SPIKE JONZE - Amarillo By Morning

Amarillo by Morning is a 1997 documentary short by Spike Jonze. While filming pro bullriders for a commercial at the national rodeo in the Houston Astrodome in Houston, Texas, Spike befriended two suburban teenagers who aspired to be cowboys. The documentary chronicles an afternoon in their lives. Adam Spiegel (born October 22, 1969), known professionally as Spike Jonze (pronounced as “Jones“, is an American filmmaker, photographer, musician, and actor, whose work includes film, television, music videos, and commercials. Jonze began his career as a teenager photographing BMX riders and skateboarders for Freestylin’ Magazine and Transworld Skateboarding, and he co-founded the youth culture magazine Dirt. Moving into filmmaking, he began shooting street skateboarding films, including the influential Video Days (1991). Jonze co-founded the skateboard company Girl Skateboards in 1993 with riders Rick Howard and Mike Carroll. Jonze’s filmmaking style made him an in-demand director of music videos for much of the 1990s, resulting in collaborations with Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, Ween, Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk, Weezer, Björk, Kanye West and Arcade Fire. Jonze began his feature film directing career with Being John Malkovich (1999) and Adaptation (2002), both written by Charlie Kaufman; the former earned Jonze an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. He was a co-creator and executive producer of MTV’s Jackass reality franchise. Jonze later began directing films based on his own screenplays, including Where the Wild Things Are (2009) and Her (2013); for the latter film, he won the Academy Award, Golden Globe, and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay, while receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Song (“The Moon Song“). He has worked as an actor sporadically throughout his career, co-starring in David O. Russell’s war comedy Three Kings (1999) and appearing in supporting roles in Bennett Miller’s Moneyball (2011) and Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), in addition to a recurring role in comedy series The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret (2010–2012) and cameo appearances in his own films. Jonze co-founded Directors Label, with filmmakers Chris Cunningham and Michel Gondry, and the Palm Pictures company. He is currently the creative director of Vice Media, Inc. and its multinational television channel Vice on TV.