DIRECTOR: HYPE WILLIAMS

Life and work

"Hype" Williams was given his stage name by writing partner Muse One, who taught him the ins and outs of the graffiti culture. He was also mentored by "Fargo" in graffiti. Williams began his film-making career when he left Adelphi University in Garden City, NY, and joined with fellow graffiti writers Mike "Muse" Alexander and Ricardo "Phyz" Springer to create SOTA (State of the Art Productions). Other notable SOTA members include San Diego, Ca graffiti kings and two time Emmy award winning artist, Ken "Quasar" Thompson and Chris "Sake" Kinney. Under that umbrella SOTA created logo and album cover designs for many hip-hop artists of the time. Their big break came when they began working with Classic Concepts Video Productions. Lionel "Vid Kid" Martin & VJ Ralph McDaniels used SOTA for art direction in many of their videos and created Hype's first opportunity with the "Filmmakers With Attitude" moniker (FWA), which was Hype's first video company.

Williams is notable for creating a number of music videos for hip hop and R&B artists such as The Notorious B.I.G. ("Warning") & ("One More Chance"), Craig Mack ("Flava in Ya Ear"), LL Cool J ("Doin' It"), Nas ("If I Ruled The World (Imagine That)", "Street Dreams", "Hate Me Now"), Missy Elliott ("The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)", "She's a Bitch"), Busta Rhymes ("Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See"), TLC ("No Scrubs"), Kelis ("Caught Out There"), and Jay-Z ("Big Pimpin'"), Aaliyah("Rock The Boat") and is currently working with Kian and Christina Aguilera. Williams has also worked with non-hip hop artists such as Coldplay ("Viva La Vida"), Hoobastank ("If I Were You"), and t.A.T.u. ("Gomenasai").

In 1998, he directed his first feature film, Belly.

Awards Williams has received for his video work include the Billboard Music Video Award for Best Director of the Year (1996), the Jackson Limo Award for Best Rap Video of the Year (1996) for Busta Rhymes' "Woo Hah," the NAACP Image Award (1997), the 8th annual MVPA Award for Black Music Achievement (1997), MTV Video Music Award in the Best Rap Video (1998) category for Will Smith's "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It," MTV Video Music Award for Best Group Video (1999) for TLC's "No Scrubs", and the BET Award for Best Director (2006) for Kanye West's “Gold Digger”.^[2]

In 2006, Williams was honored by MTV with its Video Vanguard Award, presented in honor of his achievements as a filmmaker.^[1]

[edit]Style

A signature style used by Williams throughout the vast majority of his videos, shot mostly with cinematographer John Perez, a new yorker educated in SVA, with a surprisingly 'anonymous career', which includes hits like Clinton's bus campaign into the presidency, was the Fisheye lens which distorted the camera view around the central focus. This was used by the tandem Williams/Perez in "Gimme Some More" by Busta Rhymes and "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" by Missy Elliott; however, it was dropped by 2003, when he experienced his lowest level of production activity since the beginning of his career as a music video director.

Another "signature style" involves placing shots in regular widescreen ratio, while a second shot is split and placed in the upper and lower bars. Videos that use this style include "Diamonds on my Neck" by Smitty, "I Ain't Heard of That" by Slim Thug, "So Sick" by Ne-Yo, "In My Hood" by Young Jeezy, "Check On It" by Beyoncé, "Snap Yo Fingers" by Lil Jon and many others.

Since 2003, Williams has adopted a signature style combining a center camera focus on the artist or actor's body from the torso upward and a solid color background with a soft different-color light being shown in the center of the background, so as to give a sense of illumination of the background by the foreground subject. This has been displayed in "Gold Digger" by Kanye West, "Digital Girl" (Remix) by Jamie Foxx and Beyoncé's "Video Phone".

HE'S THE WOO, JOHN WOO HONORED AT VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

Dean Napolitano/Wall Street Journal

John Woo at the Venice Film Festival.

The Venice Film Festival honored veteran director John Woo at a star-filled celebration on Friday night, awarding him with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

Woo accepted the award from American director Quentin Tarantino, president of the jury for the main competition at this year’s festival, and Hong Kong director Tsui Hark. He dedicated the award to his mother, wife and family.

Woo is the director of such 1980s Hong Kong films as “A Better Tomorrow” and “The Killer,” both starring Chow Yun-fat and highly imitated in Hollywood for their stylized action sequences. Moving to Hollywood in the mid-90s, Woo directed John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in“Face/Off” and “Mission: Impossible II” starring Tom Cruise.

Woo told Speakeasy that he was completely surprised when he first learned that he would receive the award. “It was really unexpected.” Venice festival director Marco Müller at a press conference this week heaped praise onto Woo and his influential style of Hong Kong and Hollywood action movies.

“I don’t feel like I was bestowing an honor,” he said. “It was waiting for him.” At a private reception in Venice just before Friday’s award ceremony, a Who’s Who of the Hong Kong film industry gathered to toast Woo, including actresses Michelle Yeoh (“Tomorrow Never Dies” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), Maggie Cheung (“In the Mood for Love” and “Irma Vep”); directors Tsui Hark, Andrew Lau and Stanley Kwan; and producers Terence Chang and Nansun Shi. Immediately following the ceremony, Woo’s new film had its world premiere. “Reign of Assassins,” a Chinese-language film screening out-of-competition that he co-directed with Su Chao-pin, is a martial-arts mystery (with shades of “Face/Off”) starring Yeoh as a Ming Dynasty assassin. It begins opening in Asia later this month. The Weinstein Co. has bought the North American distribution rights, although a U.S. release date is unclear.