Back in the 1980's, Michel Gondry went to college in Paris. There he and several friends formed the multidimensional band Oui Oui. Among them was band leader Etienne Charry, who is still in the French music scene today. As time went on, Gondry chose to do three animated videos for the band: Bolide, Un joyeaux noel, and Junior et sa voix d'or, all available on Michel's Directors Label DVD.
Back in 1995, Björk published a book about her second album Post. Included is an article written by her friend Sjón about Michel Gondry, who had by then directed three videos for Björk. We'll let Gondry's words from that article take over from here.
Among my flatmates [at college] was a very good friend Jean-Louis Bompoint, who was from Bordeaux. He used to tell me our music was terrible. He should have been born 50 years earlier, because he was always complaining about Modern Times. He was into jazz - very middle-class old jazz, like the New Orleans big band sound and swing. He knew loads of the jazz musicians who used to come there and play, like Lionel Hampton the vibraphone player.
Jean-Louis directed films and his cinematic tastes were also rooted in the past. He loved movies by people like Marcel Carné and Jean Renoir. He had a big collection of their movies on video. We'd watch them night after night and he taught me how to appreciate them.
In Paris I learnt what I liked and didn't like in films. I preferred the work of the surrealists or Jean Renoir to classic films such as Les Enfants du Paradis. Films like that were very well-made but they lacked the freedom of say Boudu Sauvé des Eaux by Renoir. Or Jean Vigo's L'Atalante, which for me is the best film of all time. What those movies have in common is they were experimental and had a feeling for modernity, and because of that they are still as fresh as they were 60 years ago.
I also learned from Jean-Louis what the role of a director is; that he is someone who takes a project and actually makes it happen. It's so easy to talk and talk about the beautiful movies you're going to make in the future, instead of just getting on with it. When you do a video, an animation, or a short movie, it's not like writing where all you need is a pencil and paper. You have to be very practical and organise a lot of things to get a film off the ground.
But if you don't do it, no-one else will do it for you.
The first animation I ever made was shot with a camera and a little light I borrowed from Jean-Louis. It was a short piece about a policeman chasing criminal through a city. I cut out the characters and backgrounds from paper and filmed it in my room on the wall above the fireplace.
I bought my first camera, a little 16mm Bolex, at the big annual market in Lille. Everyone goes there to eat fries and mussels and shop in the massive street market.
When I got back to Paris Jean-Louis saw my new camera and said: 'What's this? Are you trying to take my place?' and I answered No. no. I just want to do little things on my own...'
I might still have that camera but it's probably broken now. I hated the film people are so careful with their equipment, so l did all sorts with that camera. Like fixing it to a plank and swinging it around before I maybe dropped it.
I was still in Oui Oui so I started doing animations to go with our songs, and at the same time I got my first job in animation as a line tester. The line test is the first shoot of the finished drawings and I just stood in the darkroom all day with a little camera, taking pictures and developing the films. I was already familiar with animation from the experiments with my cousin but at the animation company I also got the chance to learn how to edit, and later I was given the job of painting the sets.
The cartoon I worked on was called Les Triplés, and it was horrible. It was for children's morning television and it stood for everything I hate. Very right-wing and racist. Its underlying message was that as long as there are cute blonde kids in the world everything will be all right. Truly disgusting. but I had to eat.
Oui Oui published two albums and three singles in the 10 years we were together. The records didn't sell in Paris. Maybe the music was a bit too strange - it wasn't rock or pop! - or maybe we weren't mixing with the right people. But I got the chance to do videos for three of our songs so I'm happy with the time I was with the band. Those videos were the beginning for me they weren't promos as such but they were the most creative things I could do with animation and film. Little independent stories that worked with the music. We didn't even have a budget for the videos, so I paid for them out of my own pocket. But that did mean there was nobody asking stupid questions or trying to tell me to do this or that. I had full control over what I was doing.
Because of the Oui Oui videos, people in Paris started to ask me to do promos for French artists, but it was a difficult time. I was in that horrible stage where no-one believes in you yet. I'd come up with an idea and they'd ask me to make it smoother, more classical. In the end there wasn't much me left in them. But it got better, little by little, and I was able to cut my teeth on some bigger projects.
Then Olivier, the boss of Island Records in France, sent my show-reel to Björk and I think it was when she saw the third Oui Oui video that she said 'Ah, I like that'. By then I was already working for big artists like Lenny Kravitz so I just thought it was fine that this girl wanted me to direct her video.
But when she came to Paris and saw the other Oui Oui videos, it was the first time someone had appreciated the work I had done on my own terms, without compromises. Björk understood that while the images and the animation can look childish or sweet on the surface, they can operate on another level, and that was what I had been getting at in the Oui Oui videos.
