Director study: Marc

Webb
Marc Webb has directed music videos for numerous punk, rock and pop bands in
the last 13 years. Such artists include; My Chemical Romance, Good Charlotte,
Green Day, Maroon 5, Puddle Of Mudd, P.O.D, Yellowcard and Jimmy Eat world.
Looking at the genres of the bands Webb has directed numerous of videos for, it
becomes evident that the genre of music he seems to specialise in is the
punk/rock genre.
Generally, Webb tends to edit at the speed of the music the video will
accompany. For example, in My Chemical Romances Helena, Webb
edited the music faster during the chorus (where the beat is faster)
and slower during the verses of the song.
The music video directed by Webb that stood out to me most as
inspiration for my own music video would be Last Of the American
Girls. This is because he combines both a narrative and
performance based element to the video (Lynchs theory of basic
video structures). Webb seemed to focus the performance based
elements of the video on the intro and chorus of the song and
focused on a narrative during the verses.

The combination of narrative and performance in almost equal

measures is seen throughout multiple music videos that he has

directed, within each utilising a mixture of long shots of the entire

band and close ups on the vocalists and other bands members,
showing star identity and Goodwins theory of a demand on the
part of record companies for close-ups of the main artist/vocalist.
Webb tends to stay within the rock/punk genre, so the visual style is
generally similar, darker clothes and instruments and
backgrounds/sets, while also adding a unique element to fit the
band/artist in the video, strengthening the bands iconography
(Goodwins typical codes and conventions). For example, My
Chemical Romance went through eras where their unique style
would change, Webb mainly directed in the so called Bullet era, so
stuck to the colour scheme of mainly red and black for costume and
background (which can be seen in the image below), at the time this
was MCRs signature look and was thereby elevated by Webbs
Helena music video, which today has over 31 million views.

It is mainly the combination of narrative and performance based videos by

Webb which has inspired my music video to be similar in construct. Also
using the bands look to influence the costume and other Mise-en-scene
elements wll inspire certain elements within my own music video.