The Work of Director Mark Romanek

Mark Romanek explained that this video needed a band with distinctive personalities, “almost like The Beatles” and a band that knows how to goof. He also shared that his favourite moment of the video is John dancing with three yellow buckets that Flea put on him. He goes on and talks about tables and tables of stuff, meant to use as props in the video and about letting the acclaimed Austrian artist Erwin Wurm know and agree with the idea of imitating his concept of “One-Minute Sculptures”.

RHCP’s producer Rick Rubin states that Mark Romanek’s work is unique and that he’s probably his favourite director of music videos. Many other people, such as Bono, Lenny Kravitz, Janet Jackson, Fiona Apple, Trent Reznor, Ben Stiller, Gwen Stefani, Keith Richards, Jay-Z and Beck share their praise of the director’s work. The bottom line is that “if he likes the artist enough, he’ll make a great video”.

Mr. Romanek himself talks about he originally wanted to be a feature film director, shares his concerns at the time of shooting Fiona Apple’s video for “Criminal”

[screen captures from Can’t Stop]

Mark Romanek: There was a little bit of strife at the beginning because…I never worked with John. I really think he’s a genius, but he’s sort of a sensitive soul.

Anthony Kiedis: John, our guitar player, and Mark got into an instant clash.

Mark Romanek: I yelled, I don’t yell in anger, but I-I kinda in the middle of a take, I say ‘OK, start over, go back, but this time do it with your left hand’ and I just yell a lot.

Flea: John was ‘Fuck this guy, he is a fucking asshole and I’m out of here, and I’m not gonna stay [?]

Anthony Kiedis: …which was absurd…

Mark Romanek: …but it actually ended up being great; and after a couple of hours we got into rhythm and he actually sent me a beautiful note, thanking me for the video and how he felt that I’d captured a certain quality in a performance that he’d never seen in a film before.

[the note]