Spike Jonze

                                    Spike Jonze 

Spike Jonze is a very successful director well known for his television appearances as an actor, his producing and screenwriting roles. He began his feature film directing career with films such as Adaption (2002) whilst he then went on to directing music videos such as Kanye West's Only One ft. Paul McCartney, Beastie Boy's Time for Livin' and Weezer's Buddy Holly to name just a few. Over the years he has won many awards such as for 'best choreographer'.


Jonze's success is almost holey due to his unique ideas that completely go against Andrew Goodwin's music video laws which are definitely on the more traditional side of things. Jonze has the ability to come up with 'one crazy idea' and revolve the entire music video around it which means that his originality shines through in each of his videos, showing that he breaks the conventions of standard videos. Two of his most successful music videos are Fatboy Slim's 'Praise You' and The Pharcyde's 'Drop'. 

The Pharcyde 'Drop'

This video is particularly fascinating due to the fact that it was completely performed and played in reverse. It was filmed in Los Angeles and the group had to hire private linguists to break down the lyrics of the song to allow them to be taught it backwards- this was so that their lip syncing would still match up to the (forwards) song when played in rewind. The song 'Drop' has quite a spacey beat so with the backwards visuals combined to the audio, quite a surreal effect is created. I noticed that the shots in this video are all very long and there wasn't very many cuts at all. Some shots lasted around 50 seconds and only changed when there was a change of location- I think that the video was made to look as if it was filmed in one take as the cuts are all very discrete (for example, there was a transition is shots when one band member jumped in front of the camera, completely blocking the scenery behind him and as he moved away there was a cut and the setting had changed. The slow pace makes the video appear very smooth and almost effortless with very good continuity. The use of mise en scene is very interesting because they use props in a very effective way that can show the fact that it is backwards clearly but still in a subtle manner with a sense of humour. Such as when the man's trousers are falling down and all of their tops just appear to vanish and when a mass of water is dropped onto them however as it is played backwards, it appears as if they magically dry. All of these scenes make the video intriguing and certainly made me want to continue watching.

This video shows the Behind the Scenes and the making of 'Drop'. 

Fatboy Slim- 'Praise You'

This is another of Spike Jonze's individual & unique creations.
The video revolves around a flash mob, choreographed and directed by Jonze himself (he also stars in the video as one of the lead dancers), to the song 'Praise You' outside a local movie theater in California. It is in the form of a guerilla style meaning that there was no permission from the owners of the site- at one point a worker walks over and turns their portable stereo off. The video only cost $800 to produce (this was mainly to pay for replacing the stereo and feeding the dancers)- with this, it ended up winning 3 major music awards at the MTV VMA's in 1999 and was voted the number 1 best video of all time out of the top one hundred. All of the choreography and the idea of this video was completely original, as before websites such as YouTube, flash-mobs were not known of and when performed in a public place, it creates an element of surprise which is pleasing to an audience. This video was also produced in an unusual style, breaking the conventions of a typical music video- this is as at the end and the beginning, there is talking and it seems more like a documentary than a music video until the songs starts playing. Also in terms of mise en scene, they all look very ordinary (not like typical stars of a music video and dressed up for the occasion) which can create even more of a connection between the dancers and the viewers at home as they are so similar in how 'everyday' they appear which has a personal response. They also stay in one main location whereas in many other music videos, it is the norm to have multiple locations. The people in the video are not professional dancers (they are in fact not very good at dancing at all) this creates a sense of just not caring what people think and supports the common phrase ''dance like no one is watching'' which is also a relatable factor to the audience. One of the most obvious things I noticed when viewing this video is the fact that Norman cook aka Fatboy Slim (the artist) doesn't appear as the main star himself which can divert even more interest to what's happening in the video as the audience may feel perplexed and want to know the story behind it.

Middle: Director Spike Jonez stars as one of the main dancers.
Although Fatboy Slim isn't the main star in his own music video, he in fact appears as an onlooker to the flash mob and can be seen (right) at the end of the video when Jonez is talking to the camera.

We will use some elements of Jonze's videos in our own music video- we could do this by completely breaking the conventions of typical music videos (like Spike Jonze does) such as by possibly not having the main artist star in it. Or we could use elements such as reversing as it creates a very unique and intriguing effect to make an audience want to continue watching.

I have noticed that Spike Jonze goe directly against Andrew Goodwin's theory of music videos which consists of the basic conventions that all (or most) videos have from a concept/narrative/performance based video to voyeurism. I think that it is a good idea that Jonze disregards Goodwin's theory as it makes his videos completely different from the rest in order from them to stand out and draw popular media attention to them. I feel that music videos which are unique and individual are typically more successful than other 'conventional' videos as they offer something more enticing than a standard video with a concept that everyone has more than likely seen before. I think it is important, for my group, to reach a point that our own music video has an equal balance between Jonze's and Goodwin's ideas as both combined seem to make a very successful video. We want our music video to stand out and have unique traits but we also still want that conventional spin to it for structure.