Hype Williams

Hype Williams is a very well known music video director in the R&B and Hip Hop genres of music and has done lots of work with many famous artists including; Kanye West, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, Jay Z, Beyonce and Drake to name a few. Hype tends to show a continuous style across all his videos in order to show a signature look and to portray the specific genre as well as keep to the demands of the artist and record label.

 

Hype's name on the videos

I will compare Hype Williams’ music videos but focus mainly on Beyoncé’s ‘Check on it’, Nelly and Janet Jackosn’s ‘Call on me’ and Kanye West’s ‘Gold Digger’. Analysis and comparison of the music videos will be done using Andrew Goodwin’s Music Video Analysis from ‘Dancing in the Distraction Factory’ (Routledge 1992).

The main similarity across most of Hype William’s videos is the appearance of his name at some point within the video.

Within his video for Kanye West’s song ‘Gold Digger’ featuring the vocals of Jamie Foxx, it is clear to see Hype’s portrayal of the Hip Hop genre with his use and placement of women within the video. The women are placed in provocative outfits and in sexual situations in order to help sell the track. This is supported by Laura Mulvey’s theory as she states the ‘Male Gaze’ is used to show sexual objectification of women, she believes that in film; audiences have to view the female characters from the perspective of a heterosexual male.

This idea of female objectification used to sell a track is also evident within other videos directed by Hype Williams such as Beyoncé’s ‘Check on it’ video. The sexual image of Beyoncé herself is the main focus of the video as she is dressed in revealing clothing most of the time and the dance routine tend to include some suggestive moves. The dance routine included within the video gives the clear idea that the song holds the genre of pop/R&B. the running pink colour theme throughout the video also shows the pop side of the video as well as the idea that the video is to advertise the film ‘Pink Panther’.

The videos all seem to show similarities in terms of the way in which they’re framed. Each video seems to show emphasis on the main artist(s) from the torso upwards with a key focus on the face. For example; in Gold Digger the background consists of a main colour that fades into the middle to highlight the centre of the screen which is generally where one of the artists are is placed in order to draw audience’s eyes to where the director intended. Similarly, in Nelly and Janet Jackson’s ‘Call on me’ video the artists are placed centrally with still, colourful backgrounds. The artists are able to stand out as they are constantly moving which immediately draws the eye away from the colourful backgrounds and towards the artists themselves.

The fact that Hype tends to focus mainly on the performing artists themselves shows that Richard Dyer’s ‘star theory’ is evident as it is clear to see a realtionship between the star and the audience as well as the stars’ artificial images.

It is clear to see that throughout each of Hype Williams’ videos that they tend to be mainly performance and conceptual as they seem to include artistic situations and ideas along side performing in terms of lip syncing and dancing.