Auteur Theory

Auteur Theory

The Auteur Theory is a theory of film making in which the director is viewed as the main creator in a motion picture. 

It became apparent in the late 1940's in France and was named by an American film critic, Andrew Sarris. The theory had been inspired from the cinematic theories by Andre Bazin and Alexandre Astruc. The Auteur Theory largely came from Astruc's explanation of the idea of the 'camera-pen'.

The Theory believes that the director, who oversees all audio and visual elements of a motion picture, is more to be considered the "author" of the movie, rather than the writer of the screenplay. Basically certain visual elements such as; camera placement, blocking, lighting and scene length convey the message of the film rather than the plot line.

To be classified as an "auteur", according to Sarris, a director must show efficient technical knowledge in his technique, personal style in terms of how the movie looks and feels, and interior meaning.

A Music Video Director that uses the Auteur Theory

Hype Williams

Hype Williams was born in July 1970 in New York, USA as Harold Williams. He is a music director and was very well known for his music videos in the 90's.

 His style was using editing techniques and effects such as fish-eye lens work, saturated colours, wide framing, cinematic references and slow motion sequences. He is considered as the strongly influential hip-hop music director of the 90's. Although he is quite well known in this decade too for certain artists such as Kayne West, Nicki Minaj and Pharell Williams.

In 1996 he received the Billboard Music Video Award for Best Director of the year as well as the Jackson Limo Award for best Rap Video of the year

And in 1998 he received the MTV Video Music Award in the Best Rap Video category for Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy wit It".

In 2006, he won a BET Award for Best Director for Kanye West's "Gold Digger".

He works a lot with Kayne West nowadays. In fact, as of 2014, Kayne West holds the artist record for working the most times with Hype Williams. They both have collaborated on twenty music videos, beginning in 2005 with the music video for "Diamonds from Sierra Leone".

Katie Tancred