Directors impact on a music video - Spike Jonze

During the research period I felt it was important to get a jist for the skill of actually creating a music video, not just the songs. For this I looked at directors that are asked to produce these videos and i have picked Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry.

Spike Jonze is an American director, producer and actor, whose work includes music videos, commercials, film and television. During his illustrious career his main breaks in the directing of films include the Oscar winning films Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. He was also a co-creator and executive producer of MTV's Jackass.



Jonze filmed himself dancing to Fatboy Slim's "Rockafeller Skank" as it played on a boom box in a public area. Spike showed the video to Slim, who loved it. Jonze then assembled a group of dancers to perform to Slim's "Praise You" outside a Westwood, California Movie Theater and taped the performance. The resulting clip was a huge success, and Jonze and his troupe were invited to New York City to perform the song for the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards. The video received awards for Best Direction, Breakthrough, and Best Choreography. The video is hugely iconic, as it is different and more tongue-in-cheek then serious cinematography.

His Work with music videos stretches from 1992 – to the present, which is testament to his ability and reputation. The video I will be looking at it is the iconic and humorous Sabotage by The Beastie Boys because of the comedy he employs in the video.



The video is mocking the 1980s "cop show" scene that was popular in America. It highlights in a funny way the conventions of each character in these shows and how silly some of the plots are. This video is very effective as many people remember this even now 17 years on. Picking a concept from society and making a tongue-in-cheek mock video of it is a very exciting point, however, if I was to come up with something like this it would be very difficult and ambitious to pull off.