Music video director - Shane Drake

Shane Drake is an American music video director who has directed music videos for artists including Fall Out Boy, Panic At The Disco, Flo Rida and Avril Lavigne. He has directed more than 50 music videos and 3 short films, has won an MTV video award and been nominated for several other awards for his directing work. He began his career working mainly with rock / pop-punk acts, which he still specialises in but now also works with more mainstream, pop artists.

The video for "Saturday" by Fall Out Boy was one of the earliest videos that Drake directed (2004) and one of Fall Out Boy's first singles to be released. It features performance by the band, audience shots, as well as a narrative, with scenes cutting between each of these. The cuts are fairly fast paced and show the band and audience from a range of different perspectives and shots. Throughout the narrative, there is a focus on the two main members of the group - Pete and Patrick. The use of editing and mise-en-scene gives the video a "raw" and edgy feel, which would appeal to fans of Fall Out Boy, particularly at this early stage in their career.

The video for "Decode" by Paramore was directed by Drake in 2008. The song is the soundtrack to the film Twilight. The video incorporates scenes from Twilight as well as narrative which features the band performing in woods. This video's association with the film Twilight made the song and music video extremely popular, particularly with fans of the film. I think that the narrative works well with the film footage as the band are performing in similar surroundings to those shown in the film footage, and the use of editing, particularly the different camera angles make the video interesting to watch. Throughout the video, there is a heavy focus on lead singer, Hayley Williams, including footage of her away from the rest of the band, singing on her own.

The video for "Smile" by Avril Lavigne, from 2011, is one of the more recent music videos to have been directed by Drake. The video begins with Lavigne performing in a room, surrounded by elements of mise-en-scene such as posters and graffiti on the walls. The video then cuts to a narrative of Lavigne walking through a city, shot in black and white. Throughout the rest of the video, scenes cut between Lavigne performing and the narrative. The contrast between the black & white and colour footage looks effective, particularly when there are quick-cuts between scenes.

A clear link between all the Shane Drake videos that I have analysed is that they all feature both performance by the artists as well as a narrative sequence, with cuts between both, this is a common feature of many rock music videos. 

Research on music videos

This is the video for Zzzonked by Enter Shikari, which is mainly made up of footage from one of their gigs. There is also a lot of focus on the crowd jumping and dancing, which is important for music of this genre. The video is filmed in black and white, with certain parts edited to a slower or faster pace to add effect. The use of strobe lighting in this video also adds effect, especially as it is shot in black and white. There are cuts between footage from a lot of different angles, and the cuts are very fast paced in some parts of the video, fitting in with the song. The style of the video is fairly simple (just footage of the band and audience) but it is effective and would appeal to the band's target audience (fans of rock music)

This is the video for I Miss You by Blink 182. From the start of the video, the lighting and mise en scene set the mood for the video and fit in well with the song. The visual images in the video fit very well with the song as it is set in what looks like a deserted Victorian mansion with scenes such as a ghostly-looking woman disappearing into thin air and another woman sinking into a pool of water. The video is very dark, in terms of lighting, which adds to the 'eery' feel of the song and video. The editing techniques on the video make it look like it is an old-fashioned film, for example the cracks and shakes of the frame in certain parts. The use of slow fading from one scene to another also adds to the "dark" and "mysterious" imagery.