Hype Williams Biography and Information

Hype Williams is notable for creating a number of groundbreaking and successful music videos for hip hop and R&B artists such as Craig Mack ("Flava In Ya Ear"), LL Cool J ("Doin` It"), Nas ("If I Ruled The World (Imagine That)", "Street Dreams"), Missy Elliott ("The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)", "She`s a Bitch"), Busta Rhymes ("Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See"), Kelis ("Caught Out There"), and Jay-Z ("Big Pimpin`").

In 1998, he directed his first feature film, Belly.

Williams "signature style", although it is not exhibited in all videos, involves shots placed in regular widescreen ratio, while another set of shots is placed in the spaces which would normally be left blank in widescreen ratio videos. Videos that use this style include "Diamonds on my Neck" by Smitty, "I Ain`t Heard of That" by Slim Thug, "So Sick" by Ne-Yo, "In My Hood" by Young Jeezy, "Check Up On It" by Beyoncé, and many others.

Awards Williams has received for his video work include the Billboard Music Video Award for Best Director of the Year (1996), the Jackson Limo Award for Best Rap Video of the Year (1996) for Busta Rhymes` "Woo Hah," the NAACP Image Award (1997), the 8th annual MVPA Award for Black Music Achievement (1997), MTV Video Music Award in the Best Rap Video (1998) category for Will Smith`s "Gettin` Jiggy Wit It," MTV Video Music Award for Best Group Video (1999) for TLC`s "No Scrubs", Winner of the BET Award for Best Director (2006) for Kanye West`s “Gold Digger,”[2]

In 2006, Williams was honoured by MTV with its Video Vanguard Award, presented in honour of his achievements, as Kanye West would put it, as a "film maker." He received a standing ovation.[3]

2007 is in full gear for Hype Williams. In addition to his film and video endeavors, Williams has joined forces with Corbis Outline as a celebrity photographer, partnered with Havas, the 6th largest global advertising and communications group worldwide that insiders claim is a groundbreaking media deal for the distribution of video content over the internet, and heard entertaining offers to release a fashion line.

Kanye west Gold Digger Three horizontal bands of video each showing different action, or three different shots of the same subject. where the action occurs in a wide-horizontal strip, leaving the top and bottom for meta information and overlays. This is one of hype Williams signature style.

The background is colourful to match the personality of the pin up girl also the layout is like a magazine playing up to the sex pin up girl of the 50s but also being very colourful

This another example were the lighting and colour matches what the kanye and the model are wearing.

Shot in a widescreen letterbox format, using stylized art direction with few props. The video narrative matches what the lyrics are saying they are headings underneath the woman to say what type they are and they will use their sexuality to gain your money

The video relays on a lot of lighting and colours without using hardly any props

Hype Williams tends to work with urban artists, and the genre of music he works with are hip hop and rnb which is very mainstream. e.g BEYONCE CHECK UP ON IT

Close ups of the artist and they are wearing clothes that match up to the background in this case varying shades of pink.

Close up of artists face and Shot in a widescreen letterbox format

Shot in a studio with just a pink background no props not a lot of heavy lighting

The lyrics also match up with the video she is talking about a ,an watching her dance and here is an example of beyonce shaking directly linked with the lyrics.

the background is off a moving

silk sheets/drapes to emphasis feminity because the video id very girlie because of the choice to use pink throughout the whole video

Hype Williams signature styleAnother "signature style" involves placing shots in regular widescreen ratio, while a second shot is split and placed in the upper and lower bars. Videos that use this style include "I Ain't Heard of That" by Slim Thug, "So Sick" by Ne-Yo, "In My Hood" by Young Jeezy, "Check On It" by BeyoncéSince 2003, Williams has adopted a signature style combining a center camera focus on the artist or actor's body from the torso upward and a solid color background with a soft different-color light being shown in the center of the background, so as to give a sense of illumination of the background by the foreground subject. This has been displayed in "Gold Digger" by Kanye West and "Digital Girl" (Remix) by Jamie Foxx . This is also evident in the music video for Beyonce "Video Phone". He also makes mainstream videos for major stars. In his videos I do not see a narrative style. The main things I like about hype Williams style is his use of solid colour in the background even with hip hop artists but I do think there could be some variation because all his videos tend to look the same.