Daft Punk - 'Around The World' (Gondry, 1997)
Introduction and Background to Michael Gondry
The fact that Michael Gondry is considered an auteur is significant, especially in the institutional context, so it is important to know a little about his background. He is a French director of films, adverts and music videos and is a screenwriter. He is particularly noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of mise-en-scène. His vision and career began with an emphasis on emotion, and much of his inspiration comes from the film 'Le Voyage en Ballon' (Lamorisse, 1960) about which he said:
'When I watch this movie, I dream I'm flying and then I do stories where people are flying. I think it's directly influencing.'
After beginning his career making videos for Oui Oui, for which he drummed, he attracted the attention of Björk, which led him to create videos for Daft Punk, The White Stripes, Radiohead and many more.
How might this video be consumed?
The song itself was notable for reaching number one in the dance charts and becoming a major hit in clubs. With this target audience in mind it's likely that this video was played on a number of music channels which dealt exclusively with dance, club and house hits, such as MTV Dance, but also on a number of channels dedicated to chart hits in light of the song's success, like 4Music. Web 2.0 sites such as YouTube, Facebook and MySpace are likely to be the predominant channels through which the video is consumed now, as the artist has remained popular but the music video itself has gone mostly out of rotation on television. The music video is also notable for being directed by an auteur - Michael Gondry - who aimed to bring choreographed dance to music video. This may also mean that the video is more likely to be consumed for academic purposes.
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| EMAP Advertising research 2002 |
Due to the videos nature as an auteur video and quite a unique concept, focused viewing is more likely. However, the genre of the song (French house) is more conventionally consumed ambiently, although this doesn't tend to apply to videos in the same way.
Considering the genre and artist, what role would the record label play in creating these promotional texts?
Daft Punk are a duo who defined the French house movement in the 1990s. This means that they may well have had a lot of influence in the creation of their promotional texts, added to by the fact that they created and produced their songs themselves. It was also a video made by an auteur, which means that the majority of the creative influence would have been with him rather than the label, Virgin Records. However, it is likely that the label played the largest role in the distribution.
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| Shot from the video |
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