Research into a Music Video Director

Background
Part of BlackHand Cinema, Mandler is an American

film director, music video, television commercial director and photographer. His most notable and frequent collaborator is Rihanna. The two have worked on sixteen videos together throughout her career, beginning with "Unfaithful" in 2006 and most recently "Diamonds" in 2012. He has also written and directed music videos for many other prominent artists including, among others, JayZ, Beyonce, Eminem, Usher, Shakira, Taylor Swift, Drake, FUN and Lana Del Rey.

About Anthony
According to Mandler, the music industry is in somewhat of a

renaissance period, and its as important today as the early days of MTV. The image of an artist is almost as important as the music in a way. For example, the dance moves of Beyonce and the outrageous outfits of Lady Gaga; without visually experiencing who these artists are, an important part of what makes them so special would be lost. One of Mandlers keys to achieving this level of impact is by enhancing the experience by bringing a cinematic feel to music videos He also looks deeply at the image the artist is trying to convey. How do we take that character and tell their story? For Mandler, when a video starts to come together in the right way, the lyrics and the music become the soundtrack of that story and those two elements together become something like 1 plus 1 starting to equal 4.

Quotes
Part of what is missing today are event videos. We all

remember Michael Jackson's Scream (made for upward of $6 million) or Jay-Z Big Pimpin (made for roughly $2 million). It is videos like these that become timeless and memorablePeople still love the event videosbut, the vast majority of videos today are underfunded and it becomes tougher to execute unique ideas on a small budget. 70% of videos today dont have enough money invested in production or start with a clever enough idea to do something unusual and, therefore, slip into the sea of the average, says Mandler.