Singer Karen O had no idea Spike Jonze was making a video for her. These are the results of his surprise gift.
When you have friends who are world-famous movie directors, you get some pretty incredible perks. That’s what Yeah Yeah Yeahs vocalist Karen O discovered this week.
She has been hard at work on her first solo album Crush Songs, which include songs she recorded in her bedroom years ago. To celebrate her recently-finished work, director Spike Jonze says he made a short music video for “Ooo.” The nearly two-minute long video was filmed at the famous New York Metropolitan Opera House.
The video features Elle Fanning prancing around behind the stage of the enormous opera house. Despite the grandiose atmosphere, it’s not a huge video production with special effects. In fact, you can hear Fanning giggle over the music as she stomps her feet against the wooden floors. She simply mouths along to the words and dances as if no one’s looking, appearing totally immersed in Karen O’s voice.
Jonze says the idea for the video was wholly spontaneous. It all started when Fanning (actress as well as younger sister of Dakota Fanning) was brought on to do a one-act play for fashion company Opening Ceremony. Their team wanted to create a play to show off the clothes at New York Fashion Week, rather than the typical runway show.
In the middle of a ten-minute rehearsal, Jonze got the idea to film Fanning singing along to the song. He grabbed his camera and just started rolling. “Ooo” carries along this carefree attitude, never sounding overthought, complicated or compressed to a glossy sheen in the recording studio. It’s someone with a simple idea spilling everything out for the world to see.
Karen O and Spike Jonze became friends after working together on a number of films. They collaborated on an Adidas commercial in 2005 and she cowrote the entire soundtrack for Jonze’s film Where the Wild Things Are, with the exception of one song. She also wrote a song for his newest film Her.
Crush Songs was released this month along with few other tracks from the album. Karen O will also be performing a few intimate shows supporting her first solo effort this fall.
This certainly isn’t the first time Jonze has made a music video. Only someone with videos for “Buddy Holly,” “Sabotage” and “Da Funk” under his belt could direct something on-the-fly in less than ten minutes.
Take a look at the new video below:
Leave a Comment