By Garry Maddox
Shane Drake remembers the impact that Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video had on him as an impressionable nine-year-old growing up in California.
“It was one of the first music videos that had an effect on me,” he says. “I know it was the same for lots of people because it engaged us in a new way. We’d seen movies, we’d seen television and we’d seen music videos, but we hadn’t seen music videos like that.”
“We’d seen movies, we’d seen television and we’d seen music videos but we hadn’t seen music videos like that”: Shane Drake.Credit: Steven Siewert
After an unusually meandering career path - studying to be a doctor, working as a biochemist, training to be an ordained minister then becoming an actor who became fascinated with directing - Drake turned his MTV-generation love of music videos into a career.
Working with Taylor Swift, Keith Urban, Panic! At The Disco, Kelly Clarkson, Tim McGraw, Flo Rida, Carrie Underwood, Timbaland and Avril Lavigne, the 50-year-old’s accolades include winning video of the year at both MTV’s Video Music Awards and the Country Music Association Awards.
Drake, who is speaking about his career at the Clipped Music Video Festival at Sydney’s Randwick Ritz on Sunday, believes music videos are just as important for artists now despite the rise of TikTok. The difference is that record companies are using shoots to generate as much online content as possible, including photos and interviews.
“In the ’90s, they’d spend a million dollars on an artist they thought was going to be big in the States,” he says. “They would blow crazy commercial-level money on the hope that this was the next thing.
“When it panned out, it made them millions. When it didn’t, it was a loss that was a write-off, and it all worked out in the wash.
“But now budgets have become so splintered that a really expensive music video budget is only something you get when you’ve proven it’s going to be of value. It’s now something that’s earned and that makes more sense to me.”
While there are - very, very rarely - music videos that cost $US500,000 to $US1 million now, Drake says “the majority of videos happen below $US100,000 and a ton happen below $US10,000”.
Working with Swift earlier in her career, he was struck by her professionalism.
“When she’s on set, she’s very composed and very focused on the job at hand,” he says. “When it’s time to say ‘action’, she just lights up. The Christmas tree lights turn on.
“One of the first music videos that had an effect on me”: Michael Jackson in the Thriller music video from 1983.Credit: Alamy Stock Photo
“It’s like ‘whoa. This person is larger than life’. Then it’s ‘cut’ and she’s back in her quiet place.”
Drake is not surprised that Swift has become an accomplished writer-director of her own music videos.
“She gets images, she knows what she’s doing, and she has a plan,” he says. “So it makes perfect sense that she would direct. I value that, and I think we’re seeing that more with artists now.
“Billie Eilish does it too, and I think it’s cool. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened more.”
While Swift and Eilish have avoided the all-too-common sexualisation of young women in music videos over the decades, Drake thinks the dynamic has changed.
“Sex will always sell for good or for bad,” he says. “But certain pop artists have integrated sexuality into their brand and the 360 degrees of their operation, so that, when it comes to a music video, it makes sense to keep doing that.
“We see that in really high-end pop and a lot of the hip-hop world. But when you take an artist and you sexualise them out of their context, that’s a problem. When an artist is trying to find their way and our solution is ‘let’s do sex’, that’s problematic.”
While the best music videos are often art, Drake says they are essentially commercials.
“It makes perfect sense that she would direct”: Taylor Swift in the music video for Anti-Hero, which she wrote and directed.
“The commercial is for the band’s song,” he says. “It’s the product that we’re trying to sell so you go buy their album, you go see their shows, you buy their merch. The documentaries [on singers and bands] that are coming out now are just longer forms of that.”
While some leading film directors have made classic music videos, including John Landis with Thriller, Martin Scorsese with Michael Jackson’s Bad, David Fincher with Madonna’s Express Yourself and Vogue, and Brian De Palma with Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing In The Dark, Drake wants to move in the opposite direction.
He has been developing film and television projects including a high school drama series, Save Our Generation, about the emo era he grew up in.
“I’ve always said music video is a young man’s game,” Drake says. “But I’ve been pretty stunted in a young man’s mentality for most of my life, so it works for me.”
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