Directors study – Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry was born on the 8th May 1963; he was born in Versailles, France. He is the grandson of the inventor Constant Martin. Constant martin was a French engineer and inventor who perfected a successfully commercialised different radio sets, these were most famously known as the Clavioline. Michel’s filmmaking career started when he was creating music videos for the French rock band call Oui Oui, where he was also the drummer for the band. From these videos Michel was approached to do other music videos for French bands, from there on he went on to work with a number of different artists some of these include are

• Daft punk
• The White Strips
• The Chemical Brothers
• The Vines
• Steriogram
• Radiohead
• Rolling stone
• BjÖrk

Instead of Gondry approaching different bands, the bands would have approached Gondry and asked him to create a video for them. This would have been for his unique style which he has.

Not only working for artists to create their music video he also created a numerous television commercials, one of these was the “bullet time” (advert – 1998) which was said to of had the technique later adapted in The Matrix.

In Eternal sunshine which was released in 2004, you are able to see how Michel Gondry has used a number of his image manipulation techniques which were experimented throughout his use of creating music videos. Michel Gondry also won an Academy Award alongside Kaufman and Pierre Bismuth, this was all for the screenplay of Eternal Sunshine.

The style of Michel Gondry’s music videos are often relies on videography and camera tricks which play with frames of reference.

He also uses digital manipulation changing certain areas to create the best effect possible. This would have all been done during the post-production stages. This is where we would be able to apply some of his unique touch which you can see in all of his videos.

He also uses theatrical elements within these videos. These include props, costumes, sets etc.

We can see a lot of these elements within his video for the white strips “the hardest button to button.”