auteur study

1. Auteur Study
Harold "Hype" Williams is an American music video and film director, Williams has created a number of music
videos for many artists, including 2Pac ("California Love"), The Notorious B.I.G. ("Warning") and ("One More
Chance"),LL Cool J ("Doin' It"), Nas ("If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)" and many more. He is commonly
thought of as one of the most successful and prolific music video directors of all time winning various awards over
his lengthy career.

2. Style
• Hype Williams is renowned for utilising a fish eye camera
lens in his music video which distorts the view around the
central focus, this can be seen in the video "The Rain (Supa
Dupa Fly)" by Missy Elliott
• Another signature seen in a number of his videos is the use
of a widescreen ratio with two bars above and below the
video showing a different second shot, Videos that use this
style include "Snap Yo Fingers" by Lil Jon
• In addition to this, he frequently utilises aerial and tracking
shots which often move backwards or forwards, some
techniques which can often be seen in "Rock the Boat" by
Aaliyah, this adds variation and makes his videos more
dynamic
• He has also adopted a style of combining a centre camera
focus on the artist from the torso upward and a solid colour
background with a slightly different colour light being shown
in the centre of the background, so as to give a sense of
illumination of the background by the foreground subject.
This has been displayed in "Gold Digger" by Kanye West

3. Kanye West – Gold Digger
• The video features Williams signature wide screen ratio with the
three bar shot this makes the vivid colours in the video pop
• The typography at the beginning of the video are an homage to
the titling featured in spaghetti western films that were popular
in the 60’s
• Williams has chosen to go with a pastel colour palette which
gives the video a slightly bleached look helping the video to
appear classic without seeming dated
• In parts of the video subjects are backlit with a bright colour
distinct from the background giving them a celestial look
• Lighting is carefully employed as a way of connoting the
emotions of each character for example the ‘Gold Digger’ is lit
with red and black colours commonly associated with the devil
• The front covers of popular american us fashion magazine are
comically altered so that they spell out the some the lyrics and
themes of the song
• The use of coloured lens filters add to the videos highly stylised
aesthetic

4. Ol’ Dirty Bastard - Shimmy Shimmy ya
• The video is set mainly in a glowing 80’s disco full
dancers in equally extravagant outfits this is reflective of
ODB’s larger than life personality
• It also makes a number of subtle intergeneric references
to the film Saturday Night Fever (1977) simulating a
number of key moves
• It also uses one of Williams trademarks the fish eye lens
which in this particular video distorts all of image that is
not in focus making the viewer feels as if they are on a
drunken stupor around the dance floor
• Throughout the video ODB makes a number of costume
changes including one where he is only wearing a pair of
tight white shorts this helps to capture his infamous
wackiness
• ODB’s ambiguous personality is also highlighted as we
are shown both his fun and serious side to his personality
yet this only magnifies his apparent absurdity