Frederick Lloyd

Music Video Director Research

Frederick Lloyd is a 23 year old British film maker.
He is an award winning director and composer and
specifically tends to produce music videos for UK
based artists. He also specialises in underground
rock or alternative dance music, such as indie rock
band Deaf Havana, for which he has directed two
music videos (Mildred and Boston Square), and
post rock band sleepmakeswaves. He is influenced
by his University teacher, Chris Pinnock, who had
previously worked with Steven Spielberg and
praised him highly on his work.
Frederick Lloyd uses colour and lighting to give his music
videos a surreal look. In particular I enjoy the way he
takes something ordinary and makes it look beautiful
with the lighting he uses, for example the trees in the
Dive
in Let Go video, or the
campfire in the Deaf Havana
Mildred video.
Another feature Lloyd uses frequently for artistic
effect is a pull focus. Throughout his videos these
are frequently used, though particularly in videos
that look at nature such as his
video for Talons, Impala. By
doing this Lloyd gives attention
to multiple particular features of
the image that can be considered particularly
beautiful or significant, without the rest of the image
to distract.
Lloyd switches between types of music video
(thought rarely using a performance video), and
changes his lighting and colour to match. The video
for Mildred follows a
narrative story, following two
young boys that could be the
two the song describes. In this video the lighting
and colour seems soft, vintage and beautiful, which
could be considered to represent the childrens
youth or the melancholy sound of the song.
However, in the sleepmakeswaves (hello) Cloud
Mountain video, Lloyd creates a concept video in
which he uses a change of harsh
greys and yellows to a strong
orange glow from the sun. These
more unrealistic colours represent
the odd concept of the video well. The colours also
change to suit the style of music - in the beginning,
as the song is quieter and building, the sun affects
the colours. Later, when the guitar becomes heavier
and the drums louder, the harsh
grey and yellow tones take over.