Director Alon Isocianu Delivers 'Beautiful Visuals and Vignettes' to Music Videos for Shawn Hook, Kelly Clarkson and many more

    LOS ANGELES, CA, February 10, 2016 /24-7PressRelease/ -- The multi-award-winning Alon Isocianu has established himself as a tour de force director of music videos, commercials and short films spanning the last decade.

He's directed more than 60 music videos for artists including Kelly Clarkson, Pentatonix, Billy Talent, Shawn Hook, Lights, Heaven's Basement, Finger Eleven and more. He's directed commercials for Scotties, MuchMusic and Coca-Cola, and directed the short comedy film, "Celeste," starring Cory Lee of "Degrassi" fame.

The visual virtuoso has won an East Coast Music Award, four Cravefest Music Video Awards and has been internationally recognized for his outstanding aptitude as one of today's leading directors.

"I try to blend the surreal with the real in a lot of my work," Isocianu said. "This manifests itself in different ways. Earlier in my career, that came in the form of hyper-stylized visual effects pieces and mixing that with super glossy or super gritty performances."

Isocianu is parlaying a prolific 2015 into a flourishing 2016 that's featuring him directing more music videos for Hollywood Records' recording artist Shawn Hook and Sony Music Canada recording artist Ria Mae. He directed Shawn Hook's brand new video, "Relapse," and Ria Mae's "Gold" video that's scheduling to release in March.

"Recently, I've been focusing a lot more on cinematic narrative pieces, but there's usually always something surreal or fantastical happening," said Isocianu.

"Relapse," is a smash hit single off of Hook's latest album, "Analog Love." The single was released through Universal Music Canada.

"My favorite part about working with Alon," said Hook, "is that he brings out the best qualities in me on camera. He doesn't try to stretch or put me in uncomfortable situations. He really gets me as an artist and takes time to understand what my songs are really about. Alon gets the emotion in the music and that is the most important part for me."

Last year, Isocianu directed music videos for the multi-platinum-selling and Grammy award-winning Kelly Clarkson, including her videos, "Piece by Piece" and "Invincible," which have together racked up more than nine million views on YouTube.

"Ultimately, I'm a fan of spectacle, but I also want to give people goosebumps as well, so there's always a visual juxtaposition between the grandiose and the intimate," he said. "The "Invincible" video combines a lot of these things. It doesn't have a clear narrative per-se, but the aesthetic is very much cinematic. It's got an anamorphic, cinematic look, and we aimed to showcase dancers and women who felt authentic and real. But then you've got these fantastical, glowing cubes that are floating and shattering everywhere."

Isocianu directed Shawn Hook's "Million Ways" video in 2014 and Hook's video for "Sound of Your Heart," in 2015, which has impressively accumulated millions of views on YouTube and Vevo. "That's ["Sound of Your Heart"] a haunting love story, but with a surreal, abstract setting," Isocianu said.

"Sound of Your Heart" was released in Canada on Universal Music Canada and in America on Hollywood Records.

"The music video Alon directed for "Sound Of Your Heart," is my most successful music video to date," said Hook. "It currently has 2.9 million views on Youtube/Vevo. My favorite characteristics of the music video for "Sound Of Your Heart" are the beautiful visuals and vignettes that Alon depicted throughout the video. We were limited in time and budget, and Alon was still able to create a world-class music video."

Born and raised in Hadera, a city located in the Haifa District of northern Israel, Isocianu moved in 1997 with his family to the Toronto suburb of Thornhill, when he was 13 years old.

"Growing up in Israel, as a kid I was always fascinated with North-American pop-culture," he said. "I was living in a small city called Hadera, and for most of my life there, we only had one small movie theatre. So movies were always this very special and exciting, larger than life experience for me."

As a pre-adolescent, Isocianu's parents got the family cable TV, which was then a new, evolving concept in Israel. "I was fascinated with MTV. I'd often watch a lot of American movies and TV shows without subtitles, so pop-culture kind of taught me the English language in many ways," Isocianu said. "Growing up, I was always attracted to spectacle movies like "Gladiator" or "Fifth Element," or hyper-stylized films like "Sin City," "Kill Bill" and "Snatch."

Isocianu started directing short films in high school and while attending Ryerson University in Toronto, where he began to take influence from the works of directors Michel Gondry, Chris Cunningham and Spike Jonze.

"As I grew older, I started to appreciate more personal films as well, but I kept getting drawn to specific movies like "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "Fight Club," realizing those were done by Michel Gondry and David Fincher, former music video directors," said Isocianu. "I was amazed at the amount of creativity these directors were able to express within the medium of a music video."

In 2008, Isocianu directed his first commissioned music video - "Hollowpoint Sniper Hyperbole" - for USS (Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker), an independent Canadian band. The single had achieved national radio exposure in Canada. The video made its mark online and on TV, broadcasting nationally on Canada's MuchMusic, and it punctuated the debut of Isocianu's directing talent.

Following the success of "Hollowpoint Sniper Hyperbole," Alon began directing music videos for breakthrough and up-and-coming new artists coming out of Canada. He went on to direct the cyberpunk-inspired "Neon Black" video for the group formerly known as Candy Coated Killahz.

Isocianu said, "It was important because it was the first time I believe that I really felt like I was able to dream up some crazy visuals and somehow managed to also execute them in a way that was felt successful. The visuals matched the video treatment I had written, but the visuals in the treatment were so ambitious at the time, it felt like we shouldn't have been able to pull it off. But we did."

The music industry took notice of the awe-inspiring direction and imagery as "Neon Black" received a MuchMusic Video Award (MMVA) nomination for Best Post-production, in 2011.

Isocianu, who co-owns the Toronto headquartered VFX and motion-design studio, Reactiv, is inspired by visionaries such as Wes Anderson, Stanley Kubrick, Ridley Scott and others.

Chief among Isocianu's favorite videos he's directed are The Balconies' "Kill Count," The Angry Kids' "Battle," HotKid's "Rip It Into Pieces," Billy Talent's "Running Across The Tracks" and Lights' "Up We Go."

"The main connecting thread in all of those videos is that I had complete creative control, and I was basically commissioned to make something that I dreamt up that's completely bonkers and hyper-stylized," he said. "A lot of the time it's thinking up an idea while listening to the song and then having an honest, internal conversation with myself about whether I actually am in love with whatever idea I just came up with. The written treatment comes in, where I flesh out the idea more. Beyond that, I do moodboards, breakdowns and shotlists. Sometimes I do storyboards and even digital pre-visualizations of specific shots."

Rising to the summit of music video direction, Isocianu has received many awards and nominations including the Video of the Year award at the 2015 East Coast Music Awards for Meaghan Smith's "Have a Heart," a Best Visual Effects nomination at the 2015 Berlin Music Video Awards for The Angry Kids' "Battle" and a MMVA nomination for Pop Video of the Year for Victoria Duffield's "Shut Up & Dance."

Duffield, a Warner Music Canada recording artist, said, "The best part of working with Alon is his creativity, as well as his humbleness. The ideas and music video treatments he's been able to create for me capture not only my song, but also me as an artist. He always makes a point of making sure I share the vision of the video just as much as he does and is open to my suggestions and input. I am privileged to have worked with Alon many times and thoroughly enjoy his enthusiasm, positive attitude that never fails even with a 16 hour shoot day, and his incredible worth ethic."

His directing earned Cravefest Music Video awards including the 2008 Best Music Video and Best Direction/Production awards for Hexes & Oh's "H-H-Highschool," and the 2007 Best Production and Best Video awards for The Sweet Homewreckers' "Wild America."

In 2007, Isocianu won a CHUM/CityTV Award for Video Body of Work including the "Catherine Deneuve" video for Kelly & The Kellygirls.

For more information, visit:
http://alonisocianu.com/ and https://imvdb.com/n/alon-isocianu

Check out Kelly Clarkson's "Piece by Piece" Behind the Scenes video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC6YpLaXAxI

Alon Isocianu is a music video, commercial and short film director.

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