Spike Jonze.
Director of Her (2013), Spike Jonze is a director who's work has been inspiring, controversial and always stood out but in its own subtle way. Ever since I first saw Her I was inspired by the use of colour and lack of obvious historical time period in the film, to focus the viewer's emotion and suspension of disbelief into the characters more than anything else, but creating the right set to be able to do so.
Jonze started out as a skateboarding fanatic, making videos for skateboarders. This then developed into making music videos for the likes of Bjork, Kanye West and Fatboy Slim, which then led to his feature films Adaptation (2002) and Where The Wild Things Are (2009). His work stands out among the rest as being creative and has been described as his "childlike vision" [1], which I can see as his films are much like vivid dreams; he has now gone on to become a Grammy and Golden Globe award winner.
I was inspired by Jonze's work after seeing Her, and falling in love with how the story was portrayed. He was inspired by coming across an AI that would return the conversation but eventually it became clear that the AI was repeating what had been said to it, but Jonze continued this idea of what would happen if an AI had its own intelligence and a relationship was formed from this.
what came from this was a beautifully shot, written and edited film, which I have always looked to as an inspiration and motivator for my work. I've never quite seen anything like his films, which is why I love them.
I've found it hard to find many articles about Spike (real name Adam Spiegel) which could be down to him being notoriously a shy director. His relationship with people is different to others as he sees people in a way that makes them the best version of themselves- this is touched upon in this article by the Guardian where he talks about his relationship with Kanye West and fellow director Michel Gondry, who also started out as a music video director.
I feel it's better to talk more about how Jonze inspires me as that's the main reason he interests me. His start in music videos also inspires me as i loved directing my unofficial music video I made in college for Our Courage, Our Cancer by While She Sleeps. This is something I'm really interested in and I like to watch the videos Spike has directed to give me inspiration in creativity. One of my favourite videos by him is Sabotage by the Beastie Boys.
For my project I wanted to take inspiration from Spike's unique and daring shots and insert this unique creativity. I wanted to put my own twist on a scene that I have seen many times before, which is why I didn't watch the scene for a while before the shoot week as I wanted the shots to be all my own idea and although they are influenced by the original and affected by the action in the scene, I tried to make them my own as much as possible.
In Her, he uses the shot types to convey the plot line to the audience. As explained here, Jonze used wide, off center shots to show that Theodore didn't have his life 'centered', but when Samantha came into his life, the shots became more centered to mirror his lifestyle and mood. Another feature not mentioned but that I noticed is that when Theodore's life is developing positively, Theodore will be facing towards the right of the screen with space in front of him to represent that he is moving forward and has room to improve. When something negative happens, however, he is looking to the left (or backwards, to the viewer) and will have less room in front of him to show that he is trapped, or going in the wrong direction. I tried to incorporate this technique into some shots of my own.
In Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are (2009), you can see his style flowing through his films- the unique photography was something that stood out to me, and the heart-wrenching but completely unique stories are always well detailed. I noticed how, when Max is approaching the island, the camera was moving a lot with the waves, which makes the viewer empathise more with Max as you relate to the situation he's in and it makes the scene more panicked. I know this technique isn't completely unique to Jonze, but I thought it was interesting as I had never really thought about using that kind of shot to make the viewer feel like they're really there. Taking inspiration from this I decided to make my shoot entirely handheld, as this accentuates Lester's panic and makes us feel as though we are panicking with him.
I think for my scene photography is really important, as the original is one of the most cinematic TV programmes I've seen. Using what I've discussed in this post, with inspiration from Jonze and his cinematographers, I will hopefully be able to get the story across as well as I want to.
Jonze started out as a skateboarding fanatic, making videos for skateboarders. This then developed into making music videos for the likes of Bjork, Kanye West and Fatboy Slim, which then led to his feature films Adaptation (2002) and Where The Wild Things Are (2009). His work stands out among the rest as being creative and has been described as his "childlike vision" [1], which I can see as his films are much like vivid dreams; he has now gone on to become a Grammy and Golden Globe award winner.
I was inspired by Jonze's work after seeing Her, and falling in love with how the story was portrayed. He was inspired by coming across an AI that would return the conversation but eventually it became clear that the AI was repeating what had been said to it, but Jonze continued this idea of what would happen if an AI had its own intelligence and a relationship was formed from this.what came from this was a beautifully shot, written and edited film, which I have always looked to as an inspiration and motivator for my work. I've never quite seen anything like his films, which is why I love them.
I've found it hard to find many articles about Spike (real name Adam Spiegel) which could be down to him being notoriously a shy director. His relationship with people is different to others as he sees people in a way that makes them the best version of themselves- this is touched upon in this article by the Guardian where he talks about his relationship with Kanye West and fellow director Michel Gondry, who also started out as a music video director.
I feel it's better to talk more about how Jonze inspires me as that's the main reason he interests me. His start in music videos also inspires me as i loved directing my unofficial music video I made in college for Our Courage, Our Cancer by While She Sleeps. This is something I'm really interested in and I like to watch the videos Spike has directed to give me inspiration in creativity. One of my favourite videos by him is Sabotage by the Beastie Boys.
For my project I wanted to take inspiration from Spike's unique and daring shots and insert this unique creativity. I wanted to put my own twist on a scene that I have seen many times before, which is why I didn't watch the scene for a while before the shoot week as I wanted the shots to be all my own idea and although they are influenced by the original and affected by the action in the scene, I tried to make them my own as much as possible.
In Her, he uses the shot types to convey the plot line to the audience. As explained here, Jonze used wide, off center shots to show that Theodore didn't have his life 'centered', but when Samantha came into his life, the shots became more centered to mirror his lifestyle and mood. Another feature not mentioned but that I noticed is that when Theodore's life is developing positively, Theodore will be facing towards the right of the screen with space in front of him to represent that he is moving forward and has room to improve. When something negative happens, however, he is looking to the left (or backwards, to the viewer) and will have less room in front of him to show that he is trapped, or going in the wrong direction. I tried to incorporate this technique into some shots of my own.
In Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are (2009), you can see his style flowing through his films- the unique photography was something that stood out to me, and the heart-wrenching but completely unique stories are always well detailed. I noticed how, when Max is approaching the island, the camera was moving a lot with the waves, which makes the viewer empathise more with Max as you relate to the situation he's in and it makes the scene more panicked. I know this technique isn't completely unique to Jonze, but I thought it was interesting as I had never really thought about using that kind of shot to make the viewer feel like they're really there. Taking inspiration from this I decided to make my shoot entirely handheld, as this accentuates Lester's panic and makes us feel as though we are panicking with him.
I think for my scene photography is really important, as the original is one of the most cinematic TV programmes I've seen. Using what I've discussed in this post, with inspiration from Jonze and his cinematographers, I will hopefully be able to get the story across as well as I want to.
Bibliography
[1]. Heath, C. (2018). Spike Jonze Will Eat You Up. [online] GQ. Available at: https://www.gq.com/story/spike-jonze-dave-eggers-where-the-wild-things-are [Accessed 6 Feb. 2018].
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