1. Music Video Director
Research…
Jonas Akerlund
By Amy Harriss

2. Jonas Akerlund…
• Jonas Akerlund is a Swedish international
director. His work covers music videos,
commercials, documentary’s and short films. He
has worked with artists such as Madonna,
Rihanna, Metallica and Pink. He is most recently
known for directing Lady Gaga ft. Beyonce’s
music video for “Telephone”.

3. Visual Style…
• Jonas’ style of music video is renowned as being very
stylistic. He is well known for creating music videos that
are almost mock forms of short films. An example of this
is shown using a narrative throughout his music video for
“Telephone”. Some stills below of the video show this
stylistic effect he uses.

4. Visual style continued…
• Jonas does not focus on a particular genre of artist or band for his videos as some
directors may. Each video is different depending on the band or artist he is working
with. He has worked with such a large range of genres which makes his music video
portfolio enhanced and shows his abilities in working with a wide range of artists.
• He produces mainly mainstream work but also some music videos for underground,
less heard of bands.
• Each video is different in their own ways from live performance music videos such as
Hollywood Undead to narrative videos such as lady gaga.
• He has also been known to include some controversial topics in his videos which can
be seen as quite dark or disturbing. For example, this can be seen in his video for
Christina Aguilera's Beautiful with the use of anorexia, homosexuals and
transvestites. Another video which has been criticized is his video for Prodigy- Smack
my bitch up, this was banned from television because of accusations of it
encouraging violence against women.

5. Editing style…
• I like the way Jonas use’s editing to enhance his
videos. The editing in “paparazzi” makes you
follow the narrative more with pre production
items such as newspapers flashing up to show
what is happening in the story. The black and
white spiral when Lady Gaga is falling gives a
stylistic attractive effect.

6. Artists & Bands he has worked with…
• Jonas has directed music videos for many artists and bands with different genres and
styles. An artist he has worked with on numerous music videos is Madonna. He has
also worked with bands and artists such as:
• Rhianna
• Lady Gaga
• Pink
• U2
• Robbie Williams
• Ozzy Osbourne
• James Blunt
• Hollywood Undead
• Blink 182
• Christina Aguilera
• Metallica
• Rolling Stones
• Jennifer Lopez
• Maroon 5

7. Lady Gaga – Paparazzi…
• This music video directed my Jonas follows a narrative storyline where lady
gaga is attempted to be murdered by her boyfriend but gets her revenge on
him by poisoning him. This video is highly stylised and focuses on the artist a
lot.
I really like this music video because of the use of narrative throughout.
Jonas has a great idea for a storyline which has worked well with the artist
and song. He uses links between the music video and lyrics to emphasise
the song. The main focus is the artist and he has ensured this with using
close ups a lot throughout. I really like the use of pre production editing to
add the newspaper articles, enhancing the story and the black and white
spiral effect towards the start.
The costumes and style of the video goes with the artist and it is clear he has
had a lot of input from the artist also. Items with the artists initials and name
on are placed within the video to enhance star iconography e.g Money.

8. Why I like his work…
• The reason I chose to do Jonas Akerlund was because I
was originally impressed with his work with Lady Gaga
with both song “Telephone” and “Paparazzi”. I really
enjoy throughout those videos the use of narrative to
create a story for the audience to follow. The way he has
tied this in with his stylistic influences and idea’s have
created a great video for the artists promotion and is an
art form in itself.
• I also really like the way he does not stick to one style
and way of producing music videos. This shows he is
capable of producing a wide range of styles for many
artists.

9. Screenshots of some of his work…

10. Screenshots of some of his work…