Research&Planning: Shane Drake.

Shane Drake is a cross-genre music video director who has worked with the likes of hard rock bands, Trivium, Between the Buried and Me and Papa Roach as well as more pop/rock bands such as Panic! At the Disco, Fall Out Boy and Paramore all the way to artists like Dappy, Flo Rider and Gym Class Heroes.  He is known for his artistic and stylised videos, which often have a film-like quality about them, which may come about because he has also co-produced three films.


On himself Drake says “My original intention was to make feature films. Directors such as Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, Terry Gilliam, Oliver Stone and Milos Forman, as well as newcomers Tim Burton, Quentin Tarantino, P.T. Anderson, and more helped to shape my artistic coming of age. My first significant mentor happened, however, to be a music video director, hence my foray into the world Musical Cinema.”

Although a lot of his music videos are for less heavy bands than RavenFace I still think we can learn a lot from watching his videos as he is known for his high energy and inspiring ideas which are skills that can be transferred to any type of music video.

One of my favourite videos by him is Panic! At the Disco-The Ballad of Mona Lisa

The overall feel of this video is very dynamic and theatrical, which is not that all that common in popular music videos. The mise-en-scene is very interesting and obviously a lot of thought went into it, the general theme being steampunk with devices such as the net gun and costume including tops hats, goggles and waistcoats. Panic! Are a band known for their kooky dress sense and this mis-en-scene ties in beautifully with their image and other videos such as I write Sins Not Tragedies (also directed by Drake won the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year).  In my opinion the video suits the song perfectly and is fantastically directed, incorporating performance from the band and a story narrative all whilst being set in this steampunk environment. Throughout the video there are lots of interesting shots and use of the camera such as the extreme close up on Brendon (lead singer) at the end and the enigma created at the start where the shots vary from a tilt down to Brendon, starting at the top of his top hat and an empty, derelict room covered in cobwebs. There is also a lot of camera movement throughout the video and not very many static shots and this is something that maybe I should think about when filming my video, although I would have to be careful not to make it look amature. The editing is also superb with the camera zooming into Brendon's coat and when it comes back it is now his alter ego.

There is a 'the filming of' video for this music video where Spencer and Bendon talk about Drake and this is a really nice way of them describing what kind of director he is.