Top Music Industry ProducersBy Daniel Bruce

Michel Gondry•Michel Gondry is a French film director, screenwriter, and producer. He is noted for his inventive visual style and manipulation of Mise en scène. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as one of the writers of his acclaimed film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He is considered a representative of Metamodernism.

•He grew up in Versailles with a family who was very influenced by pop music. When he was young, Gondry wanted to be a painter or an inventor. In the 80s he entered in an art school in Paris where he could develop his graphic skills and where he also met friends with whom he created a pop-rock band called Oui-Oui.

•As well as Films Michel’s directing career has extended to music videos, some of the artists he’s worked with notably include The White Stripes, Radiohead, Daft Punk, Rolling Stones, and the Foo Fighters.

One of his videos was shown on MTV and when Björk saw it, she asked him to make her first solo video for 'Human Behaviour'. The partnership is famous: Gondry directed five other Björk's videos, benefiting by the huge budgets. This led to commissions for other artists around the world, including Massive Attack. He also made a lot of commercials for Gap, Smirnoff, Air France, Nike, Coca Cola, Adidas, Polaroid and Levi - the latter making him the most highly-awarded director for a one-off commercial.

Hollywood became interested in Gondry's success and he directed his first feature movie Human Nature (2001), adapting a Charlie Kaufman's scenario, which was shown in the 2001 Cannes Festival. Although it wasn't a big success, this film allowed him to direct Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), for which he again collaborated with Charlie Kaufman. The movie became a popular independent film and he and his co-writers won an Oscar for it.

Spike Jonze•Jonze is well known for his music video collaborations with Fatboy Slim, Puff Daddy, The Notorious BIG, Weezer, Kanye West, Jay Z, Daft Punk, Beastie Boys, and Björk. He was a co-creator and executive producer of MTV's Jackass.

•He is currently the creative director of VBS.tv. He is part owner of skateboard company Girl Skateboards with riders Rick Howard and Mike Carroll. Jonze has great distinction in the skateboarding world; his Video Days is widely regarded as the most influential skate video ever made.

•He co-founded Directors Label, with filmmakers Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry, and the Palm Pictures company.

•He has been nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Director for Being John Malkovich, and Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Original Song (The Moon Song) for Her. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay, the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay, and the 2014 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Her.

Mark Romanek One of his notable videos was for the Nine Inch Nails song "Closer". Its critical acclaim was only matched by its critical controversy, many accusing the video as being disturbing, demonic and demented (a big reason why the video was so popular among fans). Romanek would again work with Nine Inch Nails for the song "The Perfect Drug".

Romanek was given his first Grammy Award for Best Short Form Video in 1996 for "Scream", a collaboration between the pop superstar siblings Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. The video, which cost $7 million to make, is cited as one of the most expensive ever made. Romanek won his second Grammy two years later, again with Janet Jackson, for her video "Got 'Til It's Gone".

Other Romanek videos that have received accolades and awards include the VMA winners "Free Your Mind" (En Vogue), "Are You Gonna Go My Way" (Lenny Kravitz), "Rain" (Madonna), "Devil's Haircut" (Beck), "99 Problems" (Jay-Z) and "Criminal" (Fiona Apple). Many others have also received nominations. In 1997, Romanek received the VMA Video Vanguard Award for his contribution to the medium. Two of Romanek's music videos, "Closer" by Nine Inch Nails, and "Bedtime Story" by Madonna, have been made part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

More recently in 2013, Romanek directed Jay-Z's performance art video for the song “Picasso Baby” which aired on HBO on Friday, August 2, 2013. The video was shot inside the Pace Gallery in New York. This marked Romanek's first music video in 8 years, his last being Coldplay's video for Speed of Sound back in 2005.

Stephane Sednaoui After his first director break through in France for the French rap band NTM (1990) he moved to the USA where his next project for the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away" (1991) video brought him an award at the 1992 MTV Video Music Award. His subsequent work has come to be regarded amongst the most memorable during the 90's.

Other Sednaoui music videos that were nominated or received MTV Video Music Awards are, "Mysterious Ways" (U2), "Today" (The Smashing Pumpkins), "Big Time Sensuality" (Björk), "7 Seconds" (Youssou N'Dour and Neneh Cherry), "Queer" (Garbage), "Hell Is Round the Corner" (Tricky), "Ironic" (Alanis Morissette), "Possibly Maybe" (Björk), "GBI: German Bold Italic" (Towa Tei featuring Kylie Minogue) and "Le Nouveau Western" (MC Solaar).

His work is celebrated in The Work of Director Stephane Sednaoui (2005) from the Directors Label series, a collection of DVDs devoted to the most creative music video directors, along with Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Anton Corbijn, Jonathan Glazer, Chris Cunningham and Mark Romanek.