A music video director is the head, overseer or facilitator of music video production. The director conceives of videos' artistic and dramatic aspects while instructing the musical act, technical crew, actors, models, and dancers. They may or may not be in collaboration with the musical act.
On November 8, 1992, MTV began listing directors with the artist, song, and record company credits, because music videos had increasingly become an auteur's medium. "The case for the director as music video author is strong. It is the music video director who has principal control of everything that is added to the pre-existing recorded sound text."[1] Directors, including Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, and F. Gary Gray, have gone on to direct feature films, continuing a trend that had begun earlier with directors such as Lasse Hallström and David Fincher. The most expensive video of all time was directed by Mark Romanek: Michael and Janet Jackson's "Scream" (1995), which cost $7 million to produce. In 2003, Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham, and Michel Gondry founded the Directors Label.
The following list does not include musical artists who have co-directed videos: