Emil Nara (Music Video Director Research)

Emil Nara



The example of the use of contrast.

Above is Elli Ingram's music video (and screen grabs) 'When it was Dark' which was directed by Emil Nara. The visual style of the director is quite gritty and honest with washed out colours contrasting with more vibrant colours to create a heightened impact of the themes, for example the use of white liquid with red strongly implies blood reinforcing the hint of violence during a close up. After researching Nara's other compositions I find that this is a common theme. The other artists are more mainstream rather than small independent singer songwriter, for example other works include; Ed Sheeran- 'Don't', Calvin Harris' - 'Summer' and Tinie Tempah feat. Labrinth - 'Lover not a Fighter' which is all music belonging to the pop genre where as Elli Ingram belongs to the genre Singer Songwriter. Each of these videos appear to be focused around a culture or theme for example 'Lover not a Fighter' contains the idea of competition and is influenced by bullfighting and the Spanish culture mixed with a modern twist of girls driving cars, this is very similar in 'Summer' which contains a car race. Religion is another theme which is present in Ingram's video and the crossing of the line between saint and sinner, overall Emil Nara likes to work with a cultural theme and then experiment by twisting the conventions and expectations of the viewer to heighten the impact of the video. Although none of Nara's directed videos contain any instruments there is use of lip sync meaning that the majority conform to Andrew Goodwin's idea of three types of video of performance. In the case of Elli Ingram's 'When it was Dark' there is a hybrid between performance and conceptual due to the high use of symbolism and visual imagery, especially during the establishing shots and cantered framing, but not narrative as there wasn't a story with a beginning, middle and end that's easy to follow, a lot of the video is left to the viewer to decide the relationship between the artist and the priest. In the case of 'Lover not a Fighter' it is a hybrid of performance and narrative with the fighting cars which covers the whole fight, beginning to end. The editing style in Ingram's video mostly contains cross cuts to combine the religious imagery but also includes cutaways to narrate the actions of the priest and there is also a use of juxtaposition with the sinned next to the saint during the two-shot of the artist in the confessions box, Nara incorporates her editing style to convey the meaning and symbolism within the music video.