Jump La Jetee

Mark Romanek is the director of this 15 year-old promo for David Bowie´s "Jump they say".
It´s by far my favourite of all of his works. His heavy referrences to Ballard and "La Jetee" might have something to do with it.

I think in hindsight Romanek is one of the most influential image creators of the nineties. His style set the template for the naughties and some of his work (like this Bowie video) is only dated by the lack of big-budget-videos of today.

Romanek was always selling big products or big pop-stars. His ultra-polished, stark and futuristic images were often counterbalanced by ultra-polished, new-age (Madonna "Bedtime Stories"), horror (Nine Inch Nails) and grunge deluxe visuals (era-defining Lenny Kravitz´s "Are you gonna go my way")

Maybe it was "Scream", alledgedly the "most expensive" video of all time, or the anti-sceptic afro-retro of "Got ´til it´s gone" which finally brought him to the big screen with the strange "One hour photo".

He has since found it necessary to shoot a very un-inspired promo for Coldplay and he is in pre-production for another movie, while busy doing commercials like the spectacular "Acura" and the simplistic but effective "Apple"-spots.

Full clips of his work (music and commercials) can be seen on
markromanek.com.