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.