to impress a woman who is
waiting for her food in this restaurant. Despite his best efforts he fails to
impress her as she walks out at the end of the music video.
In 2017 the video has reached 45 million views on Youtube. It has also won the
MTVu best music video of 2015.
9. Sober – Childish Gambino
Hiro uses his classic style here of using a long duration long shot to establish
the scene and the location of the video. In this clip we can also see that the
video is heavily colour graded, this makes the scene seem dull and sinister.
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