Anthony Mandler is an American music video director who has worked with many famous artists, creating 16 videos with Rihanna. His videos are typically performance-based but also contain conceptual elements that relate to the song's theme. Some of his directing techniques include linking lyrics and visuals, using low-key lighting and close-up shots, and inserting short video clips that add meaning. While his style is popular, the document's author notes they would not include objectifying portrayals of women or use low-key lighting, as those would not fit the upbeat theme of their own video for the song "Mr. Blue Sky". They plan to link lyrics and visuals as Mandler does and include metaphorical imagery to give the

1. Anthony Mandler
Music video director case study

2. About
Antony Mandler is and American film director, music video
director, television commercial director and photographer.
He was born on April 18,1973 and he has mostly collaborated
with popular artist Rihanna as a music video director,
creating 16 music videos together total but has also created
music videos for artists such as Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Eminem,
Usher, Shakira, Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, 50
Cent, Ne-Yo, Nicki Minaj, Drake, Snoop Dogg, Cheryl Cole,
M.I.A., Mary J Blige, fun. and Lana Del Rey. So it is evident
that this is a hugely successful music video director with
experience working with so many famous artists.

3. Some of his videos
Uses scenery a lot in this video,
expansion of time, low key
lighting and black and white
filters. He also uses a lot of
imagery such as the horse on the
plains, the fire and the rewinding
of the footage fixing the house.
He also uses bright light sources
to link lyrics and visuals when the
words ‘shine bright begin’.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=lWA2pjMjpBs)
Diamonds, Holy grail and find your love
Fairly performance based with loads of
attention to mise-en-scene. Uses editing to
switch between Jay Z and Timberlake with
interesting transitions. Lighting is mostly
low key which is consistent with
Diamonds- Rihanna. Dark colours and
powerful light sources along with dancers
make the video conceptualised as well as
performance based. Expansion of time is
also used a couple of times like in
diamonds, but in this to relate to drug use.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AIdX
isPqHc)
This is the first of the three videos I
chose to sample that has text in it,
which supports conceptualisation,
but in this context introduces the
issue in the story. It features links
between lyrics and visuals like in
Goodwin's theory which is also
present in the other two videos.
This video however features high
key lighting because of the club
settings and daylight.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Xyv4Bjja8yc)

4. Style of the director
Recurring trends in the videos of Anthony Mandler include the use of lyrical and visual links,
musical and visual links, low key lighting, close up conceptualised images, the expansion of time
and also carefully constructed mise-en-scene. As for type of videos Anthony Mandler produces,
they are mainly performance based, focusing on the artists representation and advertising them,
however this is usually accompanied by a conceptual underlining which reflects the subject of
the song.
Non-recurring things that I think are very interesting include the use of text in the
opening of the video ‘Find your love – Drake’ which features an interesting philosophical
statement that is used to engage the viewer. Secondly he uses low key lighting in one of the
videos which I think isn’t as regularly used in music videos of late as most go for the mysterious
high contrast colour scheme of lighting.
Finally I think that the use of short clips of video to connote meaning which feature
heavily in the music videos of Anthony Mandler are extremely interesting as they turn them
from absolutely performance based videos to having these underlining meanings. He does this
in all three using for example a video of wild horses in Diamonds, a use of dancers under sheets
in Holly grail and grafitti saying ‘Guilty till dead’ in Find your love. They all add meaning to the
songs the artist are singing.

5. How I will apply features of his style
The style of the videos that Anothony Mandler makes is interesting and is clearly very popular as
he is a famous director that has worked with many famous artists. So clearly he is doing
something right, however his videos seem to be very supportive of the Male Gaze theory (1975)
by Laura Mulvey, with their objectification of the females in the videos , especially in ‘Find your
love’. This is something I see as a lazy way of drawing attention that most artists use to stay
popular with male audiences, but even if I was prepared to create voyeuristic videos of women
to draw interest to my video, I wouldn’t do that in the video I am aiming to create as it isn’t
relevant to the song.
I would also not be able to use the low key lighting that he uses frequently as my
video will have to reflect the cheery mood of the song and lighting such as this isn’t suitable for
this aim. I will aim to reflect what he did in ‘Find your love’ with the high key lighting to introduce
happiness, although my video won’t contain any of the dark themes he has in his.
Something of his I will use is the linking between lyrics and visuals he likes doing,
supportive of Goodwins theory of uses and gratification, which I think is relevant to my video as
the lyrics in ‘Mr Blue Sky’ are perfect to target this. Accompanying this will be the huge amount
of metaphorical imagery that Mandler uses in his videos as I think ‘Mr Blue Sky’ can be given no
end of complex underlining meaning just like the ones in Mandler’s videos.