THIS BLOG IS READ (OCCASIONALLY) BY A GRAMMY WINNER

So……

Last Friday, I put up the posting that breaks down all the songs sampled in Weapon of Choice by Fatboy Slim.  I opened it up with a reference to the astonishing video that was made to accompany the single which had been filmed in the lobby of the Marriot Hotel in Los Angeles.

I was meant to be in LA last week and while in the city, I had intended to ask my host, Jonny the Friendly Lawyer, if we would be able to include a quick look inside the hotel during any sightseeing tours.  It turns out that I would have enjoyed something much more special.  Here’s the opening email from JTFL after he saw the Fatboy Slim posting:-

“When you finally get here, we’ll walk round the corner to meet my friend, Vince.  He was Spike Jonze’s partner for years and the grammy he won for the Fatboy Slim video is sitting on top of the piano in his front room!

Love and weirdness from LA – J”

This led to an exchange of emails in which Jonny explained how he came to meet Vince through running a local youth soccer progamme together.  It took a long while before Vince mentioned he was involved in the entertainment industry, which is seemingly quite unusual behaviour in LA as there’s something of a boastful culture.   Jonny went onto say that Vince is just a regular guy who likes hanging out and talking trash about music etc. before the big reveal that he is known to dip in and out of this blog, his interest having been grabbed through some of Jonny’s guest contributions.

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The easiest thing to do is cut’n’paste some of the bio from IMDb:-

Academy Award® nominated producer Vincent Landay is the co-founder of Unbranded Pictures.

Landay, whose producing credits include such acclaimed films as “Her”, “Being John Malkovich”, “Adaptation”, and “Where The Wild Things Are”, is best known for his successful collaboration with director Spike Jonze. Their partnership has been fruitful ever since its inception over 25 years ago: music videos for bands such as Arcade Fire, Kanye West & Jay Z, REM, Björk, Weezer, Fatboy Slim and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and commercials for Nike, Adidas, Ikea, Levis, and most recently Apple have led to numerous awards, including the Grammys, the Emmys, MTV and the prestigious Cannes Lions Festival.

Their feature collaborations have received a combined twelve Academy Award® (Oscar) nominations and have also been recognized with awards by the Golden Globes, the Producers Guild of America, BAFTA, the American Film Institute, the MTV Movie Awards, and the Independent Spirit Awards. Landay is also a three-time Producer’s Guild nominee for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures.

Landay produced the HBO documentary “Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak”, that Jonze co-directed with Lance Bangs as well as the acclaimed Directors Label DVD Series that featured the collected short-form work of Jonze, Chris Cunningham & Michel Gondry. The short films he has produced include “I’m Here””, a 30-minute robot love story starring Andrew Garfield, that premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival; and “Scenes from the Suburbs, a collaboration between Jonze & Arcade Fire that premiered at the 2011 Berlin International Film Festival & SXSW.

Outside of his two decades of collaboration with Jonze, Landay has worked with directors David Fincher, David Lynch, Harmony Korine, John Dahl, Michael Bay, Roman Coppola, and Todd Field, among others.

I think it’s fair to say that the vast majority of readers of this blog will have enjoyed something that Vince has been involved in over the years.  I mentioned to Jonny that getting the chance to meet Vince would be a ‘huge honour’ for which he slapped me down by saying it wouldn’t even be a tiny honour!  Either way, it’s got me even more hyper-excited about eventually rescheduling the trip to LA in a post-coronavirus world, and if you happen to read this particular posting Vince, many thanks for helping to bring such happiness and entertainment to Villain Towers over many years.

Here’s a very small selection of songs whose promos were produced by Vince:-

mp3: Weezer – Buddy Holly
mp3: Daft Punk – Da Funk
mp3: Bjork – It’s Oh So Quiet
mp3: R.E.M. – Crush With Eyeliner

Still can’t quite believe all of this.

JC