Alternative Music Videos: Cunningham and Gondry

Music video directors hold a very important role in music video production, ut they arguably have a bigger role when it comes to more artistic alternative music videos. These videos tend to have a reaction different to mainstream ones due to how different they can be and the audience they reach out to. A main difference between a mainstream video and an alternative one is that the directiors personal life can be reflected in the video.

Chris Cunningham- British video artist/ director.

As a video artist his music videos are viewed as very strange, and concept based. An example of this is shown in the music video:

Bjork - All is full of love

This music video is very much concept based. The visuals are of a robot being manufactured but this is what is singing the lyrics. There are not many music videos in which the robot is so technologically developed that it is almost human like. The music video is also made as an art form to invoke different feel ins from different people unlike a regular mainstream video that is there to create a connection between the audience and the artist. The video is also an example of how the director's life is reflected since in an interview Chris said that it was inspired by his childhood love for robots and mechanics.

Another example of Cunningham's work Apexh Twin- 'Come to Daddy'. 

This music video doesn't allow the audience to create an emotional connection with this song as it creates a creepy feeling by not revealing a face with definitive emotion. This is very different to what mainstream music videos would try to do since the intention is very different hence why it is an alternative music video.

Chris Cunningham's work in general is not set to a specific style, but his videos are usually viewed as weird to the public (most likely because a good number of Goodwin's theories do not apply to the videos). His approach to music videos would not be very effective in pleasing or even attracting my target audience. The lack of performance, colour and attractive visual would not be conventional in an everyday pop/ rock music video.

Michel Gondry is a French film direction, screenwriter and producer. He is known for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise- en- scene. 

He is the creator of the famous Daft Punk video- 'Around the World'. Michel Gondry is known for using innovative performances to create impressive concept based videos.

Daft Punk- Around the World

Chemical Brothers- Let Forever Be

The two music videos by Michel Gondry use an impressive combination of props, costume and choreography to create visually stunning effects. Even though the videos are not convention to pop/ rock music videos, due to the lack of artist identification, it is not too unconventional that we would never view these types of visuals in music videos simply due to the impressive use of mis- en- scene. Within the time that theses music videos were realised both of these artist were quite popular and well known so for them to come out and have music videos like these was a high risk as it could have put off some of their audience because of their weird use of camera shots and miss- en- scene. However, as McCraken states 'people change with age and become part of different culture' I find applies well to today's society because as we grow up we become part of different friendship groups and we're exposed to social media which highly influence what music we listen to and what types of music videos we like to watch.

In terms of Dyer's star theory in which he believes that icons and celebrities are manufactured by institutions for financial gain. He states "A star is an image, not a real person, which is constructed out of a range of materials (media). This like with alternative music videos because the directors and artists are taking huge risks by deciding to make a concept based alternative music video because they may not be able to reach out to all of their target audience if they experiment with different styles of music video. As a result they may loose some of their audience.