Auteur Theory | Hype Williams

Hype Williams is a famous music video director, who’s signature style has developed and changed over recent years. Firstly he used to use the fisheye lens allot in his videos early on in his career, he also used a style where he shot in a regular widescreen shot and have another shot split in two one on top of the first shot and one on the bottom, this is seen in the video “Diamond on my neck” by “Smitty” but he dropped both these style in 2003 due to lack of work directing music videos, but this period from 1996 to 1999 was his most successful to date, where he won six awards in three years for his music video’s. Hype Williams is associated with hip-hop/rap genre, working with artists such as Kanye West, Will Smith, Busta Ryhmes, 2pac and Notorious BIG. After 2003 Hype Williams adopted a new style in an attempt to get more work. The new style was focusing the camera on the upper torso of the artist with one solid colour in the background, this was seen in Kanye West’s music video for the song “Gold Digger”. In more recent years though he has changed his style again to a more high tempo style with flashing images and lights, this style was clearly visible in Kanye West’s song “All of The Lights”, which was released in 2009.