If you selected one person to speak for the music video as a form of creative expression, Daniel Pearl would be the logical choice. Pearl is a native of New Jersey. He earned a masters degree in filmmaking from the University of Texas at Austin. Right after graduation, Pearl shot the feature Texas Chainsaw Massacre for Tobe Hooper.

"A lot of the emotion came from the movement of the handheld camera and the composition of images," Pearl says. "We shot in 16 mm format, because at the time, summer ‘73, there were only two blimped 35 mm portable cameras, the Arriflex BL and the Panaflex. Both had just been introduced, and there was an availability problem.

The 16 mm color negative film was too grainy, so we used Ektachrome film that had an exposure index of 25."

The film was a sensation at both Cannes and the boxoffice. Pearl shot a string of horror flicks before compiling 300-plus music video credits. He was the first in his field to try a number of different effects and technologies including combining the use of black light with DayGlo paint as make-up, employing a Louma crane on the set, accelerating frame rates to synchronize with music, using rear and front projection screens, and much more. Pearl has won every award that the music video industry can bestow on a cinematographer. Excerpts of a conversation follow:

QUESTION: What was your first video?

PEARL: I shot a few promos in the late 1970s for (director) Jerry Kramer. They were on the Z channel in Los Angeles and Top of the Pops in England.

QUESTION: Did that launch your career in videos?

PEARL: That happened in 1982, when I got a call from Russell Mulcahy. I thought music videos would be a way to fill the spaces between shooting pictures.

QUESTION: Wasn’t that in the early days of the telecine?

PEARL: Russell told me we were going to shoot 30 to 35 setups a day for two days on a Super Tramp video, It’s Raining Again. I wanted every frame to look as beautiful as possible. He told me to concentrate on getting images on film, because we could do a lot in telecine, including altering contrast. I had never been in a telecine bay before.

QUESTION: When did you decide to concentrate on videos?

PEARL: Russell introduced me to all the hot English directors, Steve Baron, Brian Grant, and the team of Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. Three days later, I was shooting Donna Summer singing, She Works Hard for the Money with Brian. Within weeks, I was working with all of them. Every video was something new. We shot Every Breath You Take in black and white and Wrapped Around Your Finger at 48 frames a second with a modified crystal motor to synchronize to a double-speed sound track. The group in both of those videos was The Police and the directors were Godley and Creme

QUESTION: How seriously did people take videos in those days?

PEARL: By late ‘83 there were awards and festivals for music videos. Bob Giraldi would usually win for directing Beat It with Michael Jackson, and I was winning the cinematography award for Every Breath You Take. The record companies knew that if you had a song in the top 10, and you made a video, the sale of the record would multiply by a factor of five the next week. They could predict how much money a successful promo would generate. In 1984, Fortune Magazine published a big article on how videos were turning around the record industry, and there were full page pictures of Bob (Giraldi) and me.

QUESTION: Was there really a lot of creative freedom?

PEARL: The labels and artists were much less involved in the creative process, and MTV was just grateful to receive the product. There were no rules about what you could show and what you couldn’t, and no one imposed their taste.

QUESTION: Do videos make a lasting impression or are does the viewer merely see them without really an indelible mark on the brain being made?

PEARL: I’ll hear a song on the radio and I’ll be singing along, and I’ll realize that I’m running the pictures through my mind of the video shot to go with the song. The brain has the capacity to retain an incredible amount of information, and that includes pictures as well as lyrics. I think hearing the song and it’s lyrics can spark the memory of the video images.

QUESTION: Some film industry critics say the fast cuts associated with videos have shortened the attention span of movie audiences. Do you agree?

PEARL: That’s an oversimplification. Videos have to be very complex in structure, because the average viewer sees them 20, 30, 40 or more times. We look for ways to photograph the unphotographable and hold onto the attention of our audience, not for just one viewing of a video, but repetitive viewing of the same video. As well as quick cuts, we use quick camera moves and kinetic light effects to further the pace. Rich blacks, splashes of bright light, unusual contrast rations, underexposed areas in the frame, these are our ways to achieve a similar complexity in the visuals, hoping to entice the viewer to find more with repeated viewings.

QUESTION: Is the production of videos less experimental today?

PEARL: It seems like there’s more of a tendency to knock off other people’s ideas, and MTV is more conservative. Some of the artists watch MTV and they want you to emulate shots they like. But you can overcome all of that. When I started directing, I swore I wouldn’t rehash other people’s films. I just let my mind roam freely, listen to the track, write the treatment and see where it takes me.

QUESTION: How have the advances in imaging technology affected videos?

PEARL: Every time you get a new tool, it gives you more freedom to improvise. Kodak has made phenomenal advances in films. I’m intrigued with the new Vision 250-speed daylight film. The color rendition and texture are amazing. We look for ways to use or abuse technology to bend the rules. We once shot a black and white video with an artist that was sensitive about his complexion. I was deciding which filters to use, and I saw a heavy red one with a note, "not for flesh tones." It was designed for architectural photography. I said "perfect." There’s a lot of red in flesh tones. It bleached out the imperfections. His skin was completely clear.

QUESTION: Are expectations getting higher?

PEARL: There’s a lot of competition between artists. There is a lot of great work being done, and they all want their video to be better. That’s what motivates me.