It’s pretty nuts," says Spike Jonze. "I still can’t believe it. Not at all." Jonze is talking about receiving a Directors Guild of America nomination in the feature film category for Being John Malkovich (American Beauty director Sam Mendes won the award.) On the heels of that honor, he then received an Oscar nomination for best director. Judging from his quiet, somewhat baffled tone, Jonze doesn’t suffer from false modesty. It’s been a dizzyingly successful year for the director.
To recap, Jonze made Being John Malkovich, and garnered Best First Film honors from the New York Film Critics Circle, as well as the DGA and Academy Award nominations. He also found time to get married (to fellow director Sofia Coppola), make his acting debut in a film (Warner Bros.’s Three Kings), begin development on two more movies, and even direct some spots—most notably Nike’s impressive, Y2K-themed "Morning After" for ‘Wieden + Kennedy (W+K), Portland, Ore.
Despite all these changes, one aspect of Jonze’s life remains constant: his ties to bicoastal/international Satellite, his commercial roost since ’92. "I like the environment there," he explains. "Going in there every day, talking to the reps and the directors, I feel like they are people that I’m attached to."
He was attached from the start. "[Director] Peter Care has been there for a while. And when I first started, he loaned me his Bolex, showed me how to use it and let me shoot second unit for him," he recalls. "He’s done this for a number of directors that are trying to learn to shoot film. It was a really good opportunity for me."
Two years ago, Jonze and Care collaborated on the R.E.M. clip "Electrolite." Scripted by Care, the video consisted of separate segments, one of which was helmed by Jonze, and another which the two co-directed. It was the type of project Jonze likes best—a group effort, with lots of familiar faces behind the scenes.
Throughout his career, Jonze has formed lasting alliances with producers, crew members and postproduction artists. Whether the project is a spot or a feature, he prefers to tackle it with the same group of people. "I’ve worked with [producer] Vincent Landay for seven years now," he remarks. "We’ve worked together on almost everything, including the movie."
Landay wasn’t the only longtime Jonze collaborator on Being John Malkovich. The director also retained DP Lance Acord, editor Eric Zumbrunnen of Spot Welders, Venice, Calif., and others who worked on most of his music videos and spots. "When we showed up on the first day of the shoot, I definitely had the panic of, ‘Oh my God. This is the first day of my first movie.’ But it was lessened by the fact that when we showed up on the set, all the crew knew each other. It almost felt like, ‘Oh, we haven’t shot in a few months, and we’re shooting again.’"
Brain Trust
In choosing commercial projects, Jonze gravitates toward agency creatives he knows and trusts. "It’s always better when going into the job, you and the creatives feel like you’re on the same page," he explains. "It’s a group of brains working together, as opposed to up against each other."
That brain power is crucial to Jonze, who typically engages in long pre- and post-storyboard discussions with creative teams. One of the reasons he decided to direct "Morning After" was because he’d worked with W+K creative Chuck McBride on several other projects, and knew he could communicate with him. "Sometimes when you look at a board, there are many different things that you can read as the central idea," he explains. " But talking really broadly about ideas with creatives—especially someone like Chuck, because he’s really smart and I’ve known him for a while—can help me figure out how to do it."
"Morning After" features a runner who wakes up on New Year’s Day 2000 and calmly jogs past apocalyptic scenes, including tanks and helicopters, an out-of-control missile, an escaped giraffe, riot police and money-spewing ATM machines. Oblivious to the melee, the runner pauses only to say "Morning" to a fellow oblivious jogger. After discussions with McBride, Jonze came up with the idea of shooting the action from the runner’s point of view. "Chuck said that no matter what happens in the world, a runner will run," he relates.
Jonze assembled the usual suspects, including Acord and Landay. Since Zumbrunnen wasn’t available, Jonze contacted editor Angus Wall of Rock Paper Scissors, Los Angeles. "I’ve worked with Angus before too, and he’s worked with Chuck a lot," says Jonze. "He’s an amazing, really smart guy."
Having a smart editor is important to Jonze, who takes a hands-on approach to post. "I wouldn’t want to do a job if I wasn’t going to participate in the whole thing," explains Jonze. "There’s a certain way, when you conceive of [a project], that you imagine it going together. But sometimes you have to refigure it. You have to be there to make decisions, to help. You need to have [an editor] you can work with."
At the moment, Jonze has little time for commercials. He’s been developing a script called Adaptation, based on Susan Orlean’s novel The Orchid Thief, with Malkovich scribe Charlie Kaufman. Adaptation was recently greenlit by Columbia Pictures, with a summer start date planned. He has also agreed to direct Paramount Pictures’ Benjamin Button.
It’s been quite a leap for Jonze (né Adam Spiegel), who prior to Being John Malkovich was best known for his music videos for the Beastie Boys and the Breeders (whose "Cannonball" clip he co-directed with Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth). While Jonze says he enjoys "sinking my teeth into feature films," he’s also looking forward to returning to his shortform roots. "Music videos and commercials are really fun because you have an idea, and then you can write it, prep it, shoot it, edit it, and get the whole thing done in a month," Jonze says. "By the time I was done editing and mixing everything [on Malkovich], I couldn’t wait to shoot videos and commercials again—to do something that doesn’t take a year and a half."c
