Music Video

Directors and Code

of Practice
Hype Williams

About Hype
Williams
Harold Hype Williams is an American music video director.
Williams was born in Queens, New York in 1991, and is of African American and Honduran descent.
Williams fist displayed his work by tagging local billboards, storefronts, and playgrounds using
HYPE as his graffiti tag. This stimulated his interests in colour.

Hype Williams makes music videos for lots of different genres, not just one.
Hype Williams has won various awards, such as:
1.

The Billboard Music Video Award for Best Director of the Year (1996).

2. The Jackson Limo Award for Best Rap Video of the Year (1996) for Busta Rhymes' "Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check.
3. The 8th annual Music Video Production Association Award for Black Music Achievement (1997).
4. In 2006, Williams was honored by MTV with its Video Vanguard Award, presented in honor of his achievements as a
filmmaker.

5. As of 2014, Kanye West holds the artist record for working the most times with Williams, as the two have collaborated
on 20 music videos beginning in 2005 with the music video for Diamonds from Sierra Leone.

6. Busta Rhymes is 2nd behind Kanye, collaborating with Williams on 16 music videos, beginning with debut solo music
video Everything Remains Raw.

Style of Hype
Williams
Hype Williams has a RnB and Hip-Hop genre of music videos. Although, he changes his style
when he feels something isnt going right and adapts. An example of this is when he tried using
animation in Kanye Wests Heartless video.
A signature style used by Hype Williams throughout the vast majority of his music videos, shot
mostly with cinematographer John Perez was the Fisheye lens which distorted the camera view
around the central focus. This was used in 'Gimme Some More'(1998) by Busta Rhymes
and 'The Rain'(1997) by Missy Elliott. However, it was dropped by 2003, when he
experienced his lowest level of production activity since the beginning of his career.
Another signature style of Hype's involves placing shots in regular widescreen ratio, while a
second shot is split and placed in the upper and lower bars. Videos that use this style include
'Diamonds on my Neck' by Smitty. 'So Sick' by Ne-Yo, and many others. Since 2003, Hype
Willliams has adopted a signature style combining a center camera focus on the artist or actor's
body from the torso upward and a solid colour background with a soft different colour light being
shown in the centre of the background by the foreground subject. This has been shown in
'Breath' by Blu Cantrell ft sean Paul, 'Gold Digger' by Kanye West, and Beyonces
'Video Phone'.

Music Video Example

An example of a Hype Williams music video is Kanye West Heartless.
In this music video, it is in the style of a cartoon animation, which is one style that Hype
Williams used to create a different kind of music video, as some of his previous video styles
werent working that well when this video was made.
This is used to create more of a fantasy of getting away from normal life, which is one of the
mottos that Hype Williams tries to show in his videos.

Teamed with Kanye while the rapper was going through an experimental phase, Hype cleverly
switches it up by referencing the groundbreaking 1981 animated movie American Popwith
rainbow-y video vixens and a cartoon Kanye dancing around dramaticall in Heartless music
video.

Music Video Example

Another example of a Hype Williams music video is Ne-Yos So Sick.
In this music video, it is in the style of Hype Williams which involves placing the main video shot
in the middle of the screen widely, and then also has a second shot split into two, and placed
above and below the main shot in the middle. This is used, because it give effect to the video,
and it is a new style that Hype Williams used to get the audience more interested in the video.
It also looks better than just a simple shot music video.

In many of his mainstream videos, he tends to add

in his name clearly on the screen so that the
audience know who directed this and can tune in to
his different styles. This is also a great way of
promoting different artists and getting a wider fan
base for different artists, as fans of say, Beyonc,
can then listen to other artists by watching another
music video by Hype Williams. This is shown in So

Music Video Example

Another example of a Hype Williams music video is Blu Cantrell ft sean Paul Breath.
In this music video, there is Hype Williams signature style of combining a center camera focus
on the artist singings body from the torso upwards. This has a certain colour behind the
subject(in this video its a light blue), with light being shown in the center of the background by
the foreground subject(the artist). This is used, because it also makes the video a bit more
intriguing for the audience to watch, and is less boring than just a plain old normally shot music
video.

This video was a switch up from what Hype Williams was normally doing with his music videos at
that time. This is because he wanted to swap it up to keep the audiences attention, and that
they will watch it more and more. He then adopted this style of having the artist at the center of
the video, with light behind them to show off the subject in the foreground.