Jamie Thraves is a British film director and music video producer known for his innovative work with artists like Coldplay, Blur, and Sam Smith. He began his career producing award-winning music videos while in university, which helped him secure a position at a production company. Some of Thraves' early music videos had low budgets but innovative styles, like the Radiohead video for "Just" which featured quick cuts and close-ups of the singer. His more elaborate videos for Coldplay and others demonstrated his directing skills and led to opportunities in feature film directing, including 2000's "The Low Down" and 2009's "The Cry of the Owl." Thraves advises using lyrics metaphorically and emotionally

1. Jamie
Thraves

2. Jamie Thraves is a British film writer and
director who is well known for his music
videos. He started producing music videos
when he was at university. Before he was well
known, Thraves produced an award winning
video which he used at film festivals which he
then used as a stepping stone into getting a
place in a production company, ‘Factory
Films’. Over the years Thraves has worked
with many artists such as ‘Coldplay’, ‘Blur’,
‘The Verve’ and ‘Sam Smith’.

3. Thraves began shooting three low budget music costing
£5,000 each. An example of one of his early music
videos was produced for a band, ‘Radiohead’ and their
song ‘Just’. The video had a budget of £100,000 and was
shot in three days.
This music video consists of the singers just
like most music videos, however in this
video the singer is mainly positioned to the
side of the frame. There have been many
shots where we see close up shots of shoes
and the singer. There are a lot of quick
shots which consists of the singer at the
centre of the shot but is only seen by the
audience for a few seconds.

4. After his breakthrough with the Radiohead music
video, Thraves went on to produce videos of a
greater budget. He produced a video for ‘Coldplay-
The Scientist’, which was also shot in three days.
This video had a budget of £200,000.
The video is very abstract looking as it is reversed
however the lip syncing matches the words being
said perfectly. The edits are slow and sometimes in
the video there will be a slow motion. I really enjoy
seeing this as it looks very simple however it took a
lot of work for the video and the lip sync to match
the beat and the lyrics of the song.

5. His work on his music videos acted as a stepping stone for him to
write and direct films. Thraves was involved in films such as, ‘The
Low Down’ in 2000 with Film 4 which starred Aidan Gillen and
Kate Ashfield, The Cry of the Owl’ in 2009 with BBC Films starring
Paddy Considine and ‘Treacle Jr’ in 2010 starring Aidan Gillen.
Thraves in currently working on a film with Aidan Gillen for the
third time in a film called ‘Pick Ups’. His amazing work on the
music videos allowed him to become a film writer as producers
had enough confidence in him to produce a good film.

6. Jamie Thraves tells his audience that when producing a music
video to use the lyrics by not become too literal. Thraves also says
to go with the emotion of the lyrics. What Thraves means by this is
to use the lyrics of the song when filming a video however do not
show exactly what the lyrics are saying. For example, if the lyrics
are about a couple breaking up then do not show footage of a
couple breaking up but to use other footage such as a red balloon
popping. The colour red would suggest love but also anger and
you could connote that the balloon is the heart and when it pops it
shows a heart breaking. This idea also brings in the emotion part
that Thraves included. So the popping balloon could symbolize
violence as it was popped in such a violent way.

7. Katy B- Broken Record The music video kept reversing and the artists
kept singing as normal which is something
which Thraves is well known for as it is seen in
his other videos such as ‘Coldplay- Scientist’. I
think the use of this effect was very important
especially in this video as he title of the song is
called ‘Broken Record’ and the video is editing
almost a though it was on a broken record
which kept going back. Thraves stayed true
with the tips he gave the audience about the
video not showing the literal meaning of the
lyrics. The song is about a breakup where the
girl wants to continue the relationship. The
lyrics include “please don't let me go”. In the
video we see her reaching out for the guy as a
way of trying to keep him. We do not see the
break up but we can see it as she keeps going
back to the beginning which could suggest that
she is not making any improvements in the
decaying relationship.

8. Tom Odell- Another Love Thraves has once again used the way he edited
to relate to the title. The title of the song,’Another
Love’ is all about love and we associate with
love is the heart. There is only around two or
three edits throughout the entire video so as the
video continues the camera gradually zooms in
and back out. We could say that the use of this
cinematography and editing has given us a
sense of a beating heart. There is one main cut
at the end from a wide shot to a close up of the
artist. The cut could suggest a stop in the heart
beat and the relationship is over. The lyrics gives
us a sense of a toxic and abusive relationship.
During the video we do not see anything abusive
to any other the characters however we do see
the female character yelling at the guy. The
yelling gives us a sense of a relationship taking a
nasty turn.