DIRECTOR: David Fincher
I"m taking a break from the MV History Genesis to get you excited about music videos. Many famous directors got their start making music videos and I'm going to share some of their best work today.
Fun fact, the following films were directed by people who started their career with music videos:
Spike Jonze
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David Fincher
Marc Webb 
This is a fresh list of some of the most popular directors today, each with their own versatile style and approach to film making. While Marc Webb has surface-level meaning, he understands an audience and knows how to entertain. David Fincher, perhaps my favorite director of our generation, is dark with serious layers of meaning under every frame. Spike Jonze is a whacky and intellectual director with a good eye for actors and an ability to make a score into a movie.
For those who aren't familiar with David Fincher, he also directed The Social Network, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Zodiac, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Game. If you are familiar with his work you know that his style is dark, gritty and mind-warping which is why he was the perfect pick for the american recreation of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which I'm slipping in here because the trailer for that was pretty much a music video and is one of the most unique film trailers I've seen in a while. I mean if you want to learn how to make a montage then watch this a few times:
With his dark and dirty style it makes sense that he shot videos for Iggy Pop (Home), The Rolling Stones, Nine Inch Nails, and Billy Idol. But Fincher has also worked on some A-list stars' work that are surprisingly pop with artists like Madonna, Aerosmith, Rick Springfield. The diversity of his talent speaks for itself. In 1990 he won MTV's award for best music video director, another way to say it is he was basically the only director who could have won because the every video in the category belonged to him, for his work on Aerosmith's Janie's Got a Gun, Madonna's Vogue and Don Henley's The End of Innocence.
One thing I've noticed about Fincher is that his gritiness wouldn't be nearly as crusty without the contrast of pristine images. I think the most overt videos that use this is George Michael's music video Freedom and his movie The Game. This style was prevalent in Fight Club when he contrasted "Jack's" well-groomed Ikea apartment with his new lair with Tyler as well as the grit and dirt in the basement they housed their fight club with the cleanliness of his office and of the convention center and restaurant they worked at.
Here is the link to George Michael's video Freedom. It's pretty amazing; sexy, sleek and dark. The visuals are exactly what I was talking about in the last paragraph. You have the contrast of these beautiful women in wonderful lighting and clean areas contrasted with grimy locations and George Michael doing weird things in a dingy apartment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzLZbqdOODY&feature=youtu.be
Also check out his opening for Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it's amazing and is essentially another take on the same theme, except in this, the liquid is the pristine object while the violence and the emotional textures shown are what's dirty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QWTUw2rrrY&feature=youtu.be
The video is essentially the same as the music video he created for Karen O and Trent Reznor when they made the song but more focused on the characters. It seems like the music video was the prototype for the intro. Synergy is big in music and movies and mvs get caught in the crossfire, like Dashboard Confessional's Vindicated plugging Spider Man, Lincoln Park's video with the Transformers and Aerosmith's video with Armageddon. I'd rather write this sentence than look up the names of those songs: These are all terrible cash cows and have no artistic merit. The difference is Fincher used the video as a test, a prototype so he could give the animators a better idea of what to go for in the intro for the movie and it kicks a lot of ass. I think the use of texture as emotion is what clenches this video.
I could go on about David Fincher's work all day, so instead here's a link to a site with most of his videos, because each is heads above most music video directors' videos. http://www.spinner.com/2011/12/15/david-fincher-music-videos/
Fun fact, the following films were directed by people who started their career with music videos:
Spike Jonze
_poster.jpeg)
David Fincher
Marc Webb 
This is a fresh list of some of the most popular directors today, each with their own versatile style and approach to film making. While Marc Webb has surface-level meaning, he understands an audience and knows how to entertain. David Fincher, perhaps my favorite director of our generation, is dark with serious layers of meaning under every frame. Spike Jonze is a whacky and intellectual director with a good eye for actors and an ability to make a score into a movie.
For those who aren't familiar with David Fincher, he also directed The Social Network, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Zodiac, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Game. If you are familiar with his work you know that his style is dark, gritty and mind-warping which is why he was the perfect pick for the american recreation of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which I'm slipping in here because the trailer for that was pretty much a music video and is one of the most unique film trailers I've seen in a while. I mean if you want to learn how to make a montage then watch this a few times:
With his dark and dirty style it makes sense that he shot videos for Iggy Pop (Home), The Rolling Stones, Nine Inch Nails, and Billy Idol. But Fincher has also worked on some A-list stars' work that are surprisingly pop with artists like Madonna, Aerosmith, Rick Springfield. The diversity of his talent speaks for itself. In 1990 he won MTV's award for best music video director, another way to say it is he was basically the only director who could have won because the every video in the category belonged to him, for his work on Aerosmith's Janie's Got a Gun, Madonna's Vogue and Don Henley's The End of Innocence.
One thing I've noticed about Fincher is that his gritiness wouldn't be nearly as crusty without the contrast of pristine images. I think the most overt videos that use this is George Michael's music video Freedom and his movie The Game. This style was prevalent in Fight Club when he contrasted "Jack's" well-groomed Ikea apartment with his new lair with Tyler as well as the grit and dirt in the basement they housed their fight club with the cleanliness of his office and of the convention center and restaurant they worked at.
Here is the link to George Michael's video Freedom. It's pretty amazing; sexy, sleek and dark. The visuals are exactly what I was talking about in the last paragraph. You have the contrast of these beautiful women in wonderful lighting and clean areas contrasted with grimy locations and George Michael doing weird things in a dingy apartment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzLZbqdOODY&feature=youtu.be
Also check out his opening for Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, it's amazing and is essentially another take on the same theme, except in this, the liquid is the pristine object while the violence and the emotional textures shown are what's dirty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QWTUw2rrrY&feature=youtu.be
The video is essentially the same as the music video he created for Karen O and Trent Reznor when they made the song but more focused on the characters. It seems like the music video was the prototype for the intro. Synergy is big in music and movies and mvs get caught in the crossfire, like Dashboard Confessional's Vindicated plugging Spider Man, Lincoln Park's video with the Transformers and Aerosmith's video with Armageddon. I'd rather write this sentence than look up the names of those songs: These are all terrible cash cows and have no artistic merit. The difference is Fincher used the video as a test, a prototype so he could give the animators a better idea of what to go for in the intro for the movie and it kicks a lot of ass. I think the use of texture as emotion is what clenches this video.
I could go on about David Fincher's work all day, so instead here's a link to a site with most of his videos, because each is heads above most music video directors' videos. http://www.spinner.com/2011/12/15/david-fincher-music-videos/
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