Research Into Similar Products: Anton Corbijn

Anton Corbijn is a Dutch music video director as well as film director and photographer. He has filmed many videos for bands such as Depeche Mode and U2 and is one of my favourite directors.
The video Strangelove by Depeche Mode that he directed, is filmed entirely in black and white, which fits with the dark-wave style music the band produce. He uses lighting to create a secretive feel to the video as the lighting reveals different things throughout the video. These kind of shots and lighting techniques make it seem as though something has happened between the people and the editing helps to show this too. 

 

A shot I quite enjoy from this video is the one below as I like the simplicity of it and is quite a curious shot. It again adds to the sense of secrecy, especially as only Dave Gahan turns around. This is a shot I could quite easily add to my own music video to show the secrecy between the two people involved in the video. 

Another video Corbijn has directed is Lips Like Sugar by Echo and the Bunnymen. I enjoy this video due to the editing techniques he uses. He switches between black and white and being in colour with a blue tone. This is something I plan to incorporate into my own video to reflect flashbacks, but the way Corbijn has used it here is quite simple but is aesthetically pleasing. 

Corbijn also uses coloured lights to help create a fun feeling to the video, which compliments the strange, fun costume the two women are wearing in the video. 

Heart Shaped Box by Nirvana is another video that he has directed. This video is much brighter than the other videos I have looked at by him; for a start it's not in black and white. Instead he uses loud, bright colours which mimic the loud aggression of the music itself. The band also wear bright clothes to add to this sort of effect. These bright colours plus the obscene props used make the video quite eerie for the viewer. 

More recently, Corbijn directed a video called Talk by Coldplay. This video is quite interesting in it's use of colour as Corbijn uses a 3D effect on some shots which I think adds a child-like feeling to the video, especially with the robot and spaceship and the fact that the band are wearing 3D glasses themselves. 

Also the way in which the video ends with the robot whistling after eating the spaceship makes the robot itself seem very human, which is a nice use of additional sound. It also adds to the childish nature of the video and provides a little humour to it. 

Although some of the artists Anton Corbijn directs videos for are outside of my music genre, the way in which he edits his videos is something that inspires me alot and I can incorporate into my own music video too.