Music Video Director

Anthony Mandler

Anthony Mandler (born April 18, 1973) is an American film director, music video director, television commercial director and photographer. Anthony has directed music videos for people such as Jay Z, Beyonce, Rihanna, Lana Del Rey, Eminem, Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, The Killers and The Weeknd.  As a music video director, his most notable and frequent collaborator is Rihanna, the two have worked on sixteen music videos together throughout her career, beginning with "Unfaithful" in 2006 and most recently "Diamonds" in 2012.

Beginning his career as a photographer, Mandler's work has been featured on the covers of major magazines such as Entertainment Weekly, GQ, Esquire, Men's Health, and ESPN The Magazine. His celebrity portraits include, among others, David Beckham, Colin Farrell, James Franco, Heath Ledger, Ryan Phillippe, Eva Mendes, Lebron James, Taylor Lautner, Andrew Garfield, Kiefer Sutherland and Katie Holmes.For commercials, he has worked with international clients such as Nike, Inc., Motorola, Duracell and Cîroc.

Tilley often makes videos in the genre of R & B, hip hop and pop, which is where his style is formed. He uses lots of colour and lighting, choreography and quirky and unusual shots. For the more serious and meaningful songs he uses quite dark colour but still uses different style shots and lighting. His camera angles are what makes him recognisable, he uses a lot of close ups and birds eye view.He has a very recognizable style, his style is quite dark as he uses quite low contrast and dark lighting. All his music videos have story lines to them, making the audience pay closer attention to them. From watching some of his videos you can tell there is a serious tone to most of them, for example Run This Town and Ride,as they have a serious/dark story. For example, in run this town there is a lot of people and it looks as if there is a riot going on, it almost refers to the past where protests were made due to racism, this is relevant as Jay Z, Kanye and Rihanna are strong black individuals of the hip hop/r&b industry. The props such as chains and fire makes them look very powerful, again this goes with their status within the industry. 


The more fun songs such as 22 or Only Girl have a bit more colour however, they are still quite low saturated and are still able to recognise that Mandler directed them, he often uses the same colour tones in these kinds of music videos for example in Only Girl a lot of reds are used. There is still quite a serious and gritty tone. This is done to differeniate the different genres he directs. Also because the audience for 'Run this town' and '22' is very different, therefore he has to cater to the needs of the audience and has to also maintain a certain image for the stars. 

For example, in this video 'Come and Get It' Selena Gomez is seen as an attractive young female, who is making a transition from a disney star to a more serious artist. Mandler has been able to do this very subtle, for example it is not too sexy like how a Beyonce video would be. He has to be aware of this due to her young fans. However, his dark and reflective colours connote a more serious and adult artist, and also the extreme close ups which is quite seductive. Symbolism s is recurrent in his videos, for example he uses an eagle and fire in this too show her strength as a female.

Colin Tilley

Colin Tilley (born June 27, 1988 in Berkeley, California) is an award winning music video director who has written and directed music videos for artists including Zendaya, Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, Justin Timberlake, Nicki Minaj, 50 Cent, Tyga, Lil Wayne, Jason Derulo, Diddy, Usher, Melanie Fiona, Keri Hilson, Wiz Khalifa and UK rappers Chipmunk, Plan B and Dappy among others. His most notable and frequent collaborator is Chris Brown for whom he has directed 19 video projects. The two have worked on more than a dozen videos together in the last two years including every single from Chris Brown's gold-certified album F.A.M.E. except for "Beautiful People". Colin Tilley has won several awards including video of the year at the 2011 BET Awardsfor Chris Brown's "Look at Me Now" video and Best Male video at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards for Justin Bieber "U Smile". He was nominated for three videos at the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards including best male video, best best hip hop video, and best collaboration video.

From music video director research I have concluded that it is key to use the same techniques throughout the video to make the style recognisable. For example, the same camera angles and shots. Also the tone throughout the video, which will probably be bright as it is a pop video.