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Michel Gondry, MIT, 4.5.2005
April 6, 2005 at 12:07 PM | Link
Update 5.18.2005: The MP3 of the talk is now online. Get it here.
Michel Gondry gave a talk at MIT. He showed and discussed several of his music videos, and answered questions from a hosting MIT professor as well as the audience that packed the auditorium.
Gondry seemed very shy, as he admitted himself. He didn't seem entirely comfortable with English; at times it was tough to understand what he meant. But he spoke plainly and without pretension.
Among others, we watched the Lego video, the yarn video, Come Into My World, and Star Guitar which is one of my favorites. On more than one occasion, Gondry touched on the theme of making a creative decision (on a material, for example, such as Lego blocks or yarn) then using the constraints of the choice to explore all that can be done within the limits. "Constraints are good" isn't exactly a new concept. But watching the yarn video again, it's amazing how much goodness he squeezes out of a single gimmick. He also mentioned that videos like that one and the Lego one ended up being very costly because they are labor-intensive and he did not want to cut corners by using CG.
Gondry talked about how his friends ask him for advice on projects. He felt that it was very important to do two things: one, finish projects you start; two, start projects. Somehow his reversed order of priority made sense. It was crucial to him that if you begin to execute an idea, you must take it to completion. He warned against doubting whether an idea was good or interesting enough; again, it was more important to finish. In some ways, it's an old Media Lab theme: make it first, analyze later. Gondry summed it up with what I thought was the quote of the night, as he advised his friends to just do it: "There's nothing not cool enough." His slightly odd phrasing only made it more memorable.
Good tidbits: Gondry feels there is a closeness between the pursuits of art and science. He described the set of Around the World as a "pure disco system". When he and his son Paul are having an argument, Paul points out that his father's first movie was a flop. There were no 3D models used in Star Guitar. He said that early on in his career, Bjork saw a quality in his work which led her to hire him for Human Behavior, and that she encouraged him to focus on and foster this quality which helped him become the artist he is today. (I think I've read Bjork described this way before, and it explains the workings of many of her musical and visual collaborations.)
They had banned photo and video recording, but I managed to snap a couple of shots plus keep my video camera running to record just the audio of the talk. I'll be listening to it again.
Comments
Hi! Do you think I could get a copy of the audio of gondry's talk from you? I'm writing my master's dissertation on music video and it would be really useful to listen to... if you could email me that would be cool!
thanks,
Rachel
Rachel | May 1, 2005 8:31:43 AM
A few people have expressed interest as well, so I'll put up an MP3 here within the next two weeks.
James | May 4, 2005 11:39:54 AM
The MP3 of the talk is now online. See the updated post above.
James | May 18, 2005 10:10:58 AM
