Jonas Akerlund

"RENOWNED SWEDISH DIRECTOR JONAS ÅKERLUND IS AN INTERNATIONALLY AWARDED DIRECTOR OF MUSIC VIDEOS, COMMERCIALS, DOCUMENTARIES, STAGE SHOWS AND FEATURE FILMS!!!"

Jonas has directed music videos for the likes of Madonna, U2, Rolling Stones, Beyoncé, Pink, Jennifer Lopez, Metallica, Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne, Robbie Williams, Christina Aguilera, Smashing Pumpkins, Lenny Kravitz and Maroon 5 to name a few. His music video work has earned him several Grammy Awards, MTV Awards (including Best Director) and the prestigious MVPA Hall of Fame Award. As recently as late 2009 he won a coveted MVPA for the music video for Lady Gaga's “Paparazzi”. Jonas has also directed the award winning video "Telephone" for Lady Gaga ft. Beyoncé.

Jonas received the highest regarded award in UK's 2011 Music Video Awards. The Icon Award was presented to Jonas by Nick Rhodes and Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran. Past recipients of the Icon Award are Jonatan Glazer, Kevin Godley, Dawn Shadforth and Hammer & Tongs.

So far in 2011, Jonas has filled the year with several commercial shoots for Avon, Peugeot, JC Penney, and many more that are currently in post production. His most recent music videos include “Moves like Jagger” for Maroon 5 feat. Christina Aguilera and "Hold it against me" for Britney Spears. Jonas has currently also several music videos in post production. Additionally, Jonas is in the last postproduction part for his 4th feature film "Small Apartments" that will premiere in 2012.

Jonas has directed television commercials for the likes of Dior, Hugo Boss, Sony, JC Penney, Avon, Dell, Volkswagen, Virgin, Coca Cola, Smirnoff, Ikea, Panasonic and Adidas, amongst others. In 2008 he directed the inaugural William Rast commercials, featuring Justin Timberlake. His series of colorful commercials for Swiftcover, featuring Iggy Pop, created a big stir in 2009 and continued to do so into 2010. His commercial work has earned Addy, Cannes Gold Lion and Cannes Grand Prix awards.

His art projects include creating and directing a circus in Stockholm during the Stockholm Cultural Year of 1998. Jonas has had exhibitions in Frankfurt and Seoul and in 2006 the exhibition: “A Jonas Åkerlund Experience” was shown in Stockholm. In 2009 alone Jonas directed “Place” - Featuring Mihkail Barysnikov and Ana Laguna for television, made an introduction film “Abba World” dedicated to the famous Swedish pop group Abba that is now showcased in their Abba World Tour, and ended the year collaborating with well known artist Francesco Vezzoli by directing “Moca”, a film about the musical held at the Los Angeles Moca museum's 30th anniversary - Featuring Lady Gaga and the Ballet Russo.

Jonas has great experience in still photography. He has shot numerous portraits, album covers and fashion stories for magazines such as The Face, Elle, Flair, and V magazine to name a few.
Jonas has directed several documentaries and short films ranging on subjects of anti-racism ("Behind Enemy Lines") and anti-drugs ("Try") to the award winning documentary about Madonna ("I Am Going To Tell You A Secret"). Jonas also received critical acclaim and another Grammy for directing Madonna's NBC Special “The Confessions Tour” in 2007.

His first feature film, “Spun”, starring Jason Schwartzmann, Brittany Murphy, John Leguizamo, Mena Suvari and Mickey Rourke premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. Jonas' third film, “Horsemen”, starring Dennis Quaid and Zhang Ziyi was financed by Mandate Pictures and produced by Michael Bay's Platinum Dunes. Horsemen premiered in 2009. As previously mentioned, Jonas is now in postproduction for his most recent film "Small Apartments".

Jonas is the founder of the leading production company in Sweden, Renck Åkerlund Films. In the UK he is represented by Ridley and Tony Scott's RSA/Black Dog Films for his commercial and music video work and Soixante Quinze in France as well as Anonymous/Serial Pictures in the US. He is represented by ICM and Management 360 for feature films. Jonas lives in Stockholm and Los Angeles.

H&M Rocky – “Brave new world”

Podcast 4, Animatic

In this podcast, we talk about the animatic that I (Asa) created and go through some of the scenes. As well as talking about some of the influences of it.

Change In Cast!

We have had found out today that Sammy Bullock (who was supposed to be playing the girlfriend) can no longer perform in our music video due to personal reasons according to Asa although we have found a replacement Anna Simpson (right)

Our lesson, Narrative

We did our presentation on Narrative and digipaks in music videos. During the presentation, we talked about the different narrative theories and how digipaks are presented.

Narrative in music videos asa sophie katie

View more presentations from Alabzam

AN - Final Actor

Today I managed to get one more actor for our music video, Sammy Bullock (shown right). In the video, she will play the waitress (eg. left) in the restaurant who James (the boyfriend) will cheat on Francesca (the girlfriend) with. 

During the restaurant sequence, she will be wearing a waitress' uniform in order to portray the waitress stereotype. One part of the uniform will be a short shirt, this will obtain sex appeal attracting a male audience. However, it won't be over-the-top and feel more realistic to fit the tone of the video.

Quadrophenia (1979) - Music

London, 1965: Like many other youths, Jimmy hates the philistine life, especially his parents and his job in a company's mailing division. Only when he's together with his friends, a 'Mod' clique, cruises London on his motor-scooter and hears music such as that of 'The Who' and 'The High Numbers', he feels free and accepted.


In 1973 The Who took their new album Quadrophenia to the road.
They toured the U.K. and the U.S. on what turned out to be one of
the most frustrating Who tours in their career. I have tried to docu-
ment as much as possible about the 1973 shows with film clips, 
audio sound bites, and historical information. 


Director Franc Roddam has brought us an array of young British acting talents who bring back London's nineteen-sixties Mods and Rockers. Set against the soundtrack of The Who's 1973 mighty concept album "Quadrophenia", Phil Daniels plays working-class Jimmy, the drug-induced Mod, who hates his job and is misunderstood by his parents. But by night, he comes alive, with the all-nighters, his pills and his scooter-riding friends. Always on a high, life can't get any better. Then there's the Brighton scooter run, where both Mods and Rockers converge, ending in the battle of the cults on Brighton Beach. What goes up must come down, and with Jimmy's come-down, his life is turned around, and so begins his downward spiral into paranoia and isolation, and the four-faceted mindset: Quadrophenia. With its extremely realistic language, violent overtones and classic sixties soundtrack, this illness is bound to be contagious. Come along for the ride.


'In 1960s London Jimmy, loathing his dead-end job and dead-end parents, lives for his scooter and his Mod mates. August Bank Holiday in Brighton looks like it will be great, with a chance to see his Vespa-riding hero Ace, do battle with the Rockers, and maybe get lucky with Steph. Sadly, after the weekend, reality and disppointments crowd in all the more.'

ALL - Treatment

Treatment A2

SD - Blazing Grace Ident

For our company ident for Blazing Grace productions we've come up with the final idea. We're going to have a 'bad ass' barbie doll as Barbies are often a connotation of purity and the ideal stereotype of beauty for young girls we have decided to create a counter type of this, our barbie will have ripped clothing with a short leather skirt (quite gothic clothing) with a nose ring and messed up hair and smoking a cigarette, example shown left. This is a countertype of the usual Barbie as normally she is the perfect pristine woman that always looks glamourous. The ident will go with the name Blazing Grace productions because Barbie is usually a graceful sucessful woman but in this case she has turned into the opposite, un-glamourous and a mess and a not longer suitable role model for young girls aged 4-10. 
        As you can see this is an old Barbie doll and the kind of image we hope to create although you cant actually see the clothing she's wearing in the image its just a sample of what we hope to achieve with are ident but better. The clothing we will dress her in will make her look essentially like a washed up stripper and just generally a mess, with all her clothing ripped up and maybe some pills lying around her when she's sat on the floor.

ALL/AN - Podcast 3 - Re-filming, and how it will help will final product.

In today's podcast, me and Sophie (with the absence of Katie) talk about the second set of sample footage we filmed which involved the girlfriend's aftermath of the break up. As well as that, we also talk about how the sample footage will help us in the making with our final product, along with the symbolic meaning of some parts of the video.

Sample Footage Take Two!! - Girlfriend scene

Today we filmed some sample footage of three boys, Harry Knight, Ollie Moulton & Jack Margerison.
- Even though we are not using them in the actual video, we used them to take place as the three band members to see what shots we could use, how the performance would take place, and what setting could be used.
- We settled for a plain white back ground, which is similar to my original idea.


Also we filmed Sophie Dixon who was taking place as the female role of the 'girlfriend'. For similar reasons to the boys being used, Sophie was just stepping in for our actual female actor, Chessie Fox.
- We shot a variation of shots
- This filming was the girlfriends view on the aftermath of the break-up.
- Using similar shots to the male character James Newton, we intend to mix it up a bit and cross the shots with multi-layering and a split screen.

AN - Sample footage - Take two!!!

Today, we will be filming a second set of sample footage in which we'll be using the same segment of song heard in the previous sample footage. However, it will different because we'll be filming the girlfriend's aftermath of the break up.
Like Asa in this week's podcast, we've got an actor to play the girlfriend, Francesca Fox. By filming this footage, we'll be able to have an idea of what we'll be filming involving the scenes with the girlfriend.
 Similar to the first scenario, the girlfriend will be walking around Ilkley feeling the depression of the breakup. For example, she will go into Caffe Nero and sit at a table all by herself. The footage will be sped up at one point to signify the passage of time.Finally for the last set of the sample footage, we will get both sets of footage and put them into different frames. By doing this, we will be able to test out the split screen idea.

Codes & Conventions of a Magazine AD!!

The main Common Code and Conventions are:

• Artists Name (in large font)
• Album Name (usually the same size font as the artist name)
• Album Cover
• Bold writing
• Web Address of artist, record labels and ticket retailer
• Colours compliment each other
• Twitter, Facebook and Youtube pages
• Tour dates (if any)
• Record Labels
• Says the format it is available in - CD and download
• Font Variation, framing and colour
• Theme of the artist - fits with the lyrics and albums
• Information about the album (usually says "Including" followed by the singles released from the album)
• QR Codes
• Introductory sentence to grab the audience's attention 'the wait is finally over...'
• Thumbnails
• Photo of the CD/Product/Merchandise
• Format (CD, CD + DVD, CD + Vinyl or Digital)
• Either release date, out now or pre-order

Other conventions we found as a group

• Album artwork is included in the advert (all)
• Says 'new album' on the ad (3/6)
• Tour dates (2/6)
• Release date (all)
• Social media links - twitter/ facebook (no longer myspace for newer releases)
• Tickets website (2/6)
• Artist website (all)
• Artist name positioned top, central on the page (5/6)
• Tour sponsor advert and website (1/6)
• Phone number for ticket (1/6)
• Name of hit single included in the album (2/6)
• Image of the band (3/6)
• Thumbnails of the album (1/6)

ALL - Podcast 2, Sample Footage

In our second podcast we have spoken about, how the sample footage went, a brief insight to our media lesson on Narrative, and a SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

Fish eye lens & Stop Motion

In our music video, I suggested using either Fish Eye Lens or Stop motion.
The reason for this is because I have seen a few video's with these examples such as "Train - Hey Soul Sister" 








Stop Motion
Stop motion (also known as stop action) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. Clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Motion animation using clay is called clay animation or clay-mation.
The term "stop motion", related to the animation technique, is often spelled with a hyphen (stop-motion).
Stop motion animation has a long history in film. It was often used to show objects moving as if by magic. The first instance of the stop motion technique can be credited to Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton for The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1897), in which a toy circus of acrobats and animals comes to life. In 1902, the film Fun in a Bakery Shop used the stop-trick technique in the "lightning sculpting" sequence. French trick film maestro Georges Méliès used true stop motion to produce moving title-card letters for one of his short films, but never exploited the process for any of his other films.
Websites that specify in Stop Motion.

http://www.stopmotionanimation.com/about/ ..... http://www.stopmotionpro.com/

There have been many videos uploaded to websites such as YouTube that either show you a step by step guide how to succeed in Stop Motion or have used it for their own personal use to produce some pretty impressive videos!




To include this in my video, I was wanting to use white T-shirts for the band members to wear with specific words such as "love" or "hurt" that can be seen through out the video in sync with the lyrics in the music. It just adds skills and differs from the 'typical' love/break-up songs that have been or are on the market in the music industry today.


Fish Eye Lens

A fisheye lens is a type of camera lens that has an ability to capture wide-angle images. In theory, the images captured using a fisheye lens will have a close similarity to how the image would look like viewed through the eyes of a fish. The center part of the image will appear normal or magnified, depending on the distance of the subject to the lens, while most of the parts of the background, including the edges of the image will appear bent and a bit distorted. Thus, the background elements in your composition will just be secondary most of the time. This is why it’s essential to decide on which part of the composition you want to focus in the photo.
The effect that a fisheye lens creates gives photographers a lot of room for creativity. The wide field of view of the fisheye lens will enable you to fit huge landscapes, or a large number of subjects in a single frame. In situations where a room is too cramped or too small, the wide field of view of the fisheye lens will make it possible for you to capture great images.
The first company in optical industry to develop a fisheye lens was the Nikon Corporation. Back then, fisheye lenses were used as a tool for meteorological research to capture cloud formations. Today, fisheye lenses have become very popular, not only among professional photographers, but also among photography hobbyists, due to the unique effect it produces.
There are two different types of fisheye lenses: the one that produces a photo with dark edges is called a circular fisheye lens, the other type of fisheye lens is called a full-frame fisheye lens, which does not produce images with dark edges.
Examples of fish eye pictures :

There are videos on line that can actually show your what to get so that you can make your own Fish eye lens.

Digipaks, Nirvana.

Nirvana re-realised a special edition album, as a Digipak.

Katies Scan 1


Katies Scan 2

AN - Digipaks

Digipaks are a patented type of CD packaging which is made out card/paperboard. Usually, digipaks can open up like a book or they could have a more unique design, such as a three-part digipak in which one portion of the packaging opens to the right and other to the left. The part of the digipak which is made to hold the CD(s) is made of plastic, which is attached to the paper background.


A company known as MeadWestvaco first created the digipak. Since the birth of the product, it has become more popular with manufactures and they have also started to use it. Now, the term "digipak" has been used to describe all soft CD packaging.
Codes and conventions of a Digipak

• Album art
• Track listing
• Card/paperboard packaging
• Lyric booklet
• Credits
• Copyright logo
• Artistic cover
• Pictures of band members
• Quotes from reviewers
• DVD(s) depending on the type of digipak.
• Barcode
• Web addresses
• Folding packaging
• Date of release
• List of band members' roles
• Square based packaging

Sample footage, idea.

Later on today myself and Asa will be shooting some sample footage. We have asked James Newton, who is playing the role of the main male character to shoot with us, so we can get an idea of what shots to put across, and if the right locations fit.

Couple in split screen, an example of what we would show in our video.

An idea for the video was when the couple start to argue, and they finally walking away the screen will then split into two, and each character will have their own story and journey until they return to each other.

Location, for split screen.

For the sample footage we are focusing on the male characters side of the story after he has left the female character.

Spike Jonze, Case study into a Director.

WIKI - 'Spike Jonze  October 22, 1969) is an American director, producer and actor, whose work includes music videos, commercials, film and television. He is best known for his collaborations with writer Charlie Kaufman, which include the 1999 film Being John Malkovich (that gave him an Academy Award for Best Director nomination) and the 2002 film Adaptation, and direction of the 2009 film Where the Wild Things Are. He is well known also for his music video collaborations with Weezer, Beastie Boys, and Björk. He was also a co-creator and executive producer of MTV'sJackass.^[1] He is currently the creative director of VBS.tv.^[2] He is also part owner of skateboard company Girl Skateboards with riders Rick Howard and Mike Carroll.'


"He also co - founded 'Directors Label'  with film makers Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry."




Spike Jonze's IMDB

Don't Play No Game That I Can't Win (short) 

 

2011Mourir auprès de toi (short) 

 

2011Scenes from the Suburbs (short) 

 

2010The Vampire Attack (video short) 

 

2010I'm Here (short) 

 

2009Where the Wild Things Are 

 

2009Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak (TV documentary short) 

 

2009We Were Once a Fairytale (short) 

 

2007Fully Flared (video documentary) 

 

2005The Medúlla Videos (video short) (video "Triumph of a Heart") 

 

2004Corporate Ghost (video) 

 

2004Weezer: Video Capture Device - Treasures from the Vault 1991-2002 (video documentary) (videos "Undone - The Sweater Song", "Buddy Holly", "Island in the Sun [2nd Version]") 

 

2004Hot Chocolate (video documentary) 

 

2003Tenacious D: The Complete Masterworks (video documentary) ("Wonderboy" video / as Spike Jones) 

 

2003The Best of R.E.M.: In View 1988-2003 (video documentary) (video "Electrolite") 

 

2003The Work of Director Spike Jonze (video documentary short) 

 

2003What's Up, Fatlip? (video documentary short) 

 

2003The Chemical Brothers: Singles 93-03 (video) 

 

2003Yeah Right! (video) 

 

2002Adaptation. 

 

2002Björk: Volumen Plus (video short) (video "It's in Our Hands") 

 

2002Pavement: Slow Century (video documentary) (video "Shady Lane") 

 

2002Cydeways: The Best of the Pharcyde (video documentary) (videos "Drop" and "What's Up, Fatlip?") 

 

2000Beastie Boys: Video Anthology (video documentary) (videos "Sabotage", "Sure Shot", "Ricky's Theme", "Ciao L.A.") 

 

2000D.A.F.T. (video) (segment "Da Funk") 

 

1999Clip Cult Vol. 1: Exploding Cinema (video "Praise You") 

 

1999Being John Malkovich 

 

1999Björk: Volumen (video) (video "It's Oh So Quiet") 

 

1999An Intimate Look Inside the Acting Process with Ice Cube (video documentary short) 

 

1999Torrance Rises (short) (as Richard Coufey) 

 

1998Amarillo by Morning (documentary short) 

 

1997How They Get There (short) 

 

1997Mouse (video documentary short) 

 

1995R.E.M. Parallel (video) (video "Crush with Eyeliner") 

 

1994Beastie Boys: Sabotage (video short) 

 

1994Ciao L.A. (video short) 

 

1991Video Days (video short) 

 

He has also directed Films such as

- Jackass the movie

- Being John Malkovich

- Where the wild things are.