The official site for painter, marketer, and musician Mark Kostabi posts this picture (and one more) of Gondry and Willowz singer/guitarist Richie James Follin in Kostabi World, the art gallery where the end of I Wonder was filmed.
I Wonder features Follin as a bearded homeless man who creates two rather fantastic vehicles out of spare parts and other knick-knacks. As the video progresses, the contraptions become more elaborate, finally becoming a small plane which then has small plane babies. He becomes a little bit famous for these vehicles, and then goes to Kostabi's art gallery and mixes with the crowd. He isn't too successful, though, and is, in the end, magically transformed back into a hobo. (That's Michel's son Paul there at the end.)
Some of the art objects in this video, in particular the little planes, were made by Lauri Faggioni. The possible first link between Gondry and Kostabi is that the two Willowz songs on the Eternal Sunshine soundtrack were produced by painter/musician Paul Kostabi.
More information on I Wonder, from Terminal City:
Q: How did Michel Gondry come across you?You can find I Wonder on the Directors Label Box Set Bonus DVD and on the Willowz' DVD album See in Circles.
Follin: The movie [Eternal Sunshine] is actually a low-budget movie. Originally on the soundtrack they wanted to get the White Stripes, and they were too much and Meg told them about us, gave our album to Michel, and he ended up liking it a lot. We ended up getting two songs in the movie, when Kirsten Dunst is dancing on the bed. Michel had a dream about our song I Wonder and he wanted to make a video for us. We could only get two on the soundtrack, so we took one of the songs out that was in the movie, put the song he wanted to do a video for on the soundtrack, and then we went to New York and made the video. It's so awesome: I start out as a bum and I start building a car out of trash and I start getting famous for the car. It ends up being a dream. I wear this full beard the whole time. Michel Gondry's amazing.
Michel has appeared on Kostabi's cable access game show Paint That Naming more than a dozen times.
