Hiro Murai
Now that season three of FX’s Atlanta has ended, it seems like the right time to look at Hiro Murai, the executive producer and director of the show. A long-time collaborator with Donald Glover, he is a large part of how the show looks and sounds. Glover dedicated his Emmy win to Murai: “He taught me everything about directing… he had the eye for the show first.”
Before his work on the ground-breaking TV show, he made a name for himself creating multiple stylish and innovative music videos. Influenced by the likes of Chris Cunningham and Jonathan Glazer, Murai started as a DP on music videos for Death Cab for Cutie and The Submarines. From thereon, he started his hand directing music videos with the likes of Earl Sweatshirt and, most importantly, Childish Gambino.
The Soulsavers - “Unbalanced Pieces”
The visuals for the British-American duo’s gothic tone poem are like a waking dream. It was filmed in an indoor studio while projections of various still photos of Californian estates surround the figure. The video that resembles a Lynchian nightmare. David Lynch was what the artists and Murai bonded over. They collectively wanted to recreate “…a dystopian surburbia.” The result feels a spooky, surreal, haunting hallucination.
Busdriver - “Me Time”
A kids birthday party gets interrupted by a sentient mascot and terrorizes the kids in a leisure centre. Murai mined this idea from another nightmare scenario, as he told the IMVDb podcast “I remember being terrified of those animatronic bands. They’re animated but they have these terribly cold eyes. I always fantasised about them terrifying young children.” A mixture of WILLY’S WONDERLAND and Five Nights at Freddy’s, the zaniness of the video matches the L.A.-rappers hyper-paced delivery.
Earl Sweatshirt - “Hive”
Still cameras pan across a house, all lit by a single light as Earl, Vince Staples, and Casey Veggies are surrounded by what looks like demonic bikers. Another portrait of haunted suburbia and paved the way for the tone of the horror-tinged episodes of Atlanta, such as “Teddy Perkins” and “Three Slaps.” The sense of dread was close to how it felt on set as Murai told Rolling Stone magazine: “He had just gotten off tour and was in the studio right before we pulled an all-nighter for this. People ask me what we did to make his face look so strung out, but he showed up that way! He caught pneumonia three days later.”
Cults - “High Road”
A gorgeous visual accompaniment to an underrated song from an underrated band. Murai uses black and white silhouettes in a kaleidoscopic vision while the camera zooms constantly zooms into new frames (similar to Alex and Martin’s “Seven Nation Army” video). The images of a car driving away into the abyss symbolises the breakup to which the lyrics refer.
Childish Gambino - “3005”
This is when the significant relationship started between its director and muse. A remarkable video that takes place in one carriage of a Ferris wheel. As Gambino raps about loneliness and his loved ones moving on, he shares the carriage with only a teddy bear. At each cycle, the camera pans to the side. Towards the end of the video, we see the faint image of a large fire in the horizon. The shot only lasts for a few seconds and doesn’t linger. Possibly stemming from Glover’s input, it’s these subtle details that Murai sprinkles through his videos that seem so thoughtful yet so fleeting and make them so memorable.
Shabazz Palaces - “#Cake”
Again, Murai uses silhouettes and low light to depict a rundown neighbourhood look like the setting of a horror movie. There is the distinct visual of the face of Ish being imposed over a wall while a smaller figure watches. Another memorable image is someone falling over a background of a night-time cityscape. An unforgettable video for an iconic rap group.
Earl Sweatshirt - “Grief”
An incredible visual interpretation of what depression feels like. Earl is surrounded in nothing but darkness and only managing to distinguish the mundane objects that get you through the day. The antisocial theme from the album is visually apparent as it takes place in what looks like an isolated apartment. The video feels more pertinent as people went through (and are possibly still going through) a similar feeling having to isolate in their homes, fueling their social anxiety.
FKA Twigs - “sad day”
This particular writer has seen a lot of music videos. So it says a lot that, even though it was only released a year ago, it holds the place as one of my favourites of all time. Twigs and Murai show a breakup via a wuxia fight in a modern-day London setting. Murai has never been shy of shooting visceral action sequences, as he’s responsible for the Bolivian tactical raid scene in HBO’s Barry and that unforgettable fast-food robbery in season two of Atlanta. The fight ends with Twigs being struck in the head from the male partner, while she stabs him in the heart, symbolising how the relationship ended.
