The missing director

...except mtv barely plays full music videos anymore :-(. just reality tv, and the occasionaly 30 second clip of a music video thanks to TRL....anyways...I am often guilty of the same thing (of not knowing the director). What's worse for me, is music videos, and to a lesser extent, commercials. Commercials aren't really something we think of as a work of art, or as something comes from authorship, since it has the function of advertising. In Western conceptualization, art is valued often when it's art for art's sake (which is why the artwork from other cultures is sometimes not as highly valued since they often have a function). The same thing could be said for music videos, which is what this post will focus on since that's what I love to watch. Music video directors haven't always been given recognition for their work and vision. At some music video programs, they still don't list who the director is, even though there's been a growth of aknowledgment, such as the release of music video collections on DVD, such as those of Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. I often still associate the music video with only the artist. Though the director may be responsible for creating the music video, it could not exist without the artist's song. Where do we draw the line on authorship in something like the music video that is so incredibly collaborative? Is the songwriter the author or the director or both? Increasingly we are being ushed into a multimedia age of combining different mediums and using collaborations which complicates the notion of author even more.

I was actually thinking the same thing about how when I read a book, its usually because I know something about the author, whether it be the fact that I'm attracted to their personal information (Think Hemingway) or because I like other material by them. But when it comes to film and authorship, I am more often than not unaware of who the author was. And when I do know, its because I've sought out that particular film. but I completely agree with you when you say that the lack of recognition for film authors is probably due to the fact that the public rarely has a formal understanding of what the production process is. And i guess it might even have to do with the fact that reading a book is usually more mentally engaging than simply watching a film. I'm not saying that a film simply requires watching, but let's be honest, the people that simply watch films for the sake of watching probably don't care about finding out who created it because that may interfere with this less engaging form of spectatorship. As far as having any insight into how much agency a director really has, I have no idea when it comes to film although I have a more concrete idea of what a news director does. If that interests you, I can get you into contact with one. It could actually be a pretty interesting perspective. Cheers!