The Gondry brothers’ lockdown project, a music video for UK rock band IDLES, finds Michel animating paper cutouts in his Los Angeles studio on his iPhone then sending the frames to Olivier in Paris for CG enhancement and post.

IDLES vocalist Joe Talbot: “Michel’s work is handmade and it’s human and that’s something our society pushes against: you need to be perfect. You need to look perfect and everything needs to be seamless and strong.

“But actually, vulnerability and naivety are strengths. To be vulnerable and to be naive is to have empathy. To be naked on film or on record is a really strong thing to do. It liberates you and it also liberates your audience. That’s something that I hope that IDLES can do, and it’s what Gondry’s been doing for years.”

Michel Gondry: “Olivier and I were excited to work on this because we use completely opposite techniques. I work with a primitive system of cutting paper and moving it under the lens frame by frame. Olivier then transforms it by morphing, warping, and CGI.”

The video was produced by Partizan in collaboration with WePresent, the editorial platform of WeTransfer.

Watch the behind the scenes video below:
 

 
 

Label: Partisan Records
Artist: IDLES

Client: WePresent

Production: Partizan
Director: Michel Gondry, Olivier Gondry
Executive Producer of Music Videos: Mayling Wong
Producer: Raffi Adlan
Editor: Jake Schwartz
Visual Effects Supervisor: Olivier Gondry
Animators: Michel Gondry, Valerie Pirson
Colorist: Matt Osborne
Production Supervisor: Debo (J. DeBartolo)
Animation Coordinator: Katie Moran
Director’s Rep: Claire Stubbs
Commissioner: Theresa Adebiyi for Partisan Records

Sound Design: Josh Falcon
Additional Music: Tom Frazer