Diversity - Miss Miller.

"Why would a artist chose to create a diverse music video?"

A diverse music video is one created by a particular artist who aims to create a music video which is unique and different from all others. All of these videos would be unconventional to there specific genres as a diverse music video means that the video is not similar to any others and therefore stands out within the genre. To make a diverse music video a artist would most likely create a concept based video with a hidden message and connotations of each micro-element, despite this a diverse music video can also be performance based if its presented in a original manner or narrative based if the storyline was unique and individual. To make a video diverse the director would also have to use individual and distinctive mise-en-scene, cinematography, sound and editing. Each of these independent micro-elements has to be different to those used within other music videos. A artist may aim to create a diverse music video in order to gain publicity, or appeal to a different niche target audience, or they may use a music video as a way to change their 'image'.

An artist may opt to choose to create a diverse music video for many different reasons. The main reason would be to get people talking and to create a 'buzz' for the video. This would get audiences talking about the artist and their video publicising them and their music. However their are certain disadvantages to a diverse music video. One would be that in trying to gain views through making it somewhat controversial or changing it from what your original fans where used to could loose you fans.

Chris Cunningham is a music video director who is famous for creating diverse music videos which do not conform to the stereotypical genre characteristics and are unique from all others within that genre. He primarily worked within the ambient music and electronica genres and was most well known for his work with electronic artist Aphex Twin in which he created the videos "Come To Daddy" and "Windowlicker". He also won numerous awards for directing Bjorks "All Is Full Of Love" video including MTV music video award for Breakthrough Video and  a Grammy nomination for Best Short Form Music Video. His work on Aphex Twin's 'Come To Daddy' where his creative ideas of putting the artists face on characters within the music video publicised the artist swell as helping the video gain thousands of more videos than any of the artists previous videos did. His work with other high profile artists such as Madonna where also successful  His directive input on the music video for her song 'Frozen', portrayed her in an unusual light to what audiences where used to seeing her in, attracting a whole new audience to her music. 

Cunninghams work with Madonna was particularly notable as he was able to reinvent Madonnas image, targeting her at a more niche gothic audience with the use of dark colours and themes throughout. The bellow image shows her in the music video. The costume she is wearing is black and contrasts to the skimpy outfits you would usually see her in during a pop music video. Cunnigham choice of this colour is much more appropriate for the new gothic audience that it is being targeted at.  

Michael Gondry is another high profile music video director also working with artists such as Daft punk, radio head and most notably the white stripes. The settings he uses in the above music video of 'Hardest button to button' are interesting. The settings such as the train station and park that the band play in make the band seem more accessible to their fans which is important for their smaller fan base.

Similarly Michael Gondry created music videos was unique within each particular genre of music and used numerous distinctive micro elements which ensured that his videos stood out from all others within the genre. Gondry usually had a specific focus on the miss-en-secene element within the video which was his main technique to ensure his music videos was diverse as he manipulated all the visuals of the video.  Gondry worked with many more successful and more mainstream artists than Cunningham such as The Rolling Stones, Kanye West and Kylie Minogue. 

While Micheal Gondry and Chris Cunningham are both successful directors they both have contrasting directing styles. Chris Cunningham is more controversial, working on Madonna's work as well as promoting artists such as Aphex twin through his use of editing his face onto characters within the music video. His outlandish style of directing is effective as the music video  gains views through audiences talking about it and how strangest is or in madonna's case, how different it is. Gondry however works with music with a relatively smaller fan base in genres such as rock, where its more about the music and less about the artists. Therefore he adopt a more particular directing style where focus is on more the music and improving the fan base other than the artist themselves. The appeal with working with Chris Cunningham would be that he is obviously vary good at what he does and is no doubt able to get you publicity through the ambitious style of his directing however his style of directing makes it difficult for you as an artist to keep fans as they may become to confused of his music videos.


Upon reviewing both Gondry and Cunningham's work i would argue that Gondry would be the best suited director for my work. The use of his inventive visual style and manipulation of
mise-en-scene aswel as his particular style of directing would suit my rock genre music video as he already has allot of experience working in this genre, directing music videos for artists such as Radio head, The Chemical brothers. I will take inspiration from his directing on White stripes 'hardest button to button' in the hopes of replicating the same effect of making the artist appear accessible to fans into my work. However a disadvantage would be that no relationship will be built between artist and audience as this type of alternative music usually focus's on the artistry rather than the artist and so it maybe difficult to maintain a strong fan base.