Director Research - Dawn Shadforth

Dawn Shadforth was born in Essex in 1973 and graduated from a Fine Art degree at Sheffield University in 1991. She earned a first in sculpture, and has since become one of most successful music video and commercial directors of her generation. Dawn’s directorial career began with documentaries for Channel 4 (1995’s The Friend’s Tale) and Warp Records (The Seven Year Glitch in 1996). In 1996 she made her first video, for Mantronix ‘Hush’ for the princely sum of £50, and a year later she signed to RSA/Black Dog.

From the start of her career her work has gained industry recognition. In 1999 she was one of 30 chosen out of 500 directors to participate in the 'Saatchi and Saatchi New Directors Showcase' at the Cannes Advertising Festival.

In 2001, Dawn was ranked by the Observer Magazine as one of 10 directors to watch. Since then she has built a huge catalogue of identifiable classics and popular mainstream hits, such as Kylie Minogue’s ‘Spinning Around’ and commercials such as Marks and Spencer ‘Christmas’ commercials. At the same time Dawn has also continued to experiment with narrative and push the form of music video with performances that clearly relate to the audio tracks, to modern horror for some of her collaborations with artists. In 2001 Dawn’s second of five video’s for Kylie Minogue, 'Can’t Get You Out of My Head', became a worldwide smash and the video has since been cited as being one of pop music’s most iconic moments.

More recently Dawn has worked with the like of Emeli Sande, creating the video for her single ‘MY Kind of Love’ (2012). I personally really like this video because it follows a narrative style whilst clearly portraying emotion that surrounds the topic of the track. The emotion is already clear within the song, but the video really helps to emphasize it to the audience. I really like the combination of shots used in this video and how the use of simple techniques emphasizes the narrative. At the start of this particular video there is a long tracking shot moving backwards through the hospital entrance, allowing the audience to see the emotion and facial expressions portrayed by Emeli and therefore conveying the feelings/emotions surrounding the song.