Dawn Shadforth is a British music video and documentary director, as well as an editor and artist. Shadforth has directed and edited promotional music videos for artists such as Bjork, Primal Scream, Goldfrapp, Tinie Tempah, Charlie XCX, Metronomy, The Streets, All Seeing I, Peaches, Hurts, Florence and the Machine, Selena Gomez and Kylie Minogue. She has received numerous awards for her work in music video including; Best New Director at The 1998 CAD Awards, Best Director at the 2001 CAD Awards, Visionary Video at the VH1 Awards for Garbage’s "Special", and the Icon Award at the 2010 UK Music Video Awards. Her work is well known for its humor, sexuality and tightly choreographed performances and for liberating the movement of dancers rather than containing it.
Shadforth at an early age was interested in art and music. She studied at Sheffield Hallam University gaining a 1st Class Hons Degree in Fine Art. While at art school she won the Whitworth Young Contemporaries Award for the installation piece "Sweet Dreams".
In 1995 Shadforth directed The Friends Tale, a 10-minute documentary for Channel 4's controversial "Battered Britain" series. She then followed the documentary up with The Seven Year Glitch, a short film documenting the Warp Records 7 year anniversary Tour. The documentary was screened at "Onedotzero" and "Solar" in Barcelona, Spain.
In 1996 directed a music video for the track "Hush" by Kurtis Mantronix. The video was filmed in Brooklyn in New York City and Sheffield. It features a cameos by Todd Terry and Roisin Murphy, Jason Buckle from the band Relaxed Muscle and DJ Winston Hazel amongst others. In 1997 Shadforth's music video for Sheffield band All Seeing I's single "Beat Goes On" won for Best Dance Video at the 1998 Muzik Video Awards and for Best New Director and Best Editing at the 1999 CAD Awards.