Case Study of Michel Gondry (music video director)

Michel Gondry is a French music and film director who has produced music videos for a number of bands and musicians including The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, The Chemical Brothers and The White Stripes. He started his career producing music videos for the French rock band Oui Oui, in which he also served as a drummer. Also, he has produce a number of music videos for indie-rock bands such as The White Stripes and The Vines.
Within his music videos Michel uses either the narrative or performance music video genres, but also using a conceptual style within his videos, as his videos are often eccentric and sometimes very different from what is expected of the genre of the music.
In his music videos, he often uses long and medium shots as the scenes in his music videos often include a lot for the audience to take in. Also, the genre of the music video means that these shots are often essential to showing the characteristics of the genre, as seen in this long shot of The Vines.

Editing is another area that makes Gondry very different from other music video directors. An editing technique that he frequently uses is the use of stop motion in his videos as he uses this in several videos.

Another editing technique that he often uses is the use of overlaying in his videos. This can create the effect of ghosts being present in the music video, or to show events that have happened in the past, as shown videos produced for several artists.

The M-E-S that is used in his music videos is often shown to be lively, using a number of elements in his videos to reflect the lyrics and themes associated in each song. For example - in The White Stripes' Fell in Love with a Girl, the video is created purely in Lego to create the theme of immaturity and to create a sense that the video is childish.