Director Research

Michel Gondry Michel Gondry is a French Independent film director, screen

writer and producer. Michel Gondry is well-known for his music collaborations with

the Chemical Brothers, The White Stripes and Beck. Within his music videos, he has a distinctive style with

repetition, visual illusions, use of different colours (if not, he likes to use black with red and blue) or black and white, and linking the lyrics with the visuals.

Michel Gundry also does not like to make his artist visible in what he produces however, if they are visible, for example, in Gary Jules ‘Mad World’, it is very minimal.

The way in how Michel Gundry Produces, he is seen as very playful as he loves to use special effects and cartoony sketches. This shows that he has a childlike personality even though it is not very obvious from his appearance.

For example… Michel Gondry’s most recent directed music video, ‘City

Lights’ by white stripes which was produced September 2016, shows again, a playful side of him. The use of the images on the window link to the lyrics of the song. For example, the repetition of the woman, which again conforms to his style, could give a meaning that the artist is in love.

However, Michel Gondry does get criticised as his music videos are more about the visuals rather than the meaning of the actual music video which doesn’t always have a clear narrative behind it. This could sometimes confuse the reader. The repeated image of the woman

Spike Jonze Spike Jonze is also a director, screenwriter, producer

and actor. He had started his career with a comedy film named Being John Malkovich in 1999 and continued with screen plays.

Spike Jonze is also well known for his music video collaborations with Daft Punk, Fatboy Slim and Kanye West.

Spike Jonze doesn’t have a clear distinctive style to his directing however, he does have a sense of comedy throughout all his music videos and his film directing career.

Kanye West is one of the artists that both, Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze have directed.

For example… The most recent music video directed by Spike Jonze, which was

‘Only one’ by Kanye West, January 2015, was a successful music video with 35 million views.

Kanye West stays in one area throughout his music video with his daughter North and this shows that his music video is about his family. Spike Jonze does use this similar style in his other music videos with a faded colour throughout. However, for example, another music video with Kanye West and Jay Z names ‘Otis’ is the opposite in the sense of colour as it uses the colours of the American flag throughout. This could suggest that Spike Jonze gives freedom to the artists on how they would want their music video to be.

These two images show the differences between the colours used in Spike Jonze’s Music Videos.