Music video essay

I'm going to be discussing the career and art style of Michel Gondry, a famous music video director. I have chosen three music videos to discuss his art style by, which are Daft Punk - Around The World, The White Stripes - The Hardest Button To Button and Kylie Minogue - Come Into My World. Michel Gondry is established because he has directed for famous artists and has also won awards for feature films such as "The eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" which won the most critically acclaimed film of the year.

The music video for The White Stripes - The Hardest Button To Button likes to use repetition consistently in this music video. When there is a beat in the song the drum would replicate right next to the original and this would keep going until there wasn't enough room in the shot. This would also happen with the guitar but not as frequently. This makes the video light hearted and entertaining rather than dark and endearing. This also means that the colour scheme uses very light colours like red and green. He likes to use natural lighting to his advantage in this music video because most of it was shot outside. When they were in the train station the lighting and colour seemed fairly dark. This helped to bring out the brightness of the red in her drum kit. The cameras were usually very far away and rarely close up. The closest the camera gets is a medium shot. There was a lot of editing because of the repetition of the drum kit, guitar and amps. This made the music video fairly fast paced. This music video was performance based because you it showed the band playing throughout all of it and the band playing was the main subject of the video. This music video appeals to it's audience because it shows the band playing and that is what they want and expect to see. The target audience is 18-21 year olds who are most likely students with low income and usually male.

The next music video is Kylie Minogue - Come Into My World which uses repetition like in The White Stripes - The Hardest Button To Button but it uses repetition in a different way. The camera would pan around a street and then the second time it would have the same but overlapped with another one. This happened four or five times. This theme is similar with The Hardest Button To Button because it is also playful and light hearted. The colour scheme was also similar to The Hardest Button To Button because it used a fairly light colours but it doesn't have the red that stands out. The lighting is really similar because they both use the natural light to their advantage as much as possible, which gives it a very natural feel to reflect the scene. The lighting doesn't change because the music video is on the same street throughout the music video. The camera pans around the street while going up close to Kylie but then pulling away. The location is a big difference between the music videos. In Kylie Minogue's music video it uses the one location throughout the whole video. With The White Stripes music video they switch between locations and sometimes they revert back to a location. There is some editing involved to make the clones but the music video looks like it was shot in one take. Therefore this music video had a very casual feel to it rather than The White Stripes music video. This music video was narrative based because it followed Kylie Minogue around will she was singing. The video uses clones to make the video entertaining, which is also the main premise of this music video. The music video also has a link to the lyrics. This music video appeals to Kylie Minogue and pop fans because it displays Kylie which is the main thing that attracts that kind of audience. Kylies audience is predominately female teenagers who are in education and listen to artists similar to Kylie Minogue.

The final music video is Daft Punk - Around The World which also uses repetition just like the other two. The Kylie Minogue song was more similar to Daft Punk than The White Stripes. The music video would use repetition without needing to edit to use repetition. They would dance in a sequence and they would repeat it a few times then switch the focus to another group of dancers then do the same. This happened throughout the music video. The colour scheme was very different to the other music videos. The colour of the background was very dark, while the costume colours were predominately very bright. This allowed for the audience to have more focus on the dancers. The lighting in this music video complemented the colour scheme as it kept the background dark and the dancers bright. The is also another difference to the other two music videos which is that Daft Punk didn't use natural light in the music video. The location is similar to Kylie Minogue in the fact that it used only one location although Daft Punk's music video was not outside. The only editing involved was when they had to switch shot/angle. This meant the editing style was slow and which means it was similar to the Kylie Minogue music video. This music video is concept based because it is the video has no link to the lyrics or song although, it can be argued that there is a link. This appeals to the audience as it is similar to a music video already done by this artist which means the fans will like this one as well. The audience is 15-21 males who are students and unemployed.

The main link between these three videos is that they all use repetition but they differ in the way they use it. Personally, I enjoyed all three music videos but this may be affected by the fact that I am in the target audience. The music videos are very entertaining but they are kind of expected. They are very efficient at promoting the artist and the music tracks complement the videos very well.