The auter theory holds that a director's film reflects the personal creative vision, as if the director were the primary author. In spite of the production of the film as part of an industrial process, the author's creative voice is distinct enough to shine through all kinds of studio interference.
(Definition taken from wiki)
Michel Gondry:
Gondry is a French film, commerical and music video director as well as an Academy Award-winning screenwriter. He is world renowned for his visual style and manipulation of mise-en-scene. He has vast works, but some of his most noteable music videos to date include:
-Mad World; Gary Jules -Human Behaviour; Bjork
-Star Guitar; Chemical Brothers -Come Into My World; Kylie Minogue
-Gimme Shelter; The Rolling Stones -Around The World; Daft Punk
-Denial Twist; The White Stripes -Protection; Massive Attack
Gondry is deemed as an auteur. His films and video's all have key signatures of his creative character. Most involve:
- Tecnical wizardy
- A repetitive nature
- Long takes as opposed to short cuts
- Illusions
The videos he produces mostly cohere to Andrew Goodwin's theory, where the video amplifies the music adding another layer of meaning to the sound via the visuals, and Bordwell and Thompson's rhythmic theory that the pace of the cuts are in time to the beat of the track.
I have chosen to focus on these two tracks as they share aspects and techincal skill that I hope to recreate in some form in my own video.
Fell In Love With A Girl:
The video is a lego animation, featuring Gondry's son at the begginning building the initial blocks. It was shot frame by frame with each frame having the lego bricks rebuilt, sometimes in a complex manner to seem as if it were an actual shot, and then edited together to give the illusion of motion. One section, lasting only a few seconds, used computer animation to simulate the lego bricks. The video won three MTV video awards in 2002, and also received a nomination for Video of the year.
The lyrics do not match what we visually see on the screen, and therefore it is a disjunctive and entropic video, with no defined narrative or binary opposites involved. The band don't literally feature in the video, although the lego bricks are built to form the lead singer Jack White and Meg White the drummer, so although they are not present themselves the artist is still technically featured in the video. I would categorise this video as an 'Art Clip' in keeping with Sven E Carlsson's definition- 'If a music video clip contains no perceptable visual narrative and contains no lip-synchronized singing then it is a pure art clip.'
I love the way the video feels hand made and not over produced, even though it has a large post production edit. The stop motion aspect of the video creates a fast paced and disjointed edit that isn't typical of his usual signatures, but creates the right pace and effect to suit the music.
The Hardest Button To Button:
The video uses a technique called 'pixilation animation' to give the effect of a line of drum kits and amps multiplying in beat to the song. In one sequence, Meg is seen playing the bass drum on a railway platform and on every beat, a new drum appears just ahead of her and she appears behind it playing to the beat. This was achieved by setting up a trail of bass drums with Meg being filmed performing a single beat on the last drum in the line, which would then be removed. This would continue on down the line as she played a beat on each one. The final video was edited to include the drum beats with the sequence reversed, making it appear as if the drums were being added and not taken away.
This is in keeping with Gondry's stylistic signatures, as he creates an optical illusion that keeps the audience enthralled, as well as creating a dynamic video that is paced perfectly to the beat of the song and yet remains it's disjunctive and entropic elements, that retain his distinct creative voice.
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