Mark Romanek is known for his gritty and distinctive style in music videos, often using handheld cameras and natural lighting to create an uncomfortable feel. He frequently shoots in black and white to enhance the gritty realism, which suits rock genres. Romanek also focuses on creating a strong relationship between the rough music and dark cinematography through techniques like matching camera movements to the beat. His video for Fiona Apple's "Criminal" effectively uses an eerie atmosphere through deep sounds and dark lighting to match the rock genre and lyrics relating to girls' experiences.

1. Mark Romanek’s style of work is very quirky, distinctive and gritty. Some of his music videos make you
feel uncomfortable due to the lighting and concept of handheld camera creating the feel of naturalism. A
lot of his work has a naturalistic element for example in Jay-z 99 Problems music video the style gave the
natural feel which reflected on the realistic narrative. He also creates most of his work in black and white
giving that gritty realistic feel. The style of his work that he creates fits into the genre of rock, for example
the music video of Nine inch nails suits the weird gritty style. Due to his work having a very gritty twisted
style this makes the video successful because of the visuals being satisfying.
Criminal by Fiona Apple
From the opening of this music video the audience are
given the feel of the setting being eerie due to the deep
sound of music and the dark tonal lighting; which adds up
to that uncomfortable feel. From the start you can’t really
tell what genre is but as it gets to the main part of the
song it is clearly shown that it is a rock genre due to the
rough music along with the dark setting. There is a strong
relationship between the music and visuals due to the
rough deep music being in sync with the cinematography
through the visuals. (This is a convention of Romanek’s
work) For example at the start of the music video the
camera was panning along with the beat.
There is a frequent reference to notion of looking
throughout his video for example in Criminal by Fiona
Apple being voyeuristic due to her performance being
sexual to appeal her video to men. The target
audience is girls for this music video due to the lyrics
being strong where some girls can relate to. The way
she is laying around girls and boys with their legs and
arms being exposed really gives you that
uncomfortable feel especially due to the atmosphere
being dark and gloomy.