Jonas and François

Here's a thing. In a relatively short period, young Paris-based directing team Jonas & François have made a splash with some era-defining work, and gone on to collaborate with some of the biggest guns of the music business. So why does a discussion of their achievements to date involve a surprising amount of disappointment, even failure?

Here's a thing. In a relatively short period, young Paris-based directing team Jonas & François have made a splash with some era-defining work, and gone on to collaborate with some of the biggest guns of the music business. So why does a discussion of their achievements to date involve a surprising amount of disappointment, even failure?

They have, after all, worked with Madonna, Kanye West, Muse, Depeche Mode and Justice. Most recently they made a splendid video for Audio Bullys. But regardless of the size and popularity of their clients, Jonas & François are not inclined to pat themselves on the back. They are actually more likely to beat themselves up.

For example, take their video for Mr Hudson and Kanye West's Supernova, made last year: it's a slick affair in which the artists' performances in a designer hotel are intercut with a silhouetted 'star-man' against an outer-space backdrop - representing the song's title. It's a more sophisticated and considered take on a conventional hip-hop video, but Jonas & François are dismissive of their own efforts.

"It was a long way from what we actually wanted to do," François reveals. "The visual tricks didn't work. The idea was to transform the two artists in the video into something else - and the tests worked, when there was no movement. But it actually turned out to be too complicated."

As for their commercials… well, let's not even go there. With the exception of a piece for the Nike store in Paris and a short film sponsored by Kia, they prefer to reserve comment on much of their brand-associated work. "We've done ads in the French market, but we're not happy with them," François bluntly declares.

"It's hard for us to be pleased with what we do - and that's really true for our commercials." Which pretty much ends that subject. Rigorous self-criticism is Jonas & François' thing - allied to a consistently experimental philosophy when it comes to making music videos. And although by their very nature experiments can go wrong – leading inevitably to disappointment – there remains a lot of justifiable confidence in their ability to deliver the goods, based on past success.

Three years ago they announced themselves in spectacular fashion with their now-iconic work for French record label Ed Banger and, in particular, the label’s DJ superstars Justice. That involved the use of graphics (based on those by So Me, the label’s influential art director) that came to life on real record sleeves in a groundbreaking promo for the label – and then, in the video for D.A.N.C.E., on T-shirts worn by Justice’s Gaspard and Xavier as they walked through a Paris nightclub.

Brilliantly realised and ultra-cool, this was work that was ahead of the curve in its use of graphics and visual effects. Jonas & François have been working hard on raising the bar on that substantial achievement ever since. Both 28, Jonas Euvremer and François Rousselet have known each other since they met at art school, the prestigious École des Beaux Arts, 10 years
ago.

They then transferred together to École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. “We began to make projects at art school – little three-minute videos – and when we didn’t work together we would show each other our stuff,” recalls François. “That was the beginning of the duo.” They were still students when they joined El Niño, the newly formed music division of Paris production outfit Soixante Quinze, and then the Ed Banger teaser project soon followed.

The methodology they brought to that – with animation tracked onto live-action footage of the record covers – informed the subsequent promo for Justice, particularly its most impressive aspect – the ingenious way the T-shirt animation works within live action: words and
pics on the T-shirts collapse when one of Justice pulls the other’s shirt, a drink spilled on one shirt wipes away the logo on the other, and so on.

Although So Me provided the source illustrations for the video, Jonas & François reject any suggestion that they were not the primary creative force behind it – or any other video they have done subsequently. “Most of the time we do the graphics ourselves,” says François. “We do drawings – and a lot of the time they want the drawings in the video.”

Kanye West was quick to pick up on their ‘graphicism’ after they completed the Justice video. The subsequent promo for Good Life – a straightforward performance adorned with warm and witty illustrations and lyrics in the Ed Banger style – effectively brought that design aesthetic to a global audience.

“We learned a lot working with Kanye,” says François. “We had a very fixed plan, but then when we allowed him some freedom on the shoot to perform we realised we could get a lot more out of him.”

It also effectively propelled them into the orbit of a whole new level of music artist. Their next video – only their third – was for none other than Madonna, and her Timbaland-produced blockbuster Four Minutes, guest-starring Justin Timberlake. Representing a complete break from the Ed Banger style – and demonstrating the full ambitious scope of their invention – it reflected the song’s time-running-out theme with an advancing blackness, like a digital curtain, revealing
cross-sections of objects and people, but also having a big studio-set production number aesthetic.