Director Research

Harold 'Hype' Williams



Harold 'Hype' Williams, an American music and film director was born in 1970-New York. From a young age Hype always had a passion for painting. Hype his graffiti tag name, was taught graffiti by writing partner Muse One. Following this, "Fargo" mentored Hype in graffiti culture. After leaving Adelphi University- New York, Hype began his film making career. He joint graffiti writers Mike 'Muse' Alexander and Ricardo 'Phyz' Springer where they then worked together to create SOTA (State of the Art Production). From the help of Lionel 'Vid Kid' Martin and VJ Ralph McDaniels who used SOTA as a key art direction for their videos, allowed Hype to create his very first video with the "Filmakers With Attitude". This was Hypes first video company he joint.


Hype has shot over 200 music videos ever since his career, working with the worlds biggest stars.Hype is well known for producing several groundbreaking music videos under the genre 'Hip-Hop' and 'RnB'. Hype has produced these successful music videos for the following 'RnB' artist:

• The Notorious B.I.G - Warning#
• The Notorious B.I.G - One More Chance
• Craig Mack - Flava In Ya Ear
• LL Cool J - Doin It
• Nas - If I Ruled The World (Imagine That)
• Nas - Sweet Dreams
• Nas - Hate Me Now
• Missy Elliot - The Rain Supa Dupa Fly
• Missy Elliot - She's A Bitch
• Busta Rhymes - Put You Hands Where My Eyes Could See
• TLC - No Scrubs
• Kelis - Caught Out There
• Jay-Z - Big Pimpin
• Aaliyah - Rock The Boat

It was in 1988, Hype productively directed his first feature film , "Belly". Hype has recieved several awards for his outstanding work. They include:

• Billboard Music Video Award for Best Director of the year- 1996
• Jackson Limo Award for Best Rap Video of the year for Busta Rhymes- 1996
• The NAACP image award- 1997
• 8th Annual MVPA award for Black Music Achievment-1997
• MTV video music award in the Best Rap Video- 1988 (Will Smith's Gettin' Jiggy Wit It)
• MTV video music award for Best Group Video- 1998 (TLC's No Scrub)
• BET awards for Best Director-2006 (Kanye West Gold Digger)

In the year 2006, William was honoured to receive the Video Vanguard Award by MTV presented to him in honor of his achievments, in Kanye West's words "film maker", Hype recieved a "Standing Ovation".

Hype's Style

During the 1990's and 2000's Hype used a signature style throughout most of his videos. This signature was known as the "Fisheye Lens", this distorted the camera view around the central focus. Hype used this specific signature as he believed it created a great effect with the growing amount of recording artists, including props, body parts and highly glossed sunglasses. These sunglasses reflected the production backlight. This is evident in Busta Rhymes- "Gimme Some More" and Missy Elliott- "The Rain". However, due to lack of production activity ever since Hype's career, in 2003 this was dropped.

Later on, another signature was produced however was not used as much as the first. This signature placed shots in regular widescreen ratio, while a second shot is split into two and placed in the upper and lower bars. This style can be seen in the videos, "Diamonds on my Neck"- Smitty, "I Ain't Heard of That"- Slim Slug, "So Sick"- Neyo, "In My Hood"- Young Jeezy, "Check On It"- Beyonce and "Snap Yo Fingers"- Lil John.

Beyone - Check On It

It is since 2003, Hype has used a brand new signature described as a style which combines a center camera focus on the artists is body from the torso upwards with a solid colour background with a soft colour contrasting with it which is shown in the centre. This is evident in Kanye West is "Gold Digger" and Jamie Fox is "Digital Girl".