This week, Billboard is celebrating the music video with a week's worth of content that looks at the past, present and future of the video, at a time when it seems to be as relevant as ever. Here, we talk to 10 up-and-coming music video directors who are defining the form as we currently know it, and pushing it to new and unpredictable places.
A great music video doesn't just bring a song to life -- often, it lends the song a new one. For the new vanguard of music video directors behind many of the most buzzed-about and shared clips of the last few years, that has meant everything from giving a Dua Lipa bop an empowering, GIF-friendly twist to bathing Janelle Monáe in milk to communicate self-love and leveraging a Drake jam for charity -- spurring plentiful meme-making in the process.
Below, 10 of the brightest new talents leading the industry from behind the lens look back on their fumbling first encounters with a camcorder, teensiest -- and grandest -- video budgets ever, favorite on-set moments with stars from Troye Sivan to Lil Yachty, and what’s still on their filmmaking bucket lists.