Michel Gondry is meticulous and mindful about the magic of his movie-making. No other filmmaker manipulates their visuals as succinctly, or in a style quite like the director of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” The cinematic storyteller’s career has slowed down since his big studio misfire, “The Green Hornet,” and – like almost every other acclaimed artist in this day and age, it seems – Gondry has recently turned his gaze towards the landscape of television.
Showtime’s series “Kidding,” reunites the French filmmaker with his ‘Eternal Sunshine’ star, Jim Carrey. The comedy/drama also features Frank Langella, Judy Greer, and Catherine Keener. Gondry isn’t just a director and executive producer on the show though, he also designs the opening credits for each episode, by hand, using nothing but basic office supplies you can find in any craft or convenience store.
The unique director recently discussed this process in a video over at Deadline.
“[I do it all] on my own, by my own means. I try to find a way that the work I do reflects who I am, without doing it on purpose,” Gondry said. “It sounds kind of counterintuitive, but I think that that’s what counts. You put yourself, without really knowing what you put.”
The filmmaker said working in such a style reminds him what it was like to construct art as a child. “Doing the credits—recreating a scene, a character with paper—is very, very close to what I was doing when I was eight, and I think it sort of helped define the show,” the Academy Award winner explained. “It’s a little element [that’s different from] the CGI, complex credits that you have generally in TV shows.”
He continued, “The idea that it’s made by hand makes it unique. It’s not coming from a factory or a machine, so it cannot be reproduced. It’s like something very strict, but created in chaos.”
It doesn’t sound like Gondry will be going back to direct a big budget blockbuster again, anytime soon. ‘Eternal Sunshine’ features some of the most inventive and seamless effects and transitions from the past 2 decades. Many of them are practical, old school techniques, accentuated by computer generated enhancement. Given Gondry’s philosophy, it makes one curious if many of the visual choices in ‘Green Hornet’ were perhaps requested by the studio, as many of the visual action cues in the 2011 film simply didn’t land.
“Kidding” season 2 is currently in production, and is expected to drop on Showtimes sometime in 2019.