Doomsday Entertainment

Director

Hiro Murai

After making the&nbsp;era-defining This Is America,&nbsp;Hiro Murai's next music video project&nbsp;was always going to be a big deal. And this does not disappoint. Murai's collaboration with FKA Twigs is an&nbsp;action-packed epic affair, embracing Chinese martial arts. It is a brilliant, and beautiful - and brutal - showcase for the artist's unique talents.In characteristic&nbsp;Murai style, and with the help of regular collaborators like DoP Larkin Sieple and colourist Ricky Gausis, the grittily mundane is transformed into something breathtaking. As with so many of his music videos, this is shot entirely at night and again Murai shows his mastery of the specific atmosphere that night creates in the quieter parts of a cityscape. And in this case, the city is London.In a late night café, Twigs encounters a male alter-ego (played by Teake), and their assignation quickly becomes violent. A terrifying swordfight begins within the cafe, with Twigs' and her rival's athleticism taking them headlong through its shopfront window. Then&nbsp;their fight moves across quiet suburban streets, via the&nbsp;swooping, sensual movements of Wushu martial arts - so the conflict begins to hint&nbsp;at a complex backstory to their relationship/rivalry.&nbsp;But within the café again, at close quarters it gets brutal again and there is an extraordinary&nbsp;outcome - arguably not for the fainthearted.&nbsp;[imgtoken data:1]This climactic moment, where Twigs is divided by a samurai sword, is the most obvious contribution of VFX in a piece which, as with much of Murai's work, employs extensive VFX without drawing huge attention to itself. He worked in close collaboration with a team at MPC in Los Angeles to create those crucial sequences. Not only the&nbsp;choreographed fight sequence across buildings, epic smashes through shop windows, and that dramatic final scene,&nbsp;but digital matte painting was also used throughout to enhance the gritty backdrops. &nbsp;The result is a majestic piece of work, a reminder of Murai's phenomenal body of work in the medium.&nbsp;The same applies to Twigs. It is further evidence that she is a great action hero(ine)&nbsp;in the making.

United Kingdom

Jason Cole

Larkin Seiple

Danielle Hinde

Brad Weston

Anita Gou

Nate Matteson

Michael Stirton

FKA Twigs

FRIEND

Luke Lynch

Parallax Editing

Ricky Gausis

Michael Gregory

Luke Tierney

Nicole Powell

Alternative

FKA Twigs 'Sad Day' by Hiro Murai

Fka-Twigs-'"sad-Day"'-by-Hiro-Murai

Donald&nbsp;Glover returns as Childish Gambino with This Is America, and a new video by long-time collaborator and comrade Hiro Murai - a scathing satire on the state of the nation.With everything to Glover&#39;s &#39;Jim Crow&#39; pose to the appearance of a Horseman of the Apocalypse being <a href="http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/39966/1/childish-gambino-this-is-america-meaning-jim-crow-dancing-liberty" target="_blank">analysed and deconstructed </a>all over the internet, the details are there to be debated and discussed. But the themes of violence, gun reverence, chaos and fear - and the fact that this comes from a black man&#39;s perspective - are plain as day. Draw your own conclusions.&nbsp;With it&#39;s anarchic, cartoonish action, set in a gigantic hangar,&nbsp;this is a stretch&nbsp;from the uber-cool urban-set videos&nbsp;by Glover and Murai when Childish Gambino was just starting out, and before they started making Atlanta, their Golden Globe-winning TV show.But at the same time this seems in keeping with what has gone before. Glover is a virtuoso performer, who can be different things at different moments. And this is a seriously absurd comedy&nbsp;for serious times.<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/10/donald-glover-childish-gambino-this-is-america-grim-surrealism" target="_blank">Childish Gambino captures the grim surrealism of being black in America</a>&nbsp;(Guardian)<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESKmRiLjNpg" target="_blank">An expert&#39;s take on the symbolism of This Is America</a> (TIME)<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/10/arts/hiro-murai-atlanta-finale-this-is-america-interview.html" target="_blank">Hiro Murai on &#39;Atlanta&#39; and&nbsp;the This Is America video</a> (New York Times)&nbsp;

United States

Ibra Ake

Fam Rothstein

Brian Freesh

Ernie Gilbert

Hip Hop

Childish Gambino 'This Is America' by Hiro Murai

Childish Gambino - This Is America (Official Video)

Having taken to directing TV&nbsp;like a duck to water with Atlanta - and helped the show to a couple of Emmys in its first season - Hiro Murai returns to music videos to reassert his mastery of the medium for hiphop legends A Tribe Called Quest.And this really is a sight for sore eyes. In a way it&#39;s a throwback, and not because ATCQ were big in the Nineties. The irresistable propulsion of Dis Generation comes alive in a tracking shot in which visual elements repeat but also develop. It provides the basis for more of Murai&#39;s FX ideas - the giant Q-Tip, Busta Rhymes facing off with himself, and so on.And&nbsp;the classic black and white look adds refinement, dignity and warmth. That feels connected to great American music videos of the past, from the likes of Romanek, Fincher and Daughters.Good to have you back, Mr Murai, at least for a while... &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Brooke McDaniel

Jocelyn Webber

Hannah Espinoza

Michael Beaudry

Bemo

A Tribe Called Quest 'Dis Generation' by Hiro Murai

It begins with a howl. The disappointed howl of a single man, like the howl of decades from voices never heard while a helicopter hovers with menace above. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve got nothing left to say,&rsquo; he tells us. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve lost everything I had, and I&rsquo;m not angry, I&rsquo;m not mad,&rsquo; he reassures a culpable nation built on&nbsp;plunder.And so it begins. A song. A film. With a clarity of voice, a clarity of vision that somehow feels lessened if it were called just a music video. Because it&rsquo;s so much&nbsp;more.With the able hand of Hiro Murai&rsquo;s direction, this video carries unfathomable weight on its shoulders, with a grace and lightness of touch that is deeply&nbsp;arresting.There is no indictment. No direct accusation, in lyrics or images. And still, we can&rsquo;t help pine for a lost innocence that was likely never there. &lsquo;I&rsquo;m in love, but I&rsquo;m still sad. I found peace, but I&rsquo;m not glad&rsquo; we hear while a young boy stands alone at an intersection he&rsquo;ll never cross. Our illusion of where our society&rsquo;s debts lie quietly shattered as a police car violently strikes a&nbsp;life.This video is nothing short of breathtaking. Its beauty surpassed only by its effortless, haunting&nbsp;substance.&nbsp;It leaves you crushed. It leaves you hopeful. It leaves you a different person than before you&nbsp;watched.Already a stand-out video this year, and one of the finest examples of Murai&rsquo;s directorial&nbsp;voice.

Michelle Thompson

Mindy Kelly

Justin Hantz

Semera Khan

Polydor

Emily Tedrake

Michael Kiwanuka 'Black Man In A White World' by Hiro Murai

Michael Kiwanuka - Black Man In A White World

Into his familiar mis-en-scene, Hiro Murai introduces something powerful, brutal and mesmerizing, for Baauer&#39;s Day Ones.The Revolutionary Wars come to the night-shrouded &#39;hood - plus powdered wigs and floating candleabra. A study in contrasts, with typically memorable Murai imagery,&nbsp;and&nbsp;a reminder of where the right to bear arms started, and how it often ends.

Jason Colon

Paul Maertens

Chad Nicholson

Grant Culwell

John Richoux

Theodore Zaleski

Luckyme Studio

Alternative, Hip Hop

Baauer ft Novelist & Leikili 47 'Day Ones' by Hiro Murai

Massive Attack return with their first new music for over five years, and a video for the excellent Tricky-featured Take It There by Hiro Murai&nbsp;which is pretty much everything&nbsp;you could hope for.The situation is familiar Murai territory - LA suburbia&nbsp;at night, shot naturally&nbsp;by DoP Larkin Sieple &ndash; into which comes the presence of a barely recognisable John Hawkes - shambling, decrepit, in a really bad way... and with his own personal band of demons.And what appears like a dramatic set-up becomes something very music video - a bit&nbsp;like Thriller, even, through the joint, bleaker perspective of Massive Attack, Hiro Murai and choreographer Ryan Heffington.&nbsp;A match made in&nbsp;heaven.

Ryan Heffington

Mindy Le Brock

Ari Robbins

Mandy Brown

John Hawkes

Virgin EMI

James Hackett

Trip-hop

Dance, Alternative

Massive Attack, Tricky & 3D 'Take It There' by Hiro Murai

Massive Attack, Tricky & 3D - Take It There

From the echo of a lone lighter in the darkness, a monster of dense sound crawls through Grief, the debut track on Earl Sweatshirt&rsquo;s second album&nbsp;I Don&rsquo;t Like Shit, I Don&rsquo;t Go Outside, and its video by Hiro Murai translates eerie sonic textures into equally unsettling images.&lsquo;Ain&rsquo;t been outside in a minute,&rsquo; Earl spits, while the video unfolds as if from the perspective of some nocturnal creature that only sees in negative space. There are no bounds. No borders from which to frame the universe of this video. No way to get your bearings. It just emerges from the thick muck, while the backing sound ploughs ahead, like the hollow sweep of Badalamenti&rsquo;s ambient Twin Peaks score as if Burial had created it.The longer you watch, the more you&rsquo;re unnerved. Sucked in. Unsure if you&rsquo;ll ever make it out. Earl and his crew clearly haven&rsquo;t, stuck in limbo as x-ray video game characters. &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve been livin&rsquo; what I wrote.&rsquo;This is the third outing for Hiro and Earl, who previously collaborated on Chum&nbsp;and Hive, and if anything, this video feels obvious. That is to say, these two are so well matched, much like Hiro&rsquo;s ongoing work with Childish Gambino, that once you start watching, you&rsquo;re immediately struck by the inevitability of it all; it&rsquo;s a perfect visual realisation of what the music calls for. So much that you have to wonder if any other approach could even come close.I Don&rsquo;t Like Shit, I Don&rsquo;t Go Outside drops on March 23, and we can only hope to see Earl and Hiro continue their collaboration with the same brutally haunting momentum as this first release.

Courtney Davies

Isaac Hagy

Gloria FX

Bryan Younce

Urban

Earl Sweatshirt 'Grief' by Hiro Murai

Earl Sweatshirt - Grief

Singer/writer/actor Donald Glover (Childish Gambino)&nbsp;and director Hiro Murai continue their&nbsp;successful pairing with the promo to new single Sober.&nbsp;In the video, Glover shows the world he can really dance&nbsp;by pulling&nbsp;out his smoothest (and cheesiest)&nbsp;moves&nbsp;in order to woo a girl at a late-night diner...

Kevin Phillips

Hannah Hurney

Ian Eastwood

Urban Pop

Childish Gambino 'Sober' by Hiro Murai

Childish Gambino - Sober

Hiro Murai takes us on a beautiful journey in his promo for Telegraph Avenue by Childish Gambino. The trip - along scenic winding roads, lush forests and crashing waves on idyllic beaches - takes an incredibly&nbsp;unexpected twist in the final segment...

Jason Baum

Kimberly Stuckwisch

Jessica Cole

Angela Tillson

Jacquelyn London

Jesse Fleece

Matt Sanderson

Jonathan Dec

Graham Schofield

Jerami Robinson

Arielle Vavasseur

Elise Velasco

Archie Ahuna

Kyle Davis

Jhene Aiko, Childish Gambino

Ballad

Electronica

Childish Gambino 'Telegraph Avenue' by Hiro Murai

Childish Gambino - Telegraph Ave ("Oakland" By Lloyd)

After Kahlil Joseph&#39;s remarkable Until The Quiet Comes promo, winner of Video Of The Year at the UKMVAs last year, the bar on future Flying Lotus videos has been set very high indeed. But greatness can and should provide&nbsp;inspiration, and that&nbsp;is certainly the case here.Hiro Murai&#39;s video for Never Catch Me, FlyLo&#39;s collaboration with Kendrick Lamar, captures the spirit of what has gone before. As with Joseph&#39;s visual poem, different&nbsp;sides of the human condition - joyful innocence, exuberant expression, violence and tragedy&nbsp;- merge together.But Hiro handles the material in his own way. He draws happiness from a situation of sheer tragedy, as two children - presumably the innocent victims of gang violence - rise from their coffins at their joint funeral, and dance around the church, and escape. It is a fantasy, and the congregation are oblivious, but the boy and girl&nbsp;are not exactly ghosts.&nbsp;Joyful and happy, they are very real, and&nbsp;this is more like a brilliant&nbsp;blend of two realities.&nbsp;&nbsp;In a year of fantastically high achievement - reflected in his Best Director nomination at this year&#39;s UK Music Video Awards - Hiro has arguably made his most cherishable video yet.&nbsp;

Keone & Mari

Flying Lotus ft. Kendrick Lamar 'Never Catch Me' by Hiro Murai

Flying Lotus - Never Catch Me ft. Kendrick Lamar

Hiro Murai unveils a set of dark and surreal imagery in his promo for Shabazz Palaces&#39; Cake.&nbsp;Murai gives the song a strong, trippy visual identity full of huge snakes and&nbsp;giant crowns set in disused churches and empty warehouses...

Eric Greenburg

Shabazz Palaces 'Cake' by Hiro Murai 

Shabazz Palaces - #CAKE [OFFICIAL VIDEO]

Hiro Murai delivers another fine video with&nbsp;a graceful, beautifully atmospheric one-shot promo for Chet Faker&#39;s Gold. A late-night drive - filmed from the back of moving vehicle - focuses on the centre road&nbsp;marking. And then three roller-skaters gradually appear, and do an impressive routine.Hiro is certainly on a roll...

Chris Velasco

Appleusa McGlynn, April Corley, Candice Heiden

Soul

Chet Faker 'Gold' by Hiro Murai

Chet Faker - Gold

Britt Daniel, lead singer with Austin rockers Spoon, cruises along LA boulevards&nbsp;in a vintage Plymouth wagon in Hiro Murai&#39;s cool and hugely watchable&nbsp;promo for next single Do You.As he drives aimlessly&nbsp;by with a female passenger for company, we see a city that has been rampaged by an unseen destructive force - which is revealed in the final frames...

Jens Jacob

Genghis Jorgensen

Eli Bom

Ashley Fenton

Peter Sauzey

Drew Valenti

Ryan McGuire

Gabbi Pascua

Chris Hiscox

John Ruiz

Teddy Danh

Andrew Gorrell

Gary Beaird

Billy Beaird

Dustin Wright

Simon White

Tom Ceglia

Allen Singh, Lindsay Rappaport, Josh Nathan

Emily Cole

Gianno Arvonio, Lucas Krystek, Lucas Royalty

Rock

Spoon 'Do You' by Hiro Murai

Spoon - "Do You" (Official Music Video)

Hiro Murai&#39;s perception-altering and&nbsp;trippy video for Childish Gambino&#39;s next single Sweatpants, sees the US rapper&nbsp;experience&nbsp;his own Groundhog Day scenario in a local diner, with increasingly surreal results...

Glassnote

Childish Gambino ft Problem 'Sweatpants' by Hiro Murai

Childish Gambino - Sweatpants ft. Problem

Queens Of The Stone Age singer Josh Homme is the businessman&nbsp;enjoying a celebratory night on the town in Tokyo with his Japanese colleagues in Hiro Murai&#39;s promo&nbsp;for the band&#39;s new single Smooth Sailing. And perhaps not surprisingly, things get a little out of hand...In fact, this is&nbsp;a brilliant thrill-ride, as serious saki-drinking&nbsp;and drugs&nbsp;leads from fun to obnoxiousness and way beyond. Hiro captures much of this in the tried-and-tested style pioneered by Scorcese in Mean Streets. But what is so transfixing about this is sensing something really bad is going to happen. And it does.&nbsp;

Matador

Indie

Queens Of The Stone Age 'Smooth Sailing' by Hiro Murai

Queens Of The Stone Age - Smooth Sailing

Actor and comedian-turned-rapper Donald Glover aka Childish Gambino gets together with Hiro Murai to demonstrate a dark sense of humour for 3005 - set on a ferris wheel in a fairground, where Gambino is taking a ride with his favourite bear.&nbsp;And if you think that the bear gets some unjustifiably rough treatment, at least he&#39;s still in his seat at the end...

Hip Hop, Urban

Childish Gambino '3005' by Hiro Murai

Childish Gambino - 3005

Hiro Murai delivers this very short but very effective underwater shoot for Childish Gambino&#39;s forthcoming album&nbsp;Because The Internet.Camera operator Matt Ardine gets in the pool to shoot US rapper Donal Glover&nbsp;from below in groovy slo-mo, the video - actually an album teaser - focuses on the track Yaphet Kotto. It&#39;s all very Sunset Boulevard...

Matt Ardine

Childish Gambino 'Because The Internet' by Hiro Murai

yaphet kotto

Boasting a bold, vivid look throughout, Hiro Murai&#39;s promo for Cults&#39; High Road employs a series of stark monochrome images&nbsp;moving towards the viewer to simple yet brilliant effect.&nbsp;The minimalist and creepy feel is heightened as we follow a driverless&nbsp;car journey at night passing close-ups of road markings - picked out by headlights, fluttering moths, lone stags with blazing antlers and a very effective use of light and shadow...&nbsp;

Lauren Nikrooz

Carlos Lopez Estrada

Varnish Effects

Cults 'High Road' by Hiro Murai

Cults - High Road

What lies beyond the edge? Hiro Murai&#39;s steady, considered camera seems to beg this simple, harrowing question as it wanders like molasses through an eerie and otherworldly suburban neighbourhood in his video for Earl Sweatshirt&#39;s Hive (and his follow-up to the Chum video), illuminating curious scenes with a pointed spotlight. It begins to feel as though we&#39;re in the suburban ocean deep, bearing witness to things no human was ever meant to see.&nbsp;This practice of the unexpected&nbsp;is quickly becoming the staple, both audibly and visually, for an emerging group of young MCs and producers out of LA. Most notably, the creative tornado that is Odd Future, and all of its affiliated artists.&nbsp;With most music, a very clear lineage can usually be drawn in the evolution of a style or musical movement. However, for Earl Sweatshirt and his contemporaries, it&#39;s not so much a case of wearing influences on their sleeves, but more like brazenly not wearing sleeves at all. Their musical aesthetic, and the visual themes they gravitate towards, aren&#39;t weighed down by pandering to the audience&nbsp;or flipping through a cultural rulebook to the This Is How Hip-Hop Should Look and Sound Like&nbsp;section.That being the case, Earl Sweatshirt couldn&#39;t have found a better director than Hiro Murai, with his visually adventurous pedigree, to create a video that sinks its gnarled teeth into the viewer as much as &#39;Hive&#39; does. What lies beyond the edge? There may not be one.

Columbia Records

Max Orgell

Marc Steinberg

Clara Aranovich

Brian Younce

Earl Sweatshirt 'Hive' by Hiro Murai

Earl Sweatshirt featuring Vince Staples & Casey Veggies - Hive

Odd Future associate Earl Sweatshirt is in reflective mood in Hiro Murai&#39;s low-key, atmospheric, trippy and beautifully-shot video for Chum. Excellent work by DoP Larkin Seiple &ndash; and another fine addition to this year&#39;s gallery of utterly mashed hip-hop stars in music vids.&nbsp;

Earl Sweatshirt 'Chum' by Hiro Murai

Earl-Sweatshirt-'Chum'-by-Hiro-Murai

Shot in Iceland for that early winter feeling, Hiro Murai&#39;s promo for David Guetta&#39;s She Wolf is a very natural affair with a naked woman, a bunch of scary hunters and a pack of wolves (they could be huskies) roaming the beautiful but desolate landscape.Then the chorus hits and all digital hell breaks loose with some cool explosions, eruptions and general mayhem punctuating the action to very dramatic effect...&nbsp;

Danny Lockwood

David Guetta ft Sia 'She Wolf' by Hiro Murai

David-Guetta-ft-Sia-'She-Wolf'-by-Hiro-Murai

An imaginative kid patrols an abandoned, apocalyptic suburb whilst The Shins singer James Mercer gets dragged off by an alien creature in Hiro Murai's beautiful promo for the band's It's Only Life.
Shot in Portland, Oregon, the alien 'bunny' creature first featured on the cover of The Shins' Port Of Morrow album... 

http://www.youtube.com/watchfeature=player_embedded&amp;v=fweNLKBCh5A

Will Basanta

Jason Kisvarday

Saul Levitz

The Shins 'It's Only Life' by Hiro Murai

The-Shins-'It's-Only-Life'-by-Hiro-Murai

Hiro Murai takes a trip back to the early 80s - a world of yuppie businessmen, digital clocks, over-sized close-circuit cameras and other cumbersome futuristic devices - for his promo to Friends' Heaven 17-inspired single Mind Control...

Ryan Kohler

Starr Whitesides

Friends 'Mind Control' by Hiro Murai

Wizard-Sleeve’s-Get-Down-Tonight-by-Thomas-Goldser

Friends-'Mind-Control'-by-Hiro-Murai

The pictures say it all really. Hiro Murai's video for St. Vincent's Cheerleader will make you shudder, as Annie Clark (aka St V) becomes a giant, living art exhibit, who starts crumbling to dust as she moves... 
Lovely, shuddersome imagery - for arguably the best track on the current St Vincent album Strange Mercy. 

http://www.youtube.com/watchfeature=player_embedded&amp;v=LEY9GJAm8bA

Ethan Feldbau

Tina Cohen

Laura Francis

St. Vincent 'Cheerleader' by Hiro Murai

St.-Vincent-'Cheerleader'-by-Hiro-Murai

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=T3E9Wjbq44E Hiro Murai employs lots of cool trickery with shadows in his promo for Gym Class Heroes, featuring a co-starring role for Maroon 5's Adam Levine...

Partizan

Gym Class Heroes feat. Adam Levine 'Stereo Hearts' by Hiro Murai

Hiro Murai

Director

Videos featuring Hiro Murai

2020 (1)

2018 (1)

2017 (1)

2016 (3)

2015 (2)

2014 (7)

2013 (4)

2012 (5)

2011 (1)

2010 (3)

2009 (2)

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