This small but powerful collection of films showcase Jonze at his very best, and validate him wholly as a feature film director. Despite having worldwide acclaim, Spike Jonze has only ever directed four feature films: Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Where The Wild Things Areand Her. Feature FilmsĪfter his initial success with his music videos and short films, Jonze entered the world of feature film making. Praise You won three awards at the 1999 MTV Music Video Awards: Best Breakthrough, Best Direction and Best Choreography – cementing Spike Jonze as one of the greatest assets to the music industry. The video itself reportedly cost only $800 to make, with the majority of the money spent on food for the cast and crew. The video is filmed guerrilla style outside of a cinema, where Koufey’s fictional dance group (The Torrance Community Dance Troupe) perform choreography to the song, to the bemusement of real life onlookers. In 1999, Jonze wrote and directed the video for Fat Boy Slim’s ‘Praise You‘ – which featured Jonze as Richard Koufey, a contemporary dance instructor. Spike Jonze‘s video for Weezer’s ‘Buddy Holly’ – source: Geffen Records (1994)įollowing the success of Weezer’s video, Jonze has since worked on a vast number of memorable music videos Beastie Boy’s ‘ Sabotage‘, Björk’s ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’‘and Daft Punk’s ‘Da Funk‘ to name a few. With clever nods to the series, including a ‘to be continued’ halfway through, Buddy Holly exhibits that self-reflective, post-modern style that we can see in Jonze’s work today. A fresh take on a video of rock music genre, ‘Buddy Holly’ sees the band perform in a Happy Daysset, complete with the Fonz and the rest of the gang. Jonze was recognized for his work on short extreme sport videos and consequently approached to direct a video for American rock band Weezer for the song ‘Buddy Holly’. The heightened style and fast paced editing led Video Days to be regarded as one of the most influential skate videos ever made. Due to his interest and passion for sports, he went on to shoot several skateboarding documentary videos – most notably Video Days(1991). Spike Jonze (born: Adam Spiegal) began his career as a photographer for various BMX/Skateboarding magazines (including becoming one third of the editing team behind the creation of Dirt Magazine). His films are frequently described as ‘pop cinema’ or fall into the category of ‘ post-modern cinema‘ owing to their quirky nature, and subversion of conventional cinema techniques in terms of narrative. Jonze made his mark in music videos but even once he had attained the sought after feature film, he continued to write, direct and produce short films, music videos, documentaries and incredibly intelligent adverts. The traditional route for a writer/director generally begins in shorts or adverts, and ends in features – the pinnacle of the film-making world. One of the most interesting aspects to Spike Jonze’s career is his flexibility to bounce between different creative mediums. His creativity spans through the genres and is seemingly timeless. He has been nominated at the MTV Music Video Awards, for Oscars and Golden Globes. Strange and sensitive, Jonze’s work is always in touch with humanity – but his works have little else in common other than that. Jonze is a multi-talented, multi-faceted filmmaker whose productions range from commercials to documentaries, from music videos to feature films. Absurd, surreal, unique and diverse are just some of the few one could attach to his films. These are just some of the labels one could attribute to Spike Jonze.
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