Spike Jonze Discusses Kanye Short Film Leak

Director Spike Jonze is no stranger to music video innovation. In fact, he's one of the best to ever do it, visualizing classics such as the Beastie Boys' 'Sabotage,' Weezer's 'Buddy Holly' and Kanye West's totally awesome 'Flashing Lights,' where Rita G stabs Yeezy to death with a shovel as he's held hostage in the trunk of a car. Jonze's next big venture with West was a short film entitled 'We Were Once a Fairytale' - another highly stylized mishmash of gritty realism, violence, sex and animated fantasy.

The film took the Internet by storm when it made the rounds last weekend in conjunction with the release of Jonze's 'Where the Wild Things Are' - the top-grossing movie in America. Unfortunately for Jonze, there were two big problems with the release. First, the short wasn't completed yet. Second, the collaboration was set to be an experiment with iTunes distribution. Since 'We Were Once a Fairytale' leaked, Jonze has no idea how they are going to monetize the costly project. Kanye even posted the clip on his blog and then removed it when he found out it wasn't finished.



"This is the first time it's happened to me," Jonze said to the New York Times about the leak. "It is a weird feeling, like, 'Wait a second -- I wasn't ready to put that out! That's mine. Uh, no, I guess it's not mine anymore.' We rehearsed the night before we shot, and talked about trying to get to that raw place, that sad, pathetic, drunken, lost place. I told him [Kanye], the more shameless it is, the more pathetic it is, the better. He just went for it. To me, I like him. I like Kanye and I care about him. This video is a side of him. Who knows? I don't know what the reception is going to be, but I love making stuff with him. I love the guy."

The film depicts Kanye West playing himself in a drunken club odyssey. He harasses women, yells at a server and gets way too excited when his own song - 'See you in my Nightmares' off '808s and Heartbreak' - starts playing. After generally creeping out everyone in his surroundings, Ye enters into a delusional sex hallucination with a beautiful woman, wakes up alone and proceeds to vomit up an animatronic demon that stabs itself in the chest.

The real, finalized version of 'We Were Once a Fairytale' hits iTunes on October 27.