Auteur Theory

Do a little research into one of the many well-known music video directors.

Use these questions as a starting point, but don't feel you have to stick rigidly to them.

1. What are the 'landmark' videos they made?
2. How were these received? What did the critics say? Did they get any awards?
3. Do they have a visual style? If so how is it achieved throughout their work?
4. What inspiration can you draw from them?

Some old-school famous directors you might want to look at are:

Spike Jonze
Michel Gondry
Chris Cunningham

Feel free to start at Wikipedia - but remeber this, to copy and paste from Wikipedia is to admit that you are a complete idiot who has difficulty walking and chewing gum at the same time. Less importantly, you will also automatically lose 15 marks from your total. My advice, always scroll to the bottom of the wikipedia page and check the links under 'references'. 

Also check out THIS site for the names and work of up and coming talent.

OR, just find out who directed your favourite music video, and see what else they did.

This doesn't have to be a big essay. But it's a good opportunity to actually use the blog format... embed video, add pictures, search your director on music magazine websites and add links to the articles. You just have to show evidence that you have looked into the work of an established music video practitioner as MORE than a member of the audience... anyone can watch a music video - but can they name three other videos by the same director?... Can they say why these were important videos? Can they analyse the style? NO, because they are nothing more than teenage couch-potato MTV-watching mouth-breathers! You, on the other hand, are students of the media with finely tuned analytical senses.

Enjoy your research, you might surprise youself.