Task 3 - Music Video Director Research

Joseph Kahn
Joseph Kahn was born in Jersey Village, Texas and was born October the 12th 1972, as a young man Kahn attended Tisch School of arts but then later dropped out to begin his career as a music video director, in the late 90’s Kahn started his own production company called Supermega which is now housed under HIS productions.
Over the years Kahn has worked with big names in the music industry such as U2, Britney Spears, Blink 182, George Michael, Eminem etc.
As a young boy Kahn was interested in comics and movies and was really into popular culture, much to the dismissal of his parents who tried enrolling him into prestigious medical schools. But Kahn begun his love for video directing while shooting skateboarding videos of his friends taking on many part time jobs to fund his passion.
In his low budget videos Kahn had taught himself film making skills and took on the roles as cinematographer, editor and Product designer, it was in 1995 when his career really took off.
He won his first Grammy in 2002 with Eminem’s video for ‘Without me’ which was Eminem‘s controversial kick back video and one of Kahn‘s most successful videos as well as Britney Spears ‘Toxic‘, Kahn is known for working with a diverse range of stars but is mainly known for his hip-hop videos.
I think that you can tell his love of popular culture through the style and you can really get a sense that the directors own creative vision involved of each of his videos, they’re all fairly bold and eye catching and sometimes quite controversial but always tend to do the artist well and are always a success.
I think as a generalisation his intended audience are young people, as he is an unconventional director and creates videos that will stick in the mind of viewers, I think this factor has pushed boundaries of music video culture and moved his career forward successfully as a new generation director .
I also think his diversity and controversial style appeal to the young audience more than an older audience, for instance I think that a younger more rebellious audience would enjoy the ‘Piss take’ element of the videos he’s directed for Eminem, with the outrageous costumes and that the whole kicking back at the world kind of feel to them appeals, but also the bright eye catching sex appeal of the Britney Videos and the Destiny’s Child Video’s he has created. I think that they are cleverly put together and his gutsy creativity is appealing to his young audience.
Audiences seem to respond positively to his work;
‘He pulls off blockbuster special effects with a light-hearted sense of humour that betrays his penchant for humanistic optimism. You can sense an almost child-like glee in his work, with influences firmly stitched into his sleeve.’ This is a review I read on a website which has only positive quotes to match a very good interview with the Joseph Kahn to accompany it, The critic has nothing but positive remarks and I totally agree with the statement above.
And remarks made by fans on you tube quoted that the Eminem Video ‘Without me’
Was ; ‘Awesome’ and ‘F**kin Genius’, 'OMG!make more vids i love it', For Katy Perrys ' Waking up in vegas' fans also gave positive feedback to the video in some cases more so than the song,'Great video the song sucks!', but Kahn does also recieve bad feedback for his controversial styles Gwen Stefani's 'Sweet escape' which is a simple video of her in a gold jail trying to escape, 'This song is amazing but once I saw the videos my image of the song escaped',' Really weird video. But I like the song.','One of the most overplayed songs of all time, but still it's a top choon! Well written, well remixed, well produced and well performed. Not fussed on the vid though!' Although mixed with some negative feedback it is mainly positive and I’d say that the video matched the audience profile.