Directors Study: Michel Gondry

Michel Gondry is a french film, commercial, music video director and an academy award winning screenwriter. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise-en-scene. Gondry has collaborated with many different artists, such as The White Stripes, Daft Punk, Radiohead, Kanye West and many miore successful artists. Gondry also created many television commericals. He established the 'bullet time' a technique which was later adapted in The Matrix.

The style of Gondry's music video often relies on viedography and camera tricks which play with frames of reference. In his White Stripes 'Fell In Love With A Girl' lego music video took over two months to complete. Every shot was done by hand, and changing a single block required much of the 'sets' to be rebuilt. Some of his other music videos are as follows;
"Dance Tonight" -Paul McCartney (2007)
"Heard 'Em Say" -Kanye West (2005)
"Winning Days" -The Vines (2004)
"Come In To My World" -Kylie Minogue (2002)
"Star Guitar" - The Chemical Brothers" (2001)
"Gimme Shelter" -The Rolling Stone (1998)

Michel Gondry's music videos have won him every music video award available, and he is in the Guiness Book of World Records as the director of the commerical that has won the most prizes in the world, including the Grand Prix at Cannes, three silvers at D&AD and the best campaign at BTAA (Levi's Drugstore). He has also competed three feature films, Human Nature, the oscar winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and The Science of Sleep, which was premiered at the Sundance Festival in February 2006.