John Newman- Early Life and Career

John Newman is an English singer and musician. He grew up in Settle, Yorkshire Dales and started playing guitar and writing his own songs at the age of 14 and soon learned how to record and produce himself, making his own house tracks and DJing. At 20 he moved to London, started a band and was signed to Island Records. He often talks about his love of Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye and Adele.
He is best known for his track "Love Me Again", from his début studio album which peaked at number one in July 2013 on the UK Singles Chart as well as being featured on "Feel the Love" and "Not Giving In" by Rudimental in 2012 which also peaked at number 1 and number 14 on the chart. In October 2013 he released "Cheating" as his second single from Tribute his début studio album.

Song Choice

Our song choice for our music video we decided to use John Newman-Love Me Again. We emailed his management asking permission, shown below.

Synaesthesia

Synaesthia is the process of picturing sounds in the minds eye it can also be known as 'thought beats' or 'seeing sounds in your head'

A.Goodwin says synaesthia is "a clip that responds to the pleasures of music, and in which that music is made visuals, either in new ways or in ways that accentuate existing visual associations"
The visualisations can be created in the format of a music video by using camera, colour, editing and mise en scene. For example when you have an upbeat pop song you would expect to see bright colours.

Steve Archer stated in 2004 that with the process of Synaesthesia you need to start with the music. To begin, the lyrics don't need to be analysed word for word  but the main lyrics that pop up in the chorus for example, create a sense of subject matter. So these key words  and phrases will have a part to play in the part of play in the kind of visuals associated with the song. If the songs are stories, then the singer is the storyteller and this obviously makes the music videos stand out, as they feature a first person mode of address rather than the invisible 'fourth wall' of television narrative.

Director Analysis- Anthony Mandler

Anthony Mandler is an American music video director. He has directed music video for artists such as:

-Lana Del Rey-National Anthem

-Rihanna-Diamonds

-Cheryl-Under The Sun

-Jay Z ft. Justin Timberlake-Holy Grail

Mandler directed Lana Del Reys, National Anthem with his direction to create a memorable experience. According to Mandler the image of an artist is as important as the music i.e. Beyonces dance moves, without seeing their representation of the artists a large amount of what makes them would be lost.

To create memorable videos, Mandlers key to achieving a level of impact is, bringing a cinematic feel to music videos, he also looks deeply at the image the artist is trying to convey i.e. Jay-Z vs. Sean Carter. When a video starts to come together in the right way lyrics and music become the soundtrack of that story and imagery and music work together.

His inspirations often come from iconic directors like Spike Jonze and Chris Cunningham as these videos became bigger than the brands.

Mandler applies the idea of eventful videos to his work, this can be seen in Lana Del Reys National Anthem music video as it was Mandlers most creative and controversial music video portraying A$ap Rocky as JFK and Lana Del Rey as Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe its controversial themes touched on JFKs assassination and interracial issues.

Mandler believes that music videos today often have little thematic value and more often than not have no narrative structure.

Director Analysis-Melina Matsoukas

Melina Matsoukas is an American director of music videos known for her abstract and iconic shots. Her work has been described as chalk full of bright colours or crisp black and white images, smooth spotlights and retro video models. Melina Motsoukas says that expensive equipment is not necessary for a quality video, "a good video has the right visuals, a well conceptualised story". Her videos are often lit with only a single light mounted on the camera, this is her trademark. She has directed music videos for artists such as:
- Wild Belle- Keep You
-Solange- I Decided
- Beyonce- Diva
-Missy Elliot ft. Ciara- Work
Matsoukas has been noticed for her work on Rihanna's, We Found Love which she won a grammy for also, Lady Gaga-Beautiful, Dirty Rich, Keri Hilson-Energy and regular client Beyonce's-Why Don't You Love Me.
Melina gets her inspiration for her music videos from imagery and scenes from movies and photography, art,culture, landscape, everything. She said when breaking into the field of directing "build up your work, invest in your work, invest in yourself and have confidence. Educate yourself and go for it. It will happen if you don't stop believing and don't stop working hard for what you want"

Director Analysis-Director X

Director X is a Canadian music video director, he is protege of Hype Williams and has been noted for his high-budget, visually distinctive music videos for popular music singles including:

-Drake- Started from the Bottom

-The Wanted- Chasing the Sun

- Kelis- Trick Me

-David Guetta ft. Estelle-One Love

-Sean Paul-Get Busy

His trademark is tweaking the letterbox format, instead of using black bars on the top and bottom of the frame to frame the image, many videos by Director X feature the bars opening vertically to reveal the video and closing vertically at the end, like a letter box.

Director X has said he thinks music videos are not widely regarded for storytelling, but finds it a good ground for narrative storytelling, music provides a topic and mood. The stories are intelligent, detailed and well structured.

His work has been awarded by the MTV music video awards and MuchMusic Video Awards.

Director Analysis-Hype Williams

Hype Williams is an American music and film director, his work was first seen by tagging local billboards, store fronts and playgrounds using HYPE as the tag.
He has created a number of music videos for many artists such as:
-The Notorious B.I.G.- Warning
-Daft Punk ft. Pharrell Williams- Get Lucky
-Kanye West- Gold Digger
-Coldplay-Viva La Vida
-Ke$ha-We R Who We R
A signature style used by Hype Williams is the Fisheye lens which distorted the camera view around the central focus this was used in The Rain(Supa Dupa Fly) by Missy Elliot. Another style used is placing shots in widescreen ratio while a second shot is split and placed in the upper and lower bars i.e. Check On It by Beyonce. Since 2003 Williams has adopted the style of combining centre camera focus on artist body from torso upward and sold colour background with soft different colour light being shown in centre of background to give a sense of illumination of the background by the foreground subject i.e. Gold Digger by Kanye West
Williams has received for his music videos including MTV Video Music Award in the Best Rap Video (1998) for Will Smiths- Gettin Jiggy Wit it, MTV Video Music Award for Best Group Video (1999) for TLC's-No Scrubs and BET Award for Best Director (2006) for Kanye West's- Gold Digger.