A new talent in music Videos. Music videos do not equal MTV. That particular equation has never tallied. The more dif­ferentiated the music scenes and styles become, the more MTV acts purely as a distribu­tion medium for unadulterated music-related commerce. And yet it’s still always worth­ while switching on channels like MTV and Viva and putting up with bad music and even lousier videos because, every so often, you suddenly and unexpectedly come across an incredibly imaginative example of visual inventiveness with effects that purge the eyes and ears and leave you, three or maybe five minutes later, grinning happily in your armchair. One of the top music-video directors is usually behind clips with this astonishing, hope- inspiring result. People like Michel Gondry or Chris Cunningham, Spike Jonze, Jonas Akerlund or Pedro Romhanyi have deservedly shot to the top of the clip business with their personal creativity in conjunction with that of their pre-postproduction firms. Apart from their variety (whereby Cunningham’s never-to-be-mistaken signature makes him an exception), the distinguishing feature of these directors is the way they have repeatedly, and accurately, invented surprising yet appropriate visual worlds for very different musi­cians and styles. Having studied art, Dawn Shadforth produced installations and documentary films before finding her way into music videos. For a young director like her, working in the music business is a way of earning money, reaching a wide audience and indulging and boo­sting her own creativity in short production phases. A recent recipient of several awards, including that of New Best Director (Creative and Design Awards), Shadforth varies the styles she employs in the music video genre. On the one hand, she harks back to the video aesthetics ofthe 1980s, for which she seems to have a special affiliation, in Moloko’s ‘Sing it back’. In Super_CoHider’s ‘It Won’t Be Long’, on the other hand, she succeeds in conjuring up a disconcerting image of the present by means of rapid changes in camera distance and simple computer animations.