Auteur Analysis - Jonas Odell - Mikey

- Jonas Odell is a Swedish music video and film director.
- He was born in Stockholm in 1962.
- He has directed a number of short films, music videos and commercials.
- His short film "Never like the first time!" was awarded the golden bear for best short film in the Berlin film festival 2006.
- Odell specializes in a mix of animation and live action.

- Videos Odell directed include the following:
- "Come Up And See Me" (2003) video for Erasure.
- "Strict Machine" (2003) video for Goldfrapp.
- "Take Me Out" (2004) video for Franz Ferdinand.
- "Smile" (2004) video for Mad Action.
- "Rocket" (2004) video for El Presidente.
- "Changes" (2004) video for Tahiti 80.
- "Feeling A Moment" (2005) video for Feeder.
- "Shot You Down" (2005) video for Audiobullys.
- "Ali in the Jungle" (2007) video for The Hours.
- "Music Evolution" video for Cartoon network's Josie and the pussycats.
- "Window in the Skies" video for U2.
- "Smile" video for The Cobbs.
- "Paper Planes" (2008) video for I'm From Barcelona.

- Films Odell directed include the following:
- "Exit" (1990) codirected with Stig Bergkvist, Marti Ekstrand & Lars Olsson.
- "Revolver"(1993) codirected with Stig Bergkvist, Marti Ekstrand & Lars Olsson.
- "Body Parts"(1994).
- "Family & Friends" (2002).
- "Never Like The First Time!" (2006).

- Odell also directed commerials such as the adverts for the new BMW Series 1, Virgin Atlantic, and the MTV music awards.

- Odell is the founder of FilmTecknarna Animation Stockholm.
- FilmTecknarna was founded in 1981 by Lars Ohlson, Jonas Odell and Stig Bergqvist.
- At this time the founders were still attending school, but shared a common interest in drawing and animation.
- All spare time was spent at the animation desk and many films were produced.
- In the beginning it was mainly independent short films, but when commercial televsion was introduced in Sweden about 20 years ago, the company started to contribute to this growing market.
- Since then, the company and its directors have produced a number of commercials for both the Nordic markets and worldwide, as well as award-winning short films and a couple of tv-series for Swedish television.
- Today the company has 12 fulltime staff, but also work with freelance artists from all over the world. The number of directors has grown to eight; all based in Stockholm .
- The company has also started to represent freelance directors for commercials and other productions.
- The nature of the business has grown from being a production and effects company, solely producing animation, to a full service company with sought-after directors.
- It now produces both classical 2-D animation, CGI and 3D-animation, as well as live-action and mixed media.
-In recent years a number of music videos for well-known international artists have been produced by the studio.
-Some of these videos have been awarded at the MTV Music Video awards and nominated for Grammies in the US.
- The goal for the company is to continue to produce high-quality films and commercials, and to become one of the world´s leading design, animation and filmmaking companies.

Strict Machine - Goldfrapp

- 'Strict Machine' is an electronic dance song written by British group Goldfrapp and Nick Batt for their second studio album Black Cherry (2003).
- It was produced by Goldfrapp and describes laboratory rats in neuroscience experiments.
- The song's music video, a mixture of graphic and live action segments, builds upon the art direction featured on the band's album and single covers.
- Throughout the video, Alison Goldfrapp is surrounded by black and white animated backgrounds, wolf-headed dancers, and colourful butterflies.
- The video uses kaleidoscopic layouts and dense graphic designs.
- The settings' architecture is inspired by the work of Archigram.
- Goldfrapp and her back-up dancers were filmed in London against a bluescreen.
- The animated sequences were done by Odell's Filmtecknarna studio in Stockholm, Sweden.
- the video is representative of the dance genre, with no narrative but with women dancing seductively, as well as lots of bright colours and fast camera movements.
- the video is disjunctured, and has no obvious narrative.
- it is concept based, with little or no performance except miming involved in the video at all.
- there is lots of 'meat!' with many close ups of Goldfrapp.
- dismemberment is a visual style of Odell's, and is used again in this particular video as parts of Alison's body are seperated and put into the animated background.
- the notion of looking is applicable to this video as well, with voyeuristic treatment of the female dancers and their bodies.

Rocket - El Presidente

- this was the first single from El Presidente.
- the video shows a slightly different style of Odell that is seen in videos such as 'Take Me Out' by Franz Ferdinand, 'Shot You Down' by Audio Bullys, and Goldfrapp's 'Strict Machine'.
- this is because the video is much more performance based than the others.
- the video also includes some sort of narrative with one of the band members pictures flying on an anmated rocket to the lyrics of 'fly like a rocket'.
- this shows that there is a relationship between the lyrics and visuals.
- there is also a relationship between the music and visuals as the editing is done in time to the beat of the music.
- there is a lot of close ups of the lead singer during the lyrics, emphasising the fact that the voice is seen as the most important part of music.
- the video is full of a variety of bright colours which is appropriate to the music as it is an upbeat and happy song.