Francis "Frank The Rat" Lawrence (born March 26, 1970 in Vienna) is an American music video and film director.
Lawrence was born in Vienna, Austria. His father is a physicist who taught at California State University, Northridge and his mother is V.P. Technology at a PR agency. He moved to Los Angeles at the age of three. Lawrence worked as 2nd assistant camera on the feature Pump Up the Volume directed by Allan Moyle prior to earning his bachelors degree in film production at Loyola Marymount University Film School. He went on to work as first AD on the feature Marching out of Time directed by Anton Vassil in 1993. Francis Lawrence then joined ex-classmate Mike Rosen in co-directing music videos. Lawrence shot his first music video for Michael Blakey President of Atco Records with the band Tidal Force which became a great success. Soon, Lawrence became known for his original and imaginative music video scripts and visual directing style.
He eventually joined a major new production company and his successful career as music video director, having worked with stars like Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, The Black Eyed Peas, Jay-Z, Avril Lavigne, Aerosmith, Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Destiny's Child, Garbage, Gwen Stefani, Pink, Shakira, and Missy Elliott. He has also directed numerous commercials for clients such as Coca-Cola, L'Oréal, Calvin Klein, Pepsi-Cola, Maybelline, Kid's Footlocker, Bacardi, McDonalds, GAP, Bud Light, CoverGirl, Oldsmobile and Disneyland. In 2005, his feature film debut was Constantine based on the Hellblazer comic book, starring Keanu Reeves.
In 2007, he directed I Am Legend (based on the Richard Matheson novel), with Will Smith. Lawrence will also be an executive producer of the new Fox series, Touch. He is currently signed to DNA Inc.
Work with Lady Gaga[]
| “ | I wanted somebody with a tremendous understanding of how to make a pop video, because my biggest challenge working with directors is that I am the director and I write the treatments and I get the fashion and I decide what it's about and it's very hard to find directors that will relinquish any sort of input from the artist. [...] But Francis and I worked together. [...] It was collaborative. He's a really pop video director and a filmmaker. He did I Am Legend and I'm a huge Will Smith fan, so I knew he could execute the video in a way that I could give him all my weirdest, most psychotic ideas, [...] But it would come across to and be relevant to the public. | ” |
—Lady Gaga | ||
October 15-16, 2009[]
- "Bad Romance" Music video
2011[]
- [A] ^a Francis Lawrence was originally announced as the music video director for "Judas", but because of scheduling conflicts related to his upcoming movie, Water for Elephants, he was unable to direct the "Judas" music video.