Colin Tilley

Colin Tilley born June 27, 1988 in Berkeley, California is an award winning music video director who has written and directed music videos for artists including Chris Brown, Justin Bieber, and Keri Hilson among others. His most notable and frequent collaborator is Chris Brown. The two have worked on more than a dozen videos together in the last two years including every single off of Chris Brown's album F.A.M.E. Colin Tilley has won several awards including video of the year at the 2011 BET Awards. He was also nominated for three videos at the 2011 MTV VMAs including best male video, best hip hop video, and best collaboration video. Colin Tilley grew up around a lot of artists like that he was influenced by like The Cataracs, but he didn’t make it in the music industry. However he found his niche on the creative side and just jumped in head first with a handy camera about 3 years ago. Colin Tilley also does a lot of editing for documentaries and films. The three things that differentiates a good music video from a bad music video for him would be emotion, authenticity and creativity.

‘Look At Me Now’- Dir by Colin Tilley

Colin Tilley directed over a dozen of Chris Brown’s music videos most of them from his latest album F.A.M.E. He has been won the 2011 Best video of the year for Chris Brown’s ‘Look at me now’. That video was also nominated for 2011 VMA Best Hip Hop video and 2011 VMA Best male collaboration video.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gyLR4NfMiI&ob=av2e

‘U Smile’- Dir by Colin Tilley

Tilley has also worked with the teen sensation Justin Bieber and he directed the music video for his single ‘U Smile’. The video won Best Male video at the 2011 VMAs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2ozuCXpVJY&ob=av2e

‘Yeah 3x’- Dir by Colin Tilley

This video was the first released out of Chris Brown’s latest album F.A.M.E. The video received a lot of positive criticism because of its up-tempo and dance feel. The music video depicts the Chris Brown in various dance sequences throughout the video and appearances from dancers from America’s got Talent. The scenes used for the video also gives it a neighbourhood street party feel.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mC2ixOAivA&ob=av2e

Analysis of ‘Deuces’ dir by Colin Tilleyhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhBwt9mw7Sk&ob=av3e‘Deuces’ is a song Chris Brown, taken from his mixtape Fan of a Fan (2010). The R&B ballad also features guest vocal performances from Tyga and McCall. Lyrically, the song is about breaking it off with a girl after failed attempts to make the relationship work. It was released as a digital download in the United States on June 29, 2010. The video for "Deuces" was filmed in black and white, against the graffitied backdrop of the Los Angeles River.

The video starts off with a girl walking away on the beach with her back facing towards the camera. This suggests the girl is leaving because she has just ended her relationship. This denotes with the title of the song which means goodbye. The camera moves on to a shot of Chris Brown, Kevin Mccall and Tyga all sitting on a car on the beach. In this shot Chris Brown is mainly the one the camera is focused on the other two are out of focus which makes him the centre of attention and draws a viewer to him. The empty beach with graffiti also suggests the breakdown of the relationship which the song is about and the emptiness and dullness of a relationship. There are a lot of close-ups of Brown’s face which shows his emotions of sadness and regret. Although Chris Brown is a well established artists the clos-ups may have been used to reestablish him because of his short break from music, as this was his first video released from his 2010 mixtape. The camera shows an establishing shot of Chris standing in a vast place with no one on it except him, there is a contrast between the grey background and Brown’s black clothing emphasising the gloomy atmosphere of the video.

There are various scenes in the video where the screen flashes to the rhythm of the music. The camera then cuts to Brown doing some contemporary dance and the lighting of this scene is mainly dark with Brown appearing completely blacked out and it appears as if we see his shadow dancing, and a little light coming out at the end of the tunnel. This demonstrates the characteristics of the genre of this music video because of the dance performance. His dance moves suggests he’s trying to express his emotions through his energetic dancing. There are a lot of cuts throughout the video to emphasise the energy of the dance from Chris Brown. The video then shows the three men together in one shot coming towards the camera. This suggests their power over the women they are singing about their body language show they have more power over her. In this shot they also flip their fingers up which represents the title of the song and also further implying the message of the song: the end of a relationship. These visuals further amplify the words of the song and the overall message.