Hype Williams

Industry • Hype Williams is an American film director,

screenwriter, film producers and music video director. He was born in Queens, New York and started out by putting his graffiti tag via store fronts, local billboards or playgrounds.

• He began working with Classic Concepts Video Productions which created his first major opportunity to get into filmmaking.

Collaborations • In 1996, Hype Williams was awarded best director of the year for

the Billboard Music Video. Also in 1996, he got the Jackson Limo Award for Best Rap Video of the Year for the Busta Rhymes video “Woo Hah!! Got You All In Check”.

• In 1997 he was awarded the MTV Video Music Award in the Best Rap Video Category for Will Smiths “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit it” and Best Group Video for TLC’s “No Scrubs” in 1999.

• In 2006, Hype Williams got the BET Award for Best Director for Kanye West’s “Gold Digger”. Kayne is the artist who Williams has worked with the most, with a total of twenty collaborations. Not far behind West is is Busta Rhymes who has collaborated with Hype Williams on sixteen videos.

Style• A main style favoured by Williams was the use of the Fisheye

lens, however he decided to stop using this style by 2003 as the director experienced his lowest level of of production activity. His other styles include deep focus, smooth cutting, slow motion action, street like fantasy and cinematic qualities.

• A signature style Hype Williams uses is combining a center camera focus on the artists body from the torso upward and a solid background colour with a soft different colour light being shown in the center of the background.