Shane Drake
Drake started his career by working as and cinematographer for Deftones and other such bands. He then moved onto directing and has directed over 50 music videos and co-produced three films. He now owns Red Van Pictures, a Los Angeles-based production company.
He has been nominated/ won many awards for his work, most prominently with Panic! at the Disco.
He has directed music videos for many well-known artist, from all genres. For example; Tim McGraw, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, The Wanted, Timberland, The Plain White T's, Daughty, Three Days Grace, Avril Lavigne etc.
I like Drake's style as he takes can take the 'typical' relationship video and put an interesting twist on it. This is seen in Highway Don't Care by Tim McGraw, Smile by Avril Lavigne and Outta My Head by Daughtry. I particularly like his use of jump cuts as they fit in well with the videos/ tone of the song and they look tasteful, rather than tacky as they often do.
The use of lighting/ colour in his music videos is interesting and unique. Many of his videos are lit or colourised in unexpected ways, such as in Smile where there are black and white shots, however, red is picked out as the only colour. This makes the paper hearts stand out against the 'uncoloured world'. This is a nice look and helps highlight particular bits of the narrative. In Panic! at the Disco's Nine in the Afternoon, the lighting is very bright indoors, whereas outdoors it is very washed out. I believe this is to reflect the '70's feel of the music video and I like the way Drake achieved the look.
His use of lens flares and 'sunset' lighting gives LP's Into the Wild a very contrasting video to other more popular songs. The natural looks fits with the theme of the song and gives a nice break to other harshly lit Pop Videos. The use of lens flares creates a gorgeous look of the setting and gives the look of a soft, warm filter without really adding one.
-The use of lighting in his music videos has helped me to come up with some ideas for my own video, particularly the 'turning back the clock' feel of Nine in the Afternoon.Also, his use of diegetic sound in the narrative parts of the video is fairly unique and I feel it makes the music video more of a short movie than a 'song with pictures'. This is seen is many or his music video, particularly in Highway Don't Care and Whoa oh by Forever the Sickest Kids. It gives a nice aspect to the song, not often seen in music videos. It also helps with the verisimilitude of the video and captures the attention of the audience more as they get sucked in by the almost film-like feel.