Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry was Born on 8 May 1963 In Versailles in France. He is noted for his interpretation of mise-en-scene and imaginative and original visual style.

He was the drummer in a French band called “Oui Oui” and he directed the music video’s for the band. The music video’s caught the attention of singer Bjork

who he ended up making a total of 7 music video’s for. He went on to direct music videos for a lot of mainstream artists including Kanye West, The White

Stripes, Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, The Rolling Stones, Kylie Minogue and many more mainstream artists.

Michel Gondry’s music video’s caught my attention as his visual style is very inventive and original and I would love to be as creative in my project. His stylistic

influences come from ideas that he has had. For example the video he directed for Kylie Minogue came from a magicians show he watched when he was younger who layered thread through a needle and then revealed how he did it on the next

show.

The Hardest Button To Button – The White StripesMichel Gondry bought 32 identical drum kits, hired 32 identical amplifiers and 12 mic stands in order to make this video. He said The pattern, how it goes 'doot-doot-doot[-doot], doot, doot, doot, doot, doot.' This makes me think of 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 4, 8, 12, 16 ... 2, 4, 8, 16, 32." Thus, when Meg hits a

beat her drum kit multiplies, and when Jack plays a lick his amplifier multiplies. They filmed it constantly over the course of three 16 hour days

and the stop motion effect was added afterwards in editing.

Iconography is apparent in this video throughout. The red and white theme that the band have kept to throughout their career is constructed in the video with their clothes, instruments and also with the

costume that Beck is wearing when he appears in his Cameo role.

The locations and lighting in the video give the absurdity of multiplying

instruments a quite a naturalistic feel.

There isn’t any link between the text and the visuals in the video except for one line in the song where Jack sings “a box with something in it” where a

cameo from Beck shows him producing a box. Although there is a vivid relationship between the music

and the video. With each drum kit that appears representing a drum beat.

The video could be said to be conventional in the sense that the

rock genre frequently feature the artists playing their instruments.

In the Daft Punk video “Around the World” Gondry describes listening to a band in the 70’s called Chic and one of their songs Good Times. He said that whenever he heard

the bass-line he said he used to imagine someone running up and down the stairs and that was the inspiration for this video. Each part of the song is represented by a

dancing quartet.

Again in this video there is not a relationship between the lyrics and the videos but there is a relationship between the music and the video where each group of dancers represents

part of the music.

According to Gondry's notes, the androids represent the singing robot voice; the physicality and small-minded rapidity of the athletes symbolizes the ascending/descending

bass guitar; the femininity of the disco girls represents the high-pitched keyboard; the "itchy" skeletons serve for the guitars; the mummies represent the drum machine.

Heard ‘Em Say – Kanye West ft. Adam Levine (version one)

The video relates to the lyrics slightly as it shows a family who look homeless and Kanye is rapping about “can I at least get a raise and a minimum raise.” The video has a narrative which is not the norm for Michel's music videos. There is a lot of iconography in the video also with Kanye West featuring in most of the scenes which helps promote his star image. He usually doesn’t use a narrative in his

videos, although this video is the exception.

The reference to voyeurism in the video shows Kanye west being

watched on TV screens that have been stacked up together and the children

in the video are watching him. There is also intertextuality in the video. In a reference to the film ‘Miracle on 34th

Street’, in the middle of the night Kanye and the children venture into Macy’s store in New York City, where

Adam Levine, lets them in to the magical Christmas wonderland acting

as the security guard.

Michel Gondry’s trademark of using stop motion is also apparent in the music video where we see piano’s

flying through the air, a car track being built and the young girl dancing with

lights and lamps.

The Music video went through a lot of controversy primarily because

Gondry's vision seems entirely outside the current culture of rap videos, and those who commission them. Kanye West made a second version of the

video.

Visual signatures and themes

His work usually feature the artist and his videos are usually in one location. The exception being ‘the white stripes’ video although the locations he used were

all within 4 blocks of each other. Michel Gondry has a very innovative style and is known for his mise-en-scene and being very abstract.

In his videos there is a running theme of using stop motion in his videos and even if he doesn’t - he films things over a period of time constantly and then

adds the effect in in the editing afterwards. I have also identified that he doesn’t use instrument playback or a simple narrative that links with the song very often as I read he said he finds it very

boring. Instead he uses visual concepts to portray the different instruments in the song for example in The White Stripes and Daft Punk video this theory is

apparent.

Michel Gondry’s style is very playful and each of his video’s are very childlike or surreal and include something out of the ordinary and this is why I love his

work so much.