François Nemetä

( About the video for ’Hyperballad’ )

Nemetä said in an e-mail interview in 2006 that Hyperballad was filmed in a studio in London on 35mm. "only one box of film of course. it’s one of the cheapest films Michel has done." .

"a long long shoot (approx 22 hours) on a day in December. I remember pushing the door to watch outside and seeing that it was night and that it had snowed during the shoot..."

Was this a hellish video to make ?

YES ! especially for the D.O.P : Tim Maurice Jones. For him it was a nightmare in measuring the lights on TVs, small light bulbs etc... PLUS doing all that in film superimposition : in total there was 8 layers superimposed.

AND for the operators. Each camera move = 1 instruction, as it was a one sequence shot [that] was 4 minutes long.... but as it was in animation, with very small light bulbs, it had to be done with long exposures... so each sequence shot was 6 times longer ... 24 minutes. They spent hours filling their computer with instructions. their computer had never taken so much different instructions for a camera move.

I think no one really realizes how this video is technically a masterpiece !!!

Who made all of the different elements ?

all the computer animations were done by a graphist @ BUF I think, and they were all done before the shoot. (and then played on the TVs in front of the camera) Now I wonder.. : maybe it was even Olivier "Twist" Gondry who was working there at that time. ? don’t remember.

for all the art department & props , it was all done by Michel + pierre pell + eric valin + me !

What did you do during production ?

run everywhere, waking up the DOP (or Art Dept, or Björk) when they would fall asleep ! moving Tv’s and stuff, really everyone was doing a bit everything as the crew was very small. watching the computerized Field Recorder moving and by itself in the low-lit studio with big motor noises in the middle of the night above a sleepy Börk was a surrealistic experience. not at all like an usual shoot !

/www.director-file.com/gondry, 2007