Michel Gondry is a French Academy Award-Winning Film Director and screenwriter. He has directed films that include Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind and also music videos for artists such as The Chemical Brothers, The White Stripes, Radiohead and Foo Fighters. He has also created many commercial advertisements and even created the style of film called “Bullet Time” that was used in such movies as The Matrix and Blade.
I remember seeing Gondry’s work for the first time when I saw the video for Foo Fighter’s “Everlong”. I instantly noticed that his type of style was very different from most videos that I remember seeing at that point in time because he was using this surrealistic method of visual communication. But, it wasn’t really until I came across the videos that he made for Daft Punk (“Around the World”) and The White Stripes (“Fell in Love With a Girl”), where I really took an intense interest in the type of work that he does.
I think what intrigues me the most is how he takes certain situations that the viewer may have come across in their lives without really noticing them, but the way that he edits and composes the various frames, makes those familiar situations, unfamiliar. Whether he is using legos, or reversing the playback of a sequence of images and playing it forward, he is manipulating the way we view the world (especially in a New Media type of perspective) and the reality that we have come to understand and trust to be authentic.
When you see his work, in most cases, you will have to ask yourself, how is he doing this? A question that came to mind over and over when I saw his White Stripes video when he used his animation of legos.
His work has inspired me over the years to start mixing it up with music and digital video. I have also been inspired to stretch the limits between the familiar and unfamiliar aspects of what is considered normal in our realistic view of the world.
I remember seeing Gondry’s work for the first time when I saw the video for Foo Fighter’s “Everlong”. I instantly noticed that his type of style was very different from most videos that I remember seeing at that point in time because he was using this surrealistic method of visual communication. But, it wasn’t really until I came across the videos that he made for Daft Punk (“Around the World”) and The White Stripes (“Fell in Love With a Girl”), where I really took an intense interest in the type of work that he does.
I think what intrigues me the most is how he takes certain situations that the viewer may have come across in their lives without really noticing them, but the way that he edits and composes the various frames, makes those familiar situations, unfamiliar. Whether he is using legos, or reversing the playback of a sequence of images and playing it forward, he is manipulating the way we view the world (especially in a New Media type of perspective) and the reality that we have come to understand and trust to be authentic.
When you see his work, in most cases, you will have to ask yourself, how is he doing this? A question that came to mind over and over when I saw his White Stripes video when he used his animation of legos.
His work has inspired me over the years to start mixing it up with music and digital video. I have also been inspired to stretch the limits between the familiar and unfamiliar aspects of what is considered normal in our realistic view of the world.
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