Auteur Theory was created by a film director and critic named Francois Truffault in 1954. Auteur is the French word for author and auteur theory states that a directors film will reflect their personal creative vision, which means that most of the videos they create have the same kind of themes and are put together in a similar way. Some producers also have such strong creative vibes that it is said that this creative vision shines throughout all of their work. And Auteurism is the term used to analyze films.
In this post I will be looking at the director and photographer Ray Kay
Ray Kay is an award winning Norwegian music director and photographer but he is now based in Los Angeles. Since creating his first professional music video (voodoobeats - "The One") in 2000 he has created many more and from bigger artists such as; Destiny's child, The Dream, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Jordin Sparks, Enrique Iglesias, Sean Paul, Cheryl Cole, Justin Bieber, Willow Smith, Flo Rida, James Blunt, and Alesha Dixon. And having artists such as these and many others in your library makes you highly desirable as a director, meaning that he is very much in demand. As well as this he has the most viewed video on YouTube (Justin Bieber - Baby ft. Ludicrus) which has a staggering 400 million+ views. These videos have also enabled him to win several awards, including MTV Awards, Much Music Awards and ZTV Awards.
His strong sense of fashion combined with his innovative European style and approach means that his videos are 'beautiful, believable and full of personality'. After watching several of his videos I have easily been able to find a distinct style that he uses and this seems to be the use of bright, sharp and clear colours. I feel that this use really brings out the main characters that are being portrayed, and adds emphasis to their movement.
The picture below shows a shot taken from Justin Bieber's 'Baby', and it shows Bieber in a city while the camera circles him at a low angle, with a tilt shot. For me this shows several features; including the fashionable clothes that the star is wearing and the fashionable area that he is in, also the light is mainly coming from behind him from the buildings, but there must be a light from behind the camera to make his clothing and facial expressions visible to the audience.
In the rest of the video I have seen many more examples of shot types, with another main one being a close up of his upper body, showing facial expressions (for the lip sync) and you can also see the hand movements that he is making.
Below is a shot taken from Cheryl Cole's 'Fight For This Love' which is another video that Kay directed. I have taken a similar shot and it really shows the similarities and the style that Kay chooses to use. Again a low angle tilt shot is being used. The lighting is also similar as there is a bright background but your attention is still drawn to the star as she is brightly lit and she is also wearing fashionable clothes. Other similarity's include; close ups, and mid shots (again these are used to show the lip sync and hand movements).
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