Robby Starbuck - Music video Director / Producer

Robbie Starbuck is a truly “one of a kind” Director. Robbie directs and produces some of the most controversial videos for a wide variety of very diverse bands. Robbie has worked with bands such as Silverstein, Asking Alexandria, August Burns Red, and The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus; Only to name a few.

One of the main similarities in All of Robbie’s work is something that really inspires him to do what he does today. Robbie is very inspired by Dichotomy, Which is like polar opposites. For example Dark vs. Light, or Good vs. Evil. Those examples happen to be some of the major themes in a lot of his work.

Robbie Isn’t only a very creative director, but he is a very intelligent director. He is very business savvy. Robbie knows how to promote himself and he knows how to make money. Robbie is Young, and many major production companies tried to pick him up as a director. Robbie didn’t second-guess these offers. He turned them down immediately and started his own production company titled RSMcreative. The reason behind creating this company was to get his full share of the money the he worked for. Robbie is smart and doesn’t need a manager or a distributor. And for any reason if he needed one, they would work for him. Robbie strives to be a leader in his industry; therefore he works for no one but himself.

One of Robbie’s videos that truly inspires me is his video “Order” By Mother/Father. This video is very controversial and has a theme of good vs. evil that is represented though out the entire video. After watching the video the Side that is good and the side that is evil is very debatable. You have a cult like group that seems to have done something to this black man running through a field. At the end, Two cloaked black men appear with they’re hands up as if they are putting a spell on the cult. The cult dies and the video is over. You can debate this in many aspects. Give the video a watch up top and let me know whom you think is good and whom you think is evil!
Thanks for reading!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I know Harry Potter is not a music Video, but I'm a filmmaker and That includes everything. Not Just music videos. So In my opinion Harry Potter Fans are up there with the Star wars and the Lord of the rings fans. When I got the theatre with my Girlfriend 2 hours early for the primere the place was mobbed with hundreds of harry potter character impersonators. I think it’s great that this book and film has created a very large fan base. I knew people that showed up for the primere up to 7 hours early just to wait in line for the movie. 

     Primeres are great. I love going to see something for the first time. I know its not a Hollywood primere “first showing ever” but it’s a great time and so much more exciting then seeing a movie after its been in theatres for over a week. When you’re sitting in the theatre at a primere, you know that everyone who’s there is just as excited to see this movie as you are. The excitement and anticipation is raging though everyone, which makes the event as a whole so much more worth while then seeing it on any ordinary showing.

     Primeres are a great way to build excitement for any kind of event including music videos. I recently attended a Music video primere of a video that I worked on camera team for at Planet Hollywood in Downtown Disney. The Video was don’t stop Now by Stockholm, and the video was Directed by Justyn Moro. There is a link at the bottom to the official music video. Primeres raise excitement for these videos which makes the release more epic and in turn makes more people interested in viewing your video.

That’s a Rap for this post, Stop by next week for my next Topic of discussion.    

Stockholm Music Video: http://vimeo.com/14373582

Plain White T's- Rhythm of love Directed by Mike Venezia

Here is a link to the Director Mike Venezia's personal Vimeo account.
http://vimeo.com/mikevenezia

DEFTONES "You've Seen The Butcher" directed by JODEB

Very Cool Video! Check out Vision Entertainment. They've got some really great work from some popular bands and Industry Directors.
http://vimeo.com/visionent

Wiz Khalifa - Black And Yellow

MTV... Music Television?

Okay so we all know that everyone’s favorite music TV station known, as MTV no longer plays “Music”. Its Ironic that the station is even allowed to keep “music” in their name. Anyway I am not here today to talk about MTV the TV channel that doesn’t play music. I want to talk about the website “MTV.com” More specifically their music video section.

http://www.mtv.com/music/videos/

Check out that link above. Personally I think a music website should know more about music. They have a few pages of music videos. The videos are great but I know there is so much more out there. Another problem would have to be the variety. The only music videos I seen was ones of songs that I hear on the radio. There were 4 or 5 videos for each artist, which really leaves out so many other artists. According to mtv.com the only videos worth showing in the POP genre are Katie Perry, Brittany Spears, Christina Aguilera, Michael Jackson, and maybe one or two others. If you went on youtube you could find hundreds of signed artists that compare and surpass the artists shown on mtv.com. I am always on the run and don’t spend too much time on the Internet. But the hour or so a day that I am; I seem to have knowledge of many great bands and many great videos that are not featured on mtv or mtv.com.

What I Recommend doing is looking up one of your favorite music videos. Pick one and find out who directed it. You can probably find this information on Wikipedia or Google. After you find out who directed it go to their website or blog. They may have a link to a personal Youtube or Vimeo account. Now you can see some of their other work. It may be more artistic then some of the boring band shots you see on MTV. And the music depending on your taste might be better. I hope that this post can help you find some new music and maybe a new sense of appreciation to the people who produce these videos!


Have a Great day everyone! Come back next week for a new post on a new Director!

Metric "Stadium Love"

Jonas Akerlund

         Who is Jonas Akerlund? Why do I decide to do my very first post on him? I actually didn’t know who Jonas was until a few days ago when doing some research for this blog post. I looked up a few of my favorite music videos and Realized that he had directed three of the videos that I have known for years now.

Here is a photo of Jonas. He is the man on the right wearing black.

Jonas may not have a popular name but his work gets worldwide recognition. If you are familiar with titles such as Same Mistake by James Blunt, Miss you by Blink 182, and Telephone by Lady Gaga Then you should know that Jonas Akerlund was the director of all these Videos and more then 70 other popular titles.

Jonas Akerlund Really got started with music in 1983 where he was apart of a Swedish metal band called Bethory. Sadly the band broke up in 1984. From there he stayed in the music industry by Directing and producing music videos. Jonas got his first big break for shooting Sweetish pop artist Roxette in 1993. From this point in Jonas’s life his popularity as a music video Director exploded. Since 1993 Jonas has directed over 70 music videos for over 40 different artists.

Jonas has one characteristic that stands out in a lot of his work. Jonas likes to incorporate themes, settings, and props in his music videos that have been used in popular movies, short films and commercials. For Example In one of his latest music videos for Lady Gaga, Jonas included the “Pussy Wagon” as Gaga and Beyonce’s get away car. This exact car was used in the feature film Kill Bill, directed by Quentin Tarantino.

Jonas not only produces music videos but also short films, feature films, and commercials. If you are interested in seeing some of his work you can visit his website  (http://www.jonasakerlund.com/)

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed my post. I will be posting music videos that I enjoy almost every day and will be talking about a new director next week. Give my page a visit again and have a great day.

-Ryan Sheehy

The Music Video Blog

Greetings Readers!


The name is Ryan Sheehy. I love music videos and aspire to be an industry professional music video director and producer in the future. In this blog I will share with you helpful tips that will help you learn how to produce a music video of your own. I will also be updating you with some of the leaders in the industry and some of their current projects.