Through the many music videos and adverts he has written and directed, Michel Gondry has developed and/or shown off practical techniques and effects. One of the most impressive examples is his music video for Radiohead's 'Knives Out'.
The entire video is a continuous take in which the camera slowly pans around 360˚ a number of times. As the camera spins, the set continuously changes - props are added, removed or changed each time we see them.
Technically, the video must have been incredibly difficult to pull off (if for no other reason than that it's a continuous take, meaning everyone involved had to 'get it right' at the same time), and obviously took a lot of planning, both in order to choreograph the cast and crew, and also to co-ordinate camera movement and lighting changes.
Throughout the video, the camera moves freely with a level of shake, suggesting that it's hand-held. At 2 minutes in, however, it lifts to a birds-eye-view, suggesting that a crane was used for at least part of the video, if not the entirety.
What was probably most difficult to get right out of all the visual elements in the video is the lighting - the set isn't filled with sources for practicals, and the 360˚ angle combined with crane shots must have made the task of lighting the set nearly impossible. At first, I would have thought everything was lit from above to make it easier, but the crane shot tells me that at least part of the light is carefully framed out of windows.
And to make lighting even more difficult, there are a number of quick lighting changes choreographed, that dim ambient light and introduce sources from underneath bed sheets, for example, before shifting back to the norm.
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