Director Case Study

Marc Webb

Charlie Scrimshaw

Marc WebbMarc Webb, an American director, has had his part in directing a great mass of music videos. His choice in genre is mainly based around rock bands though he has directed a small amount of pop, hip hop and r’n’b videos. He is very much a mainstream director, producing brilliant, well-known music videos, but has been known to work with lesser known artists/bands also.

Webb has worked heavily with rock bands such as Green Day, AFI, Yellowcard, P.O.D. and My Chemical Romance.

Since 1997, Webb has directed over 100 videos and worked with tens of artists/bands.

In 2009, Webb made his first break into mainstream film directing the romantic-comedy drama film ‘(500) Days of Summer’.

Webb’s signature is white silhouette lamb. This has appeared only a few pieces of his work; In Brand New's "Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades" video, the lamb appears on the door before Jesse Lacey enters the bar. It also appears on the shirt of a girl in the bar. In Yellowcard's "Ocean Avenue" and "Rough Landing, Holly" videos, the lamb appears on the briefcase Ryan Key carries around.

Marc Webb’s Visual StyleWebb is not an auter by any means. His visual style is very common, with the only way to recognise his work was to look out for his signature lamb which over his many years of directing has only appeared a couple of times.Webb tends to stick in basic conventions as he almost always has shot of the band involved in his videos. A lot of the time it will be done to put focus on the band/artist by having long shots of the band playing and lip-synching and close ups of singular band mates/artist.Though he sticks true to basic conventions, Webb also likes to have a narrative to his videos cut in between shots of the band/artist.In a lot of cases Webb has used the band in the narrative. Probably to add even more attention to the band/artist.Webb’s style also doesn’t portray much of a tendency for the use of post-modernism. Though this isn’t to say his videos don’t have style, they do – they’re own – each video has a uniqueness to it, which in my opinion is a good thing. This really helps every video be a different experience without seeing a certain lens, camera shot or visual style which makes Webb’s work stand out as his.

Webb’s ConventionsWebb’s conventions follow basic cinematography and editing, with great affect. Traditional cuts and fades between different shots, sometimes with added video effects.Webb is very limited with the camera angles he uses. Webb tends to stick to the close-ups, medium close-ups, long shots and sometimes he may tend to use tracking shots and pans.In conclusion, though Webb is very standard and true to conventions, his videos always seem to stand out and show character. Without a signature style to his work it and with the use of basic camera angles and editing, it could be said that Webb directs his videos differently each time to show his uniqueness as a director instead on relying on a style to get noticed.