A Career in Review: Spike Jonze

"As a feature film director you got to be a guarding dog of the whole production. You got to be able to hold 100 script pages in the head at the same time. If you miss a detail it's wasted."

Director Spike Jonze is part of the new wave of directors coming from music videos and commercials who slide into feature length films. He has directed music videos from the likes of the Beastie Boys, R.E.M., Bjork, and The Chemical Brothers, to name but a few.

Jonze was born in 1969 in Rockville, Maryland, fitting considering his history in the music industry. Before directing music video he worked in the publishing industry with Andy Jenkins and Mark Lewman. Together they published the Dirt Magazine, which was the sister publication to Sassy Magazine. These three also edited for Grand Royal Magazine as well.

Jonze breakout would come with the short video Beastie Boys: Sabotage in 1994, which would help him become one of MTV's go-to guys for music videos and other productions including the infamous Jackass television series and films which he helped write and produce.

In 1999, Jonze took the leap into feature length films with his off-beat comedy Being John Malcovich, which became an instant cult classic with its quirky humor and its even quirky actors in John Cusack and John Malkovich himself. Jonze would then prove he was no one hit wonder with the equally appealing Adaptation (2002) which would garner several Academy Award nominations.

After Adaptation, Jonze headed back into music videos by directing several for The Chemical Brothers, Weezer, and R.E.M., among others before attempting his dream project of bringing the beloved children's book Where The Wild Things Are to the big screen.

Who is to say where Jonze will head from here after this big screen endeavor but it is clear that music videos are deeply routed in his psyche and he will likely never abandon the place where he came from.