The golden age of music videos is getting a sequel as the most decorated director in the history of music videos joins the UnderWonder roster.  

UnderWonder Content, the production company led by Grammy-nominated Frank Borin and Ivanna Borin, has signed Mark Romanek for music video representation.

Romanek has more of the biggest awards given for music video excellence in the US than any director. He holds three Grammy Awards for Best Short Form Music Video, a record for the category, alongside 20 MTV Video Music Awards, and in 1997, he became the first director ever honoured with MTV’s Video Vanguard Award for his contribution to the medium.

He remains one of a small number of directors with work in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Rarer still, he has two videos enshrined at MoMA: Nine Inch Nails’ Closer and Madonna’s Bedtime Story.

His filmography reads like the canon itself. Michael & Janet Jackson’s Scream; Nine Inch Nails’ Closer; Jay-Z’s 99 Problems, which won him the VMA for Best Direction; Johnny Cash’s Hurt, ranked the greatest music video of all time by NME and the second greatest ever by Rolling Stone magazine.

Across four decades, he has created culture-defining work for Fiona Apple, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Madonna, Coldplay, Linkin Park, Lenny Kravitz, Mick Jagger, Beck, and U2. All videos with cinematic, provocative, emotional images that never disappeared into a feed, but became the reference every director since has been chasing.

“Mark is the reason so many of us picked up a camera to make music videos in the first place,” said Frank Borin, co-founder of UnderWonder Content. “Closer, Scream, Are You Gonna Go My Way... Those are the videos that made me want to direct, and his work has always been the gold standard we strive for at UnderWonder.”

“Mark continuously creates work that sets the standard for each era of music videos, and he’s about to define the next one with us," added Ivanna Borin, co-founder of UnderWonder. "Getting to build that with him here is the honour of our careers.” 

“Signing with UnderWonder for music videos was the natural, obvious choice,” said Romanek. “Frank and Ivanna have built one of the finest music video production companies in the world, and their obsession with detail is a match for everything I care about: iconic videos made to endure for decades.”

• Mark Romanek's showreel at UnderWonder Content here