French directing duo best known for directing videos such as Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.,” Kanye West’s “Good Life” & Madonna and Justin Timberlake’s “4 Minutes.”
Ever since we saw the video for Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.” we’ve been checking for everything and anything Jonas & François create. When we were kicking around the idea of asking a filmmaker to bring to life their vision for a new way to roll back at the Kia Soul Collective headquarters, we had no doubt who to go to first.
They’ve defined a new way to roll when it comes to filmmaking and we are blown away by the imagination and creativity that has gone in to their short film created exclusively for the Kia Soul Collective called “Soul Streets.”
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About Jonas & François
Jonas & François are two 27 year-olds who have a golden CV. After their stay at the Ecole Supérieure de l’Image and their meeting at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs of Paris, they started working together on video projects. Their works are fed by their personal approach and sensibilities. “We wanted to create moving images without obvious use of a video camera… the DV frustrated us… we quickly used images, patterns we found in magazines, in the street, on packaging… we discovered that a camera and a scanner allowed us to make video… What we like is to start from an observation or an item or an ordinary situation and try to find its original potential…”
Two years ago the Parisian filmmaking team directed the breakthrough video for Justice’s “D.A.N.C.E.,” a much blogged about clip where the letters and graphics on hipsters’ T-shirts shape-shift. When “D.A.N.C.E.” was nominated for MTV’s Video of the Year along with Kanye West’s “Stronger,” it was a face-off between nemeses: West had been at odds with Justice ever since they beat him for Best Video at the 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards and West stormed the stage to rant about the injustice. So before Jonas & François hit the awards ceremony, Justice’s manager gave them a pep talk. “He would show us Justice’s award, like a sign for good luck,” says François, 25. “He’d say, ‘Bring another one to the office.’” Jonas & François didn’t win, but they got a better prize: West asked them to direct his next(?) video.
For West’s song “The Good Life,” the video features him wandering through (who is “their”?) childlike cartoon backdrops, scribbling in his head in Schoolhouse Rock-style fonts.
Even Madonna has snapped up Jonas & François. In their video for her single “4 Minutes,” she and Justin Timberlake appear as animated superheroes trying to save the world.
This year, Jonas & François have directed a video for Sebastien Tellier and they have just finished the new Depeche Mode video.
Check out more from Jonas & Francois at www.myspace.com/jonasfrancois
