Howard Greenhalgh


Howard Douglas Greenhalgh is a British director of music videos and advertising.

Biography

Greenhalgh was born in Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire and studied at the Royal College of Art, setting up the firm Why Not after graduating. He came to prominence in the early 1990s with his direction of the music video for the Snap! song "Rhythm is a Dancer". Greenhalgh then was hired by the Pet Shop Boys to direct videos for their successful album Very and later its follow-up Bilingual. His work has also included the video for George Michael's song 'Jesus to a Child', several videos for Muse, Placebo, Soundgarden and others.
His videos for Very make extensive and early use of computer animation and blue screen to create environments of geometric shapes and patterns in which the group members Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe are inserted. His clip for the song "Liberation" was later reused in the 2000 animation anthology CyberWorld. He later directed the video of Soundgarden's song 'Black Hole Sun', attracting attention in the United States; in 1995, Spin magazine awarded him a reader's choice award for best video for this.
He also directed music videos for Sandra for her fifth studio album Close To Seven in 1992.
Describing his approach to music video direction, Greenhalgh said in a 2010 interview that "With anything, it’s the lyrics that are everything. You pray that there are good lyrics in a track because that leads you immediately to what you’re going to do."

Videography

2024