Melina Matsoukas

News

Beyonce "Formation" Wins Best Music Video Grammy

All hail Queen Bey, who took home an early (pre-telecast) win for Best Music Video:

  • Beyoncé "Formation" — Melina Matsoukas, video director | Candice Dragonas, Juliette Larthe, Nathan Scherrer & Inga Veronique, video producer | Label: Parkwood Entertainment/Columbia Records

And for all you Longform fans, director Ron Howard's The Beatles: Eight Days A Week The Touring Years won for Best Music Film.

Blog

Deep Diving on the Grammy Video Noms

On Tuesday, the nominees for the 59th Grammy Awards were announced and have already inspired a flurry of conversation about competition within the categories. Will Adele or Beyoncé reign supreme for Album of the Year? Or will be somebody else sneak in and pull off an upset. One category that isn't scrutinized quite like Album of the Year or Song of the Year but regularly brings out strong competition, is the Grammy Award for Best Music Video.

By Will Kay on December 8, 2016 @ 1:01pm PST
Watch It

Beyonce "Lemonade" Visual Album

Beyonce goes very big with Lemonade, a visual album that mixes the personal with the universal with the political in a nearly hourlong special consisting of poetry, music and visuals.

In terms of the visual, the biggest stamp seems to come from director Khalil Joseph, but the longform also has set-pieces (aka: songs) directed by Jonas Akerlund,, Melina Matsoukas, Jonas Akerlund, Mark Romanek, Todd Tourso and Dikayl Rimmasch.

Watch It

A Massive Star-Studded Trailer for Jay Z & Beyonce "Run" (Melina Matsoukas, dir.)

Holy crap. An all-star, action packed trailer for Jay Z and Beyonce first feature film coming... NEVER. So, breath a sigh of relief, since all involved surely know that this compilation of action flick cliches would be a clunker even by Hollywood crap standards.

That said: We get Beyonce at her hottest, Jay at his most badass and cast that would be the envy of any blockbuster: Sean Penn, Don Cheadle, Guillermo Diaz, Emmy Rossum, Jake Gyllenhaal, Blake Lively, Rashida Jones and Kidada Jones. 

And if you want to see Jay and Bey' on the run together: Go get your tickets for their tour — which is what this trailer is really meant to promote.

Blog

Meet Beyonce Stylist B. Akerlund

There's several recurrent credits in the Beyonce Visual Album, but one that may have caught your attention is stylist B. Akerlund.

She caught the NY Times attention too, which weighs in with a high profile feature on Akerlund — yes, she's married to director Jonas Akerlund — who styled four of the album's 17 videos including the first clip, "Pretty Hurts." Other styling credits include Lady Gaga "Paparazzi", Britney Spears "Work Bitch" and Madonna's look for her Super Bowl halftime show. 

The piece is centered on the Beyonce release — there's a slideshow of all the various looks in it — but mainly gives a great insight into the important role of the stylist in music videos and beyond.

Read:

What Would Beyoncé Wear? She Knows The Stylist B. Akerlund on Her Looks for Beyoncé and Other Stars