- Source of Wealth: Film and Music Videos
- Age: 49
- Birth Place: Queens, New York, U.S.
- Marital Status: Single
- Full Name: Harold Williams
- Nationality: American
- Date of Birth: July 1, 1970
- Ethnicity: African-American and Honduran
- Occupation: Film and Music Video Director and Screenwriter
- Education: Adelphi University
American music video and film director, Harold “Hype” Williams has an estimated net worth of $14 million. Hype Williams has earned his net worth by directing music videos and films for artists such as The Notorious B.I.G. (“Warning”) & (“One More Chance”), LL Cool J (“Doin’ It”), Nas (“If I Ruled The World (Imagine That)”, Missy Elliott (“The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)”, Busta Rhymes (“Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See”), TLC (“No Scrubs”), Jay-Z (“Big Pimpin'”), Kanye West (“Gold Digger”, “All of the Lights”), Aaliyah (“Rock The Boat”), Christina Aguilera (“Not Myself Tonight”) and more; Williams was the writer for Kanye West‘s film “Runaway” in 2010. Hype Williams is of African-American and Honduran descent, born 1970; Queens, New York.
Throughout most of Williams’ videos, he used a signature style that was the Fisheye lens that distorted the camera view around a central focus. This was what the tandem Perez and Williams used in Busta Rhymes’ video “Gimme Some More” and Missy Elliott’s “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly).” However, they dropped it in 2003 and it led to a time when he experienced his lowest production level since he started to become a music video director.
He also has another signature style that involved placing shots in a regular widescreen ratio and the second shot gets split and placed in lower and upper bars. This style was in use in the videos “I Ain’t Heard of That” by Slim Thug, “Diamonds on My Neck” by Smitty, “So Sick” by Ne-Yo, “My Hood” by Young Jeezy, “Gomenasai” by t.A.T.u., “Freeze” by LL Cool J, “Check on It” by Beyonce, “Snap Yo Fingers by Lil Jon and a lot of other videos. Aside from this, he usually uses tracking and aerial shots that usually move forward and backward. This technique is evident in the videos “Only U” by Ashanti, “She’s a Bitch” by Missy Elliott, “Rock the Boat” by Aaliyah and “Not Myself Tonight” by Christina Aguilera. Other style traits include the use of smooth cutting, deep focus and slow-motion action.
Williams was able to adopt a signature style that combines the center camera focus on the actor or artist’s body from the torso upwards with a solid color background as well as a soft different-color light at the center of the background that gives a sense of illumination of the background that came from the foreground subject. This can be viewed in the videos “Video Phone” by Beyonce, “Digital Girl” (Remix) by Jamie Foxx and “Gold Digger” by Kanye West.