Auteur Theory

As significant as the performers and artists, are the directors who bring to life a concept the artist has imagined for their music video, often incorporating elements of their own that ultimately create some of their own artistic signatures. The amount of creative freedom awarded to a director is often up to the artist or company that hires them. While some artist leave the music video completely up to the directors, others often want a certain narrative to be portrayed. While directors pander to the artist's style, they retain their own creative vision as well.

The director whose work I've chosen to analyse is Emily Kai Bock, a Canadian film maker who is strongly inspired by legendary directors such as, Michael Gondry, Spike Jonze and Jonathan Glazer.

I will be analysing her style and stylistic signatures in the context of her music videos:

Impressionist

All her music videos predominantly aim to capture a certain mood and feeling. All of them seem dreamlike due to the way they're edited (include a lot of slow motion) and their colour grading. The consumer is enraptured in an almost trance like state watching these.

Type

Her music videos are mostly a standard mix of narrative and performances. The narratives are often abstract. The performances predominantly consist of lip-syncing to the lyrics and some un-choreographed dancing.

Colour Schemes and Gradient

Bock utilises a muted colour palette for her music video, often sticking to either mostly cool colours or mostly warm colours. Her colour gradient itself is muted, giving her music videos a subtle faded effect. 'Afterlife' is perhaps the only one which makes use of a mixture of both.

Camera Work

Her camera work is cinematic. She makes use of a lot of wide shots and camera pans, making the videos seem high end and almost movie like. She, however, also peppers in a few close ups.

Lighting

Bock also seems to favour low key lighting, preferring to cast shadows on the artists' face, accentuating features.

Editing

Bock makes use of continuity editing, shifting scenes and introducing slow motion effect in accordance with the tempo of the songs.

Comments

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