Steve Barron • Born: May 4th 1956• Nationality: Irish• Career: Director and

Producer• First directed music video:

1979, “Strange Town” – The Jam

• Most recent: July 2010, “Butterfly Butterfly (The Last Hurrah)” – A-ha

• Other work: Feature Films, e.g. The Adventures Of Pinocchio

• Recurring bands: Toto, The Culture Club, A-ha and Bryan Adams.

• Most popular video: “Take On Me” – A-ha

The genre of the director• The genre of music that Steve Barron

works with is mainly soft/hard/alternative rock.

• The most recurring musicians that I noticed were, The Culture Club, Bryan Adams, Toto and A-ha. All of which are classed as these genres.

• Each of these bands are also world famous, each said to be the start of new genres and eras of music, so for a director of the music videos for them, a lot of pressure was placed upon him to make videos as original or powerful as the music and musicians themselves.

• As well as having to live up to new eras in music, he also had to create something special for the hit single “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson. Not only must the video live up to expectations from that of Michael Jackson, but also be successful enough to help the single reach its fame.

Recurring themes

• Recurring themes for a music video director tend to be subtle within the videos. Things such as editing techniques, colours and styles are usually what can be noticed about a director.

• For Steve Barron, the recurring themes that I picked up on were the use of colour. Each and almost all of his music videos (excluding “butterfly butterfly” by A-ha) have a sort of brown gradient to them. This may be because his music video are mainly 80’s and 90’s music videos, and/or this was the “in” thing to have, or because it is one of his techniques.

Steve Barron Other

Don’t you want me – The Human League Never gonna give you up – Rick Astley

Billie Jean – Michael Jackson Bad – Michael Jackson

Take on me – A-ha Rio – Duran Duran

Recurring themes• Another recurring theme that I picked

up on, was the use of love story narratives in most of his music video (Summer of 69, Africa, Take on me). However, these may not be important as the songs themselves talk of love.

• It can almost be said that the music videos are more movie based as they have a heavy narrative within them. This could explain the change from music video director to movie director in the 90’s, as his music videos weren’t long enough for Steve Barron to make the story he wants.However. The videos remain a success and were good enough to ass off as a film themselves, though very short.

Bryan Adams – Summer of 69

Kenny Loggins – Heart to Heart

Recurring themes…• The final theme that I noticed with

Steve Barron’s work is originality. Though this can hardly be stated as a theme, I think that it is something that is very important to point out with this director. The reason for this being is because his music videos are very early in introduction of the music videos. Without any past videos to take inspiration from, these videos are a real display of his ideas and creations that he had. Good examples of his originality is A-ha – Take on me and Toto – Africa.Michael Jacksons Billie Jean as well is said to be a revolutionary music video as it started off the life of MTV.

Toto – Africa

A-ha – Take on Me

In conclusion…From looking at Steve Barron’s work, it is clear to see that he was the beginning of a new era for music. At the start of his music video career in 1979, he was one of the first in the business so it was something different, but he managed to make something new of it all. Moving away from the usual codes and conventions that were set back the to set some new ones himself. He did this by adding narrative to his videos and making the more movie like, appealing to a wider audience ad making music more mainstream on the television.

Steve Barron did well in the music video business as he had no influences from previous videos, but used his imagination to use films as an influence. This could be why his career ended as a music video director, and moved onto feature length films.