Six months ago, Elektra Records decided that Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott was a hip-hop star. However, there was one problem. Outside of the relatively small demographic of people who pay close attention to the songwriting credits of R.-and-B. albums--Elliott has composed minor hits for such acts as Aaliyah, Ginuwine and Jodeci--hardly anybody had ever heard of her. Also, Elliott isn't your typical Top 40 sex siren. She has a regular, stocky body, the kind most people have unless they're members of a professional sports team or Keenen Ivory Wayan's all-woman house band. So the record company turned to music-video director Hype Williams. Over the past year or so, Williams--his real first name is Harold--has become the most in-demand music-video director going; his clips boast a sensuous palette of colors, and, most important, they tend to get heavy play on MTV.
Williams met with Elliott and outlined his plans: he saw her in a patent-leather suit pumped full of air. "He told me he wanted to make me look like the Michelin Man," says Elliott. "I was like, 'Excuse me?' And he was like, 'Trust me. It's going to be hot.'" Try scorching. The Williams-directed music video for The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly), the first single off Elliott's debut album, Supa Dupa Fly, features the singer in that weird, bulbous leather suit, as well as surreally distorted camera shots and dancers prancing in shiny yellow raincoats. MTV has been playing it steadily, propelling the previously little-known Elliott to the top of the charts.
Last year music videos seemed to be an exhausted form. Shows like MTV's Beavis and Butt-head (which was recently canceled) made ironic sport of them; programs like VH-1's sporadically clever Pop-Up Video (which displays trivia-filled text about videos as they play) seemed to suggest that they were too tiresome to endure without supplementary information. Still, last winter MTV, which had begun to tilt toward Jenny McCarthy-helmed nonmusic programs, announced that it was recommitting itself to videos and would play 10 to 20 additional hours of music programming every week.
MTV's ratings are still going down (they slipped 7% in the second quarter of this year), but thanks to the increased play videos are receiving, there's a new wave of directors on the way up. The network has been de-emphasizing alternative rock recently and searching for other forms to replace it, creating an opportunity for directors with a strong, clear vision to bring performers from other genres to widespread attention. The world of videos is high stakes. Gina Harrell, head of video production at Elektra Records, says her label spends about $300,000 to $600,000 a video for major acts; and since MTV began tagging the names of directors on videos four years ago, competition among filmmakers to produce the most inventive work has heated up.