Howard Greenhalgh

Howard Douglas Greenhalgh (born 19 February 1963 in Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire) is a British director of music videos and advertising.[1]

Howard Greenhalgh
Born
Howard Douglas Greenhalgh

(1963-02-19) 19 February 1963
Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire, England
Occupationmusic video director
commercial director
feature film director
Years active1988–present

Greenhalgh studied at the Royal College of Art, setting up the firm Why Not after graduating.[2] He came to prominence in the early 1990s with his direction of the music video for the Snap! song "Rhythm is a Dancer".[3] Greenhalgh then was hired by the Pet Shop Boys to direct videos for their successful album Very and later its follow-up Bilingual. His work has also included the video for George Michael's song 'Jesus To A Child', several videos for Muse, Placebo, Soundgarden and others.[4][5][6]

His videos for Very make extensive and early use of computer animation and blue screen to create environments of geometric shapes and patterns in which the group members Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe are inserted.[7][8] Lowe said in retrospect that he felt that computer games had a strong appeal to a young audience and that copying their design styles could be successful: "The big game was Sonic The Hedgehog and I liked this game where the audience, when a goal was scored, all started dancing. I was playing computer games a lot, thinking, 'This is what the kids are into…wouldn’t it be great if we became this thing removed from reality and existing in a non-real world?'"[3] Spin magazine described these videos as "routinely rejected" by MTV, a reference to their rock-oriented programming at the time.[9][10] His clip for the song "Liberation" was later reused in the 2000 animation anthology CyberWorld.[11] He later directed the video of Soundgarden's song 'Black Hole Sun', attracting attention in the United States; in 1995, Spin magazine awarded him a reader's choice award for best video for this.[12][9][13]

Describing his approach to music video direction, Greenhalgh said in a 2010 interview that "With anything, it’s the lyrics that are everything. You pray that there are good lyrics in a track because that leads you immediately to what you’re going to do."[14]

References
  1. West, Gillian. "Ad of the Day: Littlewoods - Summer 2016". The Drum. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  2. Poynor, Rick. "Type as entertainment". Eye magazine. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  3. Daw, Robby. "Pet Shop Boys' 'Very' Turns 20: Backtracking". Idolator. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  4. Childers, Chad. "22 Years Ago: Soundgarden Make Their Name". Loudwire. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  5. Tharpe, Frazier. "Ranking the Outrageously Awesome Style of Puff Daddy's Music Videos". Complex. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  6. Robert Steele (4 November 2011). Careless Whispers: The Life & Career of George Michael. Omnibus Press. p. 271. ISBN 978-0-85712-726-6.
  7. Stan Hawkins (2009). The British Pop Dandy: Masculinity, Popular Music and Culture. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. pp. 73–74. ISBN 978-0-7546-5858-0.
  8. Maria Virginia Filomena Cremasco; Wojciech Owczarski (12 January 2015). Solidarity, Memory and Identity. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 121. ISBN 978-1-4438-7398-7.
  9. "Annual Readers Poll Results". Spin magazine. January 1995. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  10. Bernstein, Jonathan. "Gone South: Whatever happened to the Pet Shop Boys' coolest video?". Spin. p. 26. Retrieved 5 June 2016.
  11. Scott, A.O. "A High-Tech Workout for Your Eyeballs". New York Times. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  12. "Soundgarden's Chris Cornell explains making of "Black Hole Sun" video". Audio Ink Radio. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  13. Letkemann, Jessica. "Soundgarden's 'Superunknown' at 20: Classic Track-By-Track". Billboard. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
  14. Collins, Leah. "MMVA Video Spotlight: Billy Talent, "Devil on My Shoulder"". Regina Leader-Post. Retrieved 2 June 2016.
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