Jonas Akerlund - Music Video Director by David Sampson
Jonas Akerlund was born in Sweden in 1965. He started his career in 1983 with a Sweden metal band called Bathory. In 1988 he directed his first ever music video which was Bewitched by Candlemass. At the 1998 MTV music video awards he has won a record of 7 awards including video of the year. He has worked with various artists like Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Madonna, Maroon 5 and Coldplay. In the years he has directed music video he has had some controversy with one music video which was the prodigy- Smack my bitch u. This was controversial because it has drug use, violence and nudity. He likes to make most music videos sexy depending who the artist because for example you had videos of lady Gaga and Beyoncé- Telephone and also who that chick by David Guetta and Rihanna. But with groups he does performances for example you have maroon 5 with daylight. He use these styles to get people buying the songs and it is one of the conventional ways now which music videos directors use.
From the screenshot you can see this is long medium shot on Lady Gaga. The director decided to use this type of shot so he can get the audience to focus on her body. As Lady Gaga is the main person in the framing so that why Lady Gaga is wearing a sexy costume. Wearing a costume like that make the viewers focus on her in the shot than anything else. Which is what the director want to try and do. The background of the shot is bright and golden which suggest wealth. But what the director want from this shot is that he wants the audience to focus on the main actor not what in the background.
From this screenshot this is a long medium shot of Rihanna and the dancers. The director decided to use this type of shot because he wanted to get Rihanna in the foreground of the shot with the backing dancers dancing in the background. With Rihanna in the foreground of the shot suggest that she is the main artist in the video. The whole mise-en-scene of this shot is that the costumes they are wearing are dark and the background is all spooky and dark. The director wanted to do this because he wanted Rihanna to be the main person in the shot wearing something to show off her body. I don't really know why the director want a dark background as the song is called who that chick you would have thought it would be bright colours not dark.
The video of Lady Gaga and Beyoncé- Telephone. As there are two well known artists with representation of them doing very sexy videos. You would expect this video to be hot and you would expect the costumes they are wearing to show off their looks. You would expect high key lighting in the video as it an upbeat video. Jonas don't need to change his styles as he knows a thing or few about making hot videos with similar artists before so it was easy for him to create this video.
